/vr/ - Retro Games

>>2444760

Yes anon, that will surely stop emulation.
Just like the war on drugs made drugs vanish.

>>2444760
The comparison to pirating a movie from 1993 is pretty stupid, I could walk into any Wal-Mart and pick up a copy of Jurassic Park, not so for Genesis games.

>>2444762

He says it's "killing the industry". Which is just hyperbole. PSN, Xbox Live, Steam, Virtual Console are all official stores to buy emulated games. They likely make millions from this. Normies are always going to prefer these simple official stores. They don't want to play console games on computers, or bother with complicated installations.

Internet Archive for whatever unknown reason, decided to upload entire sets of roms for almost all consoles. This brought a lot of attention to emulation, and now the corporations aren't liking this. Emulation and piracy need to stay underground, a nerd niche to stay alive.

Sure, they can't kill piracy outright. But they can make things hard. They can shut down all the rom sites. They can harass devs. Make devs fear lawsuits if they do anything wrong, which would stifle emulation development. Bring lawsuits and cases against paid emulators.

>>2444769

Legally it's irrelevant. Just does not matter. And do you think the companies care about preservation? They want to keep control of their intellectual property, and to make money off of it.

>TBH I wrote some of those old spectrum games and I don't care about getting paid for them. I have been paid for them in the 80s and I consider that done now.

You make something... you get paid for it... I don't quite understand the need to be paid forever for something you created. It is nice ofc to get a steady stream of income... but I have done quite a lot of new things that make me money.

And yeah... maybe you shouldn't pay for an old movie or an old book.

Here, the pirated developed talked and it's ok with it.
Someone asked him if it should be right then that after a certain amount of time people can "steal" music and other content from the main source, from my point of view, why not ?
People already plagiarize without the need of using the original assets.

>That would mean ignoring the realities of the games market though. The biggest problem that games face as a commercial medium is that there are no ancillary markets and no reliable revenue streams beyond the initial launch. You might make some money from merchandise on a major brand, or a budget re-release or special edition a year down the line, but ultimately once a game vanishes from the shelves and the front pages of websites, it might as well not exist as far as regular income is concerned.

I've noticed this too. And the solution would be for digital releases. Steam routinely has sales of games that are ancient, and they do well in sales. Physical needs to die. Gaming companies have needed to adapt to this for years, but mostly haven't. PC has been ahead of the curve, while consoles still cling to out dated methods.

The solution is that games adapt, not that you whine about emulation.

>>2444760
all I read was hot farts.

I am always amused when I read people defending copyrights as if it was something personal.
I'd rather have old games preserved and the ability to play them today than companies deciding if the game is worth playing because they can sell it or not. That just kills niches.

>eurogamer
>being that retarded

>>2444760
>http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-05-31-we-need-to-talk-about-emulation
>I'm certainly not putting myself on a moral pedestal
Takes the moral pedestal.

His analogy between movies and games utterly fails, and honestly at this point I think a movie from 1993 ought to be in the public domain or close to it. Not only is media that survives that long a cultural touchstone, but the companies have long made back their money and just sit on their laurels to the detriment of the entire industry.

Without letting copyrights expire, creativity stagnates. Just look at any list of movies out now; 50% are recycled garbage. I mean, does Jurrasic World really need the Jurrasic in it? At least slap a different name on it and try a little to make it look different, instead assume I'm dumb enough to watch a movie because I liked a movie 22 years ago with a similar title (but completely divorced of the accomplishment that its forerunner was). But alas, that's risky, and new and interesting ideas get left by the wayside.

Letting copyrights expire also makes room for new ideas that integrate old ones. Just look at the wealth of new cool things that sprung out of Tolkien's mythology (D&D and just about every RPG ever), and how those things paid homage and extended ideas in new ways totally inaccessible to the original medium. RPGs have never ripped off Tolkien outright, but used it as inspiration to making novel and cool experiences.

And up to now I haven't even addressed that emulation is often the only way to experience games. How else would I play arcade games when I haven't seen an arcade in 15 years?

Fuck this industry shill faggot.

