The Ethics of Emulation

[Big Stupid]

If someone dies do i have the right to take the $20 bill out of his pocket? He doesn't need the $20 anymore. He'll never know if it was there or if it goes missing. So if the Dreamcast is no more and I steal one of their games by way of downloading then what does it matter? It doesn't hurt ANYONE except maybe the person selling it on ebay, whom I don't care about one way or the other.

Making copies of wii, 360 games, etc when you don't own the original just ain't right. It's like punching an eight year old and taking the lemonade from his lemonade stand.

I think Virtual Console makes your point entirely moot. Also, many many Dreamcast games are ported to other systems so burning a disc of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would be like drop kicking the said 8 year old and digging into the cash register on his lemonade stand. But then again from what I hear the other ports of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 are lousy so I don't know what to think anymore.

I'm a purist at heart and prefer playing the games on their native console. Playing Yoshi's island with a Gamecube controller just feels awkward. But some games like imports you have to emulate. Nuts to you Nintendo and your region locks. Then there's games like Earthbound which you just don't feel like paying $80 for just the cart.

Another argument against emulation is that it devalues classic games because they're available for free. Most video games are too young to fall out of copyright which I believe lasts for 25 years in the U.S. Don't quote me on that though. Video gaming as a whole is far too young to be claimed as being in the public domain.

[jp1]

4. There is far too much whining about issues like piracy of games/movies/music the industries are doing just fine and earning far more money than a lot of other people who work harder and work in worse conditions. I just can't feel sorry for rich people when it comes to finances. Independent games/movies/music on the other hand is a different story.

By that logic, it's wrong to steal from ma and pa stores but its hunky dory to steal from bigger stores like Wall-mart. Stealing is the wrong no matter who you steal from. Big companies like Nintendo and Sony employ people just like the small ones. They have stockholders who feel the loss from piracy. Just because someone or something (like a corporation) is big doesn't give make it any more morally just to pirate them then the little guy.

Not exactly. If you will notice I also wasn't using it as an argument for the moral justification of piracy only for the amount of attention that is given to it. I'm saying that while it is wrong to steal I don't really see it as the equivalent to murder or something as some others do. I don't particularly give a shit if some wealthy stockholders aren't going to get a new pool for their house in the Hamptons this year.

I am simply saying from a matter of perspective that there are more pressing issues that we should look at as a society than piracy. This is an issue that is causing the rich to be a little less rich not an issue that is causing children to starve or people to suffer.

Categorizing piracy as wrong or as theft is fine with me. Making it an enormous legal issue and spending millions and millions of dollars on it along with trying to impose ridiculous fines and punishment is the part I don't agree with. I just don't think it is that important.

[ieatramen]

If someone dies do i have the right to take the $20 bill out of his pocket? He doesn't need the $20 anymore. He'll never know if it was there or if it goes missing. So if the Dreamcast is no more and I steal one of their games by way of downloading then what does it matter? It doesn't hurt ANYONE except maybe the person selling it on ebay, whom I don't care about one way or the other.

Making copies of wii, 360 games, etc when you don't own the original just ain't right. It's like punching an eight year old and taking the lemonade from his lemonade stand.

I think Virtual Console makes your point entirely moot. Also, many many Dreamcast games are ported to other systems so burning a disc of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would be like drop kicking the said 8 year old and digging into the cash register on his lemonade stand. But then again from what I hear the other ports of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 are lousy so I don't know what to think anymore.

I'm a purist at heart and prefer playing the games on their native console. Playing Yoshi's island with a Gamecube controller just feels awkward. But some games like imports you have to emulate. Nuts to you Nintendo and your region locks. Then there's games like Earthbound which you just don't feel like paying $80 for just the cart.

Another argument against emulation is that it devalues classic games because they're available for free. Most video games are too young to fall out of copyright which I believe lasts for 25 years in the U.S. Don't quote me on that though. Video gaming as a whole is far too young to be claimed as being in the public domain.

[CRTGAMER]

Okay here's I feel about the Virtua console idea.

Good that you rediscover older games.

Bad cause you repay for same game.

Here is another analogy ..............

Here we go hang on for the money draining ride ...............

During all the movie format changes ..............

Think of a great collector movie you bought as a keeper ..............

Only couple years later come out on a better quality format ..........

VHS than to LASER DISC than to DVD than to BLUE RAY than to ?

There were others including BETA, CED and HIGH-8 that had a small market share.

Lets not forget initial and than 6 months later Director extra cuts.

This same process happens over and over again on each generation Console.

However every generation console does have great games that won't be re-done.

[Betamax001]

I personally don't emulate games because I don't own a gamepad for the computer that works right and the games I want to play need a gamepad like Contra or Mario. Sure you can play them with a keyboard, but it feels weird.

As far as burning a Dreamcast game goes, they don't make the game anymore for Dreamcast so it's not hurting anyone. Even if they ported the Dreamcast game to Xbox Live Arcade or something, I don't have access to it because I don't have an Xbox. Even if they ported it to a system I have like Sonic Adventure for the GameCube, the GameCube disc isn't being made anymrore and I would have to buy a used copy so the developers don't get the money anyway.

[corn619]

Emulation does have many benefits over downloading games for the Wii or other consoles. First off the big one, no DRM. I feel bad for all these people downloading all these games for the Wii or any other current console. The restrictions are ridiculous. The fact is if you console kicks the bucket there is a large possibility of losing all of your hard earned games.