But of course, OP. Yuropoors want more legitmate sales because that means more tax revenue, which means more money to support their socialist welfare state, which is more money to support THEM so instead of working they can continue to sit on their fat asses and play (probably emulated) video games.

>>2444837
>socialist
>Europe

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
Come on mod at least delete this ignorant fuck post.

The EuroGamer guy is wrong, but none of you idiots are right, either.

>2444834
>Without letting copyrights expire, creativity stagnates.
This statement is so hilariously wrong and dumb.

The only thing I'd be happy about if emulation were to be widely stopped would be hearing all the edgy emulation "why don't you just pirate everything" kids bitch and moan. Other than that, I do think it is a good thing that games are preserved. What WOULD be awesome is if the developers started reprinting their old games using real cartridges and the same PCBs and chips used by the original releases. Even better if they were in no way meaningfully differentiated from the original releases - that'd be something I wouldn't mind paying for (and would similarly enjoy seeing all the investor idiots and reseller goons getting BTFO).

>>2444846

Just out of curiosity anon, are you that guy that defended the copyright law in that thread that went off-topic about cuba ?

TLDR: Guy is butthurt emulation is stoping shills from shilling over 35 year old games

>>2444760
Very stupid article. /thread

>>2444858
I don't think "shill" means what you think it means, and if it does you seem to be focusing on the wrong aspect of the problem.

>>2444852
Nope, I don't know what that is. I don't want to defend copyright laws, I just think there's a place between pirating everything and creators getting paid for their work. A lot of people have really strange ideas about intellectual property, primarily because they are used to not paying for their entertainment and also because they don't create content for others as their livelihood.

>>2444775
>He says it's "killing the industry". Which is just hyperbole. PSN, Xbox Live, Steam, Virtual Console are all official stores to buy emulated games. They likely make millions from this. Normies are always going to prefer these simple official stores. They don't want to play console games on computers, or bother with complicated installations.

Note that the subtitle says "The assumption that old games have no value indulges our nostalgia but is killing the industry." So this isn't the same "piracy is killing the industry" crap. This is basically about how people think old games are worthless. The subtitle doesn't have much bearing on the article anyway, it seems like a dumb attention catching thing. If he wanted to be more provocative in the text he would have.


>>2444775
>Internet Archive for whatever unknown reason, decided to upload entire sets of roms for almost all consoles. This brought a lot of attention to emulation, and now the corporations aren't liking this. Emulation and piracy need to stay underground, a nerd niche to stay alive.

I agree. Illegal distribution of roms needs to stay "underground" in the sense that these reputable companies should not be allowed to openly provide roms just because no one cares enough to sue them.

>>2444769
A lot of of them have been re released for newer consoles and PC's. If not you can find a second hand copy of most game on sites like Ebay.

If a company no longer wishes to distribute new copies of their intellectual property that that is their choice. Personally I have no problem with emulation, but at the end of the day distributing copies of a rom without permission from the copyright holder is piracy.

>>2444760
Emulation kills the industry? What about the point that the original developers will use emulation to port their old games to new hardware.

Whoever wrote this article, confirmed for retard.

>>2444871
Yeah, I get the feeling that some people think that content creators shouldn't get paid anything for making there work because... I'm not really sure of the justification. Maybe because they aren't getting a physical item in their house beyond the media used to contain the data?

I definitely think it has something to do with people growing up on YouTube and torrents. Of course I'm not saying that I don't download games from time to time or that I've never torrented porn, but I do try to limit this behavior and do pay for a lot of the content that I plan to use because I hope to support the people who make stuff. This is in part why I think Kickstarter can be a good thing since the actual companies or groups or individuals who are making the product can get their payment directly without having to debate over how much of a cut the non-productive corporate part of the creation process is taking.

>>2444871
Yeah, I get the feeling that some people think that content creators shouldn't get paid anything for making their product because... I'm not really sure of the justification. Maybe because they aren't getting a physical item in their house beyond the media used to contain the data?

I definitely think it has something to do with people growing up on YouTube and torrents. Of course I'm not saying that I don't download games from time to time or that I've never torrented porn, but I do try to limit this behavior and do pay for a lot of the content that I plan to use because I hope to support the people who make stuff. This is in part why I think Kickstarter can be a good thing since the actual companies or groups or individuals who are making the product can get their payment directly without having to debate over how much of a cut the non-productive corporate part of the creation process is taking.

Guys, the article is about how some companies are openly distributing emulated games without permission. What the author is actually worried about is that the vast majority of the public either doesn't care that this is being done in "broad daylight" so to speak. Some probably don't even understand that it is technically copyright infringement in the first place.

>>2444878
If the game has been re-released, then I think buying the new version (even if you're going to play it emulated anyways) is a good policy.

However, in the case of something like Jurassic Park Genesis, it has not been re-released. In that case, buying a used copy off ebay or the like does nothing at all to support any of the original property right's owners. In that case there's nothing wrong with emulation at all.

I'm not a fan of him in all ways, but I agree with Tim Shafer on this and his advice for people wanting to play his games which are no longer in print. Which is to emulate them and find another way to support the company, like buying a tshit or some such from them.

Thing is, stuff like virtual console just isn't good enough. It's only going to get the more popular games.

There are obscure games, unlocalized games, and games whose developer no longer exists that will never be rereleased.

And then with physical copies, you have to pay ludicrous amounts of money to acquire some games. And digital distribution doesn't really impact these prices as much as some people might think. And again, only the money makers will ever be released digitally.

If I want to play Panzer Dragoon Saga, what the fuck am I gonna do? Pay $300+ to some asshole on eBay? Fuck that.

If I want to play Seiken Densetsu 3, should I still be waiting patiently for Square to localize it? I don't think so.

Emulation does not kill the industry, it lets people play games that companies have totally forgotten about.

Companies don't care about the games, they care about the money they can make off the games. So they'll resurrect older games if there's profit in it. Otherwise, they don't give two shits about it.

I emulate games all the time, if there's no other way to play game. As soon as Suikoden II was finally released on PSN, I bought that shit right up, and I had emulated it multiple times. I think most people WANT to own games. Sure, there are people that will just emulate and don't give a shit, but I think those people are in the minority.

>That's not emulation's fault, but the widespread acceptance that old games have no value and can be freely passed around is a major barrier to solving that problem. When the Internet Arcade was launched, it was reportedly serving 1000 games per minute. That's an amazing figure, if true. It is truly brilliant technology. Yet what if those games were hosted on a site where users could buy a stack of virtual coins and spend them, as they would in a real arcade? What if the owners of those games gave their permission and got a cut of that money? What if there was a Netflix equivalent for retro games, which offered browser access to every arcade and home computer game you ever loved for a low monthly fee? We clearly still want to play these games, but at this point would anyone even pay for it?

Yes, they would pay for it. Game re-releases are everywhere and people do buy them.

But what about the games that will never be re-released? I can name a dozen games that I want to buy, but have no one who are willing to re-release them. The companies who made them are dead, or got bought up by studios who are doing absolutely nothing with them. I have begged developers personally to re-release a game I love to GOG without an answer.

Everyone should freely pirate them to keep them alive.

The game companies don't know anything about their past games and rarely go back to them. There is a scene somewhere with a story about Billy Mitchell traveling to Namco Japan and the Boss tells him that he knows more about the Pacman game than they do. This is one of the biggest games of all time and they don't know shit about it. Until it these obscure games get released on Xbox live, they devs and opinionated article writers can screw off.

>>2444908
>However, in the case of something like Jurassic Park Genesis, it has not been re-released. In that case, buying a used copy off ebay or the like does nothing at all to support any of the original property right's owners. In that case there's nothing wrong with emulation at all.

If they wish to make money they can re-release it, if they choose not to that is their decision. The argument that the copyright holder still has a right to control their work in the long term is as important as their right to make a short term profit from it.

You may argue that a lack of availability justifies piracy, but it is still piracy.

>>2444927
> I have begged developers personally to re-release a game I love to GOG without an answer.