There are so many things that could fail with todays fragile consoles from a bad HDD to a corrupt SD card and just general failure of the console itself. Theres lots of problems with the way most companies are dealing with digitally distributing games. With ROMS, while I agree are illegal unless you own the cart, CD or DVD don't suffer from these restrictions.

While I know most people know this, other benefits emulation provides are great graphics filters. Theres nothing like playing Super Mario Allstars, Yoshi's Island, Sonic 1,2&3 and countless other classics in full HD and graphics smoother than a baby's bottom. And then theres ROM hacks. Theres so many great ROM hacks out there its crazy. Some of these hacks are ground up rebuilds and its like playing a spirtual sequel to your favorite classic game. Mario Adventure, Zelda Parallel Worlds are some the more notable ones and are truly great games.

And finally all the awesome games english speaking countries missed out on are now playable with fan translations. Star Ocean, Bahamut Lagoon, Seiken Densetsu 3, and countless other truly great classics are now playable. So if your morality is getting in the way of emulation, you are missing out a some of gamings greatest games.

I would never pirate a new game or recent game, but with the current restrictions on downloadable games on consoles and overwhelming benefits to emulation, I play ROMS. Don't get me wrong, I own 100s of carts from all kinds of systems. I just enjoy playing classics on my HDTV with clean ass graphics.

[dedalusdedalus]

No, that's the definition of copyright. The reason we give exclusive rights to the creator is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts".

Looks like you decided to leave the other half of that out.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

I can make a copyright with no intention to promote the progress of things, I can just do it to protect my rights to what I've created. Purpose in this case is subjective.

Hatta has the right reading. The part of the sentence that reads "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" doesn't mean that the originator of the copyright has to have the intent to "promote" science and useful arts. There's simply no issue of intent in copyright. The only requirements of copyright are: (a) a work fixed in a tangible medium; and (b) that the work demonstrates a "modicum of originality."

The correct reading of that clause is as Hatta outlined: that the federal govt is empowered to grant exclusive rights in writings/discoveries in order to to encourage technical/cultural progress. The rationale of copyright is that if you, the originator, write something useful, the government will reward you by letting you exclusively control your work and profit from it, thereby incentivizing the creation of new ideas.

While Dylan's reading is a plausible and reasonable way of reading the Copyright Clause, it's certainly not the way the courts or the legislature have read and implemented it thus far.

[gtmtnbiker]

Like others, I try to buy the carts/games for the ones that I'm interested in. Even though I own a bunch of Zelda GBC carts, I preferred to play them via emulator on my PSP for several reasons:

1. Emulator features such as save states
2. Carrying fewer carts around

Having a boatload of roms can make it easy for you to not really dive into a game. I don't have this problem since I will play a game to completion unless it's bad.

I don't have a problem with a company re-releasing a game on Virtual Console and charging a nominal fee for it. Although the game was already developed, there's still a cost for the company such as: developing the emulation/porting code, developing enhanced documentation, game testing, tech support, etc.

I don't have any qualms that the money I spend on old games not going to developers. I feel that it helps companies/developers indirectly. If there wasn't a market for used gaming stuff, the games wouldn't have any value and people who buy new stuff would have less money to buy more new stuff.

[Ivo]

My own *opinions* in this issue...

I think the comparisons to stealing are exaggeration. I hope the people making these comparisons realize this. There is more than one reason that "stealing" is treated rather differently from violation of IP / copyrights by legal systems (e.g. you don't see "cease and desist" letters sent to pickpockets )

One obvious reason for this is that "stealing" X directly removes X from the legitimate owner. Violating IP / copyrights does not physically remove anything from the legitimate owner of the IP / copyright - that does not mean to say it is not harming the owner.
There's more to it than this of course, but consider:
Stealing X from a store: owner directly lost the value of selling X to a legit customer, plus *potentially* lost the thief as a customer.
Copying a game instead of buying it: owner of IP *potentially* lost the "pirate" as a customer.

One aspect that I often don't see introduced into these discussions is that the "pirate" or person emulating the games has limited time. If there were no old games to emulate, that person might be more inclined to buy a recent generation game and thus support the devs / industry.
So it is not clear cut that even that is not "harming" anyone, it is rather complex. The existence of free games makes this reasoning somewhat moot as even without emulating there are many alternatives to buying current gen games, but I still think it is an important point that should also be considered.

There is also the possibility that you emulate an old game and like it so much that you go and buy current gen sequels or other games of the same devs etc.

Another aspect that I often don't see considered is when people say that if the game is only available 2nd hand from a 3rd party that doesn't support the devs anyway so "pirating" it or emulating it isn't a problem for the industry any longer. Once again it is not as clear cut. The 3rd party has either purchased the game when it was current gen, or purchased it from someone who purchased the game when it was current gen (depending how many times it was re-sold, but other than very fringe cases it was bought "new" by someone before being bought "used" by someone else). The point is, the 3rd party that you don't buy from has some track record of buying current gen games, so there is the possibility that money paid for a used game is going to be partially funnelled back into the industry / devs by said 3rd party buying another current gen game.

Ivo.

[AmishSamurai]

Depends for me personally. I have a metric ton of roms, but don't play them much because I'd prefer to play the games I physically own. Guess I'm starting to grow out of emulation.

EDIT- However, since my PS2 is broken I've been emulating PS1 games on my computer, but with the physical discs instead of .iso files.