So much this. If a company is willing to do a re-release, they often do quite well. Especially with some of the upgraded ones like the Sega 3D classics, but GOG also does very well for itself.

But if a company is unwilling or unable to re-release then there's no reason not to emulate it.

Personally I think the companies are just pissed that between re-released and emulation of old classics, gamers are feeling less and less inclined to buy new games unless they're great. There is such a wealth of gaming to explore at this point, why spend $60 on a game that's only going to last 15 hours and half of it be cut scenes? That's the real scare I think.

>>2444943
I'm not saying that it's not piracy, but I am saying that it's justified. The copyright holder still has the rights to release the games, if they choose not to that's their decision.

Is it legally piracy to download and play a copy of Jurassic Park for the Genesis? Yes. Is it morally wrong in any way? I don't see how.

Now, if I decided to print ROMs of it on disks and try to sell those, that would be a different scenario, but that doesn't happen.

FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

>It's not a cut and dried situation, though. If you don't actually download the code, because you're playing via a browser
Is the author fucking retarded? I think so.

>>2444943

Not really. Or better said it's a philosophic/ semantic problem how you define "piracy". If you define it as "copying someone's work without him getting something reverse" then it's not piracy in this sense as he wouldn't get anything either way.
And if he decides not to re- release it fine, but then he should not complain about people finding other ways- which doesn't harm him in the slightest.

Thanks to emulation (and internet piracy in general), the early eras of video games are preserved in a way that would make cinema fans weep with envy.

What proportion of say, black and white cinema still exists today?
Compare that to video games. How many games are "lost forever"?

I tend to assume the push to rework the MAME licensing and its recent fusion with its sister project, MESS, is to open up the potential of using it with online retailers.

Like DOSBOX did for dos titles, it will be interesting to see if we get a new wave of arcade and console titles on Steam and friends.

The more movies, games, books are created, then the larger the competition every newly released one is up against. In 100 years time people will have enough to last them their lives, and probably already do. There's nothing sad about this except for people with vested interests in the industries.

Also I don't really believe in capitalism, I think it's ridiculous. I hope people who make these wonderful games are/will be able to give good lives, but I somehow doubt me forking over hundreds of euro will help much. Tragedy of the commons to some extent.

>>2444972
Just because new things are always being created doesn't mean old things should be forgotten.

History is important.

>>2444972
Yes and no. There are already more books out there than you have time to read in your lifetime. And there are almost as many movies. Yet new books and movies still get made and are successful and profitable.

For one thing it's because tastes change and people often want new things, from the era they are currently in. Even in terms of video games, those of us that hang out here are are still really into the games of the 70's, 80's and 90's, we are in an extreme minority. I don't think that will ever change. In another 20 years, the people still playing CoD will be outliers as well.

Oh this industry totally needs to die, absolutely everything should be emulated, until the industry as a whole can be reborn from the ashes

this article is just cancer-blind

>>2444973
>old things should be forgotten.

I don't think he meant that.
If anything it seems he would like for old stuff to become public domain.
And it's not like he's wrong, night of the living dead didn't went to shit for that reason.

>>2444760
They never complained when they profit from it, do they? Like, free advertising, etc.

>>2444760

You can go out and buy almost any movie from the 90s on DVD, if not something older like VHS, for pennies. Do you know how impossibly scarce a game like Radical Dreamers is and how much money I'd have to fork over to play a game like that legitimately?

Video games don't have the preservation effort that go into other media. I agree that services like the Virtual Console are helping to combat that but you only need to look at cult classics like Earthbound to see how flawed the service is.

There is nothing wrong with emulators and roms, if only for the sake of keeping old games alive.

Oh, and you can't exactly kill the industry by pirating games from decades ago. Nobody gives a shit.

>>2444954
And if they wish to do something with their property once it's already widely available illicitly? The loss of control of your intellectual property is, in the long term, potentially as damaging as any other outcome of widespread piracy.

If you want to get into morality then that's a personal issue. I have no qualms with piracy myself, but violating the copyright holders rights hurts their business interests, regardless of the availability of the work or the medium.

>>2444983
yeah that's what I meant, I don't know how he got that. Even now after a certain amount of years (I think 70 or so), things lose their copyright status.

> no one read the article

>>2444981
Nah, there are still good games being made. The last thing we need is another crash. If anything emulation should be encouraged to keep the bar high so that new games are encouraged to get more work put into them because of all the competition they have.

>>2444769
1993 was 22 years ago anyway. In a just world, anything made that long ago would be in the public domain already.

>>2444995

That's never going to work. The masses will never bother with anything too technical like emulators, they'll just eat up the latest crap no matter how it tastes if it's easy and accessible.

>>2444760
>Eurogamer
>Euro
>Gamer
Faggots?

>>2444991
>And if they wish to do something with their property once it's already widely available illicitly?

Ask GOG how it's doing with all those games that were already easy to pirate. Or M2, how they're doing with their Sega 3D classics line. The answer is very well.

Even now that it's in virtually every ROM pack out there, if Jurassic Park Genesis was released either by M2 or GOG or something similar it would sell well.

> The loss of control of your intellectual property is, in the long term, potentially as damaging as any other outcome of widespread piracy.

Indeed. So if someone wants to maintain their intellectual property then they certainly can and would be wise to do so. However if they choose not to, and just leave it out in the wild then that's the decision they've made.

>>2444973
>doesn't mean old things should be forgotten.

You're right. That's why I downloaded a ROM of Plok! and the hundreds of other games that no one is releasing on modern services.

>>2444995
>Nah, there are still good games being made

Related to this, i'm finally enjoying a high budget rpg that had two prequels that i didn't like at all.
The witcher 3

>>2444998
I see nothing wrong with that. If the masses just want to play what's new then that's all good for them. Point is, there were great games made in the past and there are great games made in the present. Over time the good rises and the crap falls.

>>2445012

But the consumer isn't going to let the good rise. MH4U sold well for example but it didn't sell half as well as the AAA garbage coming out these days

>>2445005
>Indeed. So if someone wants to maintain their intellectual property then they certainly can and would be wise to do so. However if they choose not to, and just leave it out in the wild then that's the decision they've made.

In the end i think the most important thing is that people know who worked on the original intellectual property, and that a distinctive differentiation is done between the original one and the others.
This way the only thing to be damaged is the new product, not the old one.

>>2445010
I always say that if someone can't find ANYTHING new that they like, they probably just don't like games all that much. There is such a volume and wide variety of stuff being made these days, it blows all previous generations out of the water. The difference is that these days there's more crap to dig through to find the gold you want.

There's another RPG series which is solely responsible for reinvigorating my interest in the genre.

>>2444995
If they want profit they can turn toward mobile gaming. That's where the cashes are nowadays.

>>2445015
But MH4 sold plenty well enough for Capcom to make a profit. The AAA "garbage" that sells so well isn't garbage per se, the people who play Call of Duty really enjoy it. They simply enjoy different kinds of games than you or I.

There's nothing wrong that it's as crazy popular as it is, that's just the market. Monster Hunter is a pretty hardcore and specific game that was never going to appeal to the majority of gamers out there. But I'm delighted that we live in a world where the games market is big enough that it can still be successful even if it's never going to be in the top 10.

Personally I think that's one of the great things about gaming these days. Plenty of room for big casual games for kids and plenty of room for weird shit that only masochists want to play. As well as plenty of room for everything in between.

>>2445030
i thought the ps2 era was way better for that kind of stuff. but yeah I agree, not everything has to be AAA

>>2445030

Everything you described there is stuff that I think has stagnated or shrunk over the course of the 7th gen and is now ground down to a nub in the 8th.
>But I'm delighted that we live in a world where the games market is big enough that it can still be successful even if it's never going to be in the top 10.
This was the truth on the PS1, the market was rich with experimental titles appealing to all crowds. The 6th gen, in my opinion, was amazing at this, providing 4 different consoles that each catered to different crowds and do so with extreme success with tons of games in various genres.
You just don't see that nowadays, I feel.

>>2445036

It happens on pc nowadays.

>>2445039

The indie scene on PC nowadays doesn't compare to the middle-tier developers of the 6th gen. An indie developer can't produce a game like Ratchet and Clank for example.
7th gen killed a lot of them when they were forced to go big or go bust.

>>2445046

Hopefully technology and a different approach to development can give to indie developers the possibility to create such games.

People are so fucking conditioned on copyright laws. No one in that article and those comments is talking about if the implementation of these laws is just to begin with, just "durr if the law sez dey can make da munies den dey should do it" early childhood levels of moral understanding.

Let's put this into perspective. Because Disney never ever wants to stop exclusively make money off of Mickey Mouse, no video game ever made will enter the public domain in your lifetime. Not one. Does that sound reasonable to you? Why is it in 1790, 14 years was considered enough time to make money off of an idea and now it's 120 or the life of the author plus 70 fucking years? And that shit will just be extended when Mickey's number comes again in 2024.

>>2445046
expenses increase, variety decreases, and as a result, creativity stagnates.

anyone who wants to make anything actually good, will have to cut their teeth with small successes on steam, cellphone, etc. while slowly building up to the point where they get to hold the reins of a big operation.

unfortunately, once they've got that kind of power, the money backing them will veto their decisions and corrupt their creative vision.

the industry is sick and it needs to die once. when it comes back to life it will be better.

>>2445035
PS2 era was great for some stuff, but awful for small games. I like that there's now a way for tiny studios of only a few people to actually be able to make and release games to a wide audience again.

>>2445036
I feel the opposite. Between PC games, and stuff like XBLA and DSiWare type stuff, I think there's a far larger market for a wider range of games than there's ever been before. Both those were platforms for all manner of strange and experimental games.

Take something like Rabi Laby for example. It's one of my favorite games because it's this almost infuriatingly impossible puzzle platformer. There's no way it could have come out anywhere other than the PC before this.

But thanks to the small development and publishing costs of DSiWare, it's been possible for them to make three of them and do decently well each time. To me that's absolutely fantastic.

Ratchet and Clank was made by quite a large studio. Expecting indie developers to match the output of Insomniac is a bit of a strethc.

>>2445046
Indie devs and small tier devs are growing. Slowly, maybe, but still growing.

You just gotta stay away from most AAA games these days.

Persoanlly, I think Nintendo is really good right now. At least as far as games go. Like, almost as good as they were back in the SNES days.

>>2445052
The process will repeat then. Should they start letting money influence their games, newer devs will come on the scene with fresh new ideas the same way they did.

The industry doesn't need to die. It's not going to magically become better and all the problems will just go away.

Not paying $200 just to play Earthbound on SNES. Not paying whatever ridiculous amount of money they charge on the Wii to emulate Earthbound.

The fedora wearers who support the article can continue spending their autism bucks on $30 Super Mario World cartridges.

>>2445058
I never claimed that some magical transformation will happen.

It's simply my belief that videogames as a medium need to be somewhat reinvented, and they're not just going to cease to exist, so any catalyst towards that end is probably a good thing.

>>2445062
$10 is a ridiculous amount of money?

>>2445062
The games are like $5-10 on the virtual console.

That's perfectly reasonable.

>>2445068
To simply emulate something, yes. Didn't they also edit Earthbound in some way to avoid copyright stuff?

>>2445056

>Expecting indie developers to match the output of Insomniac is a bit of a strethc.
You can't expect indie devs to put out games with the same breadth of content, and that's the problem.
Take Armored Core, for example. It's hardly the most graphically impressive series and the budgets I'm sure weren't up there with GTA, but while working on a well sized and certainly not indie budget From were able to make an exceptionally broad game.
On PS2 alone they made a shitton of them.
You can't expect an indie dev or a AAA dev to make Armored Core, which is why we need devs operating at all tiers of the market again.

>>2445058

I feel the opposite, I feel like Nintendo's faltering hard right now. NSMB2 and SM3DL on 3DS were lifeless and weak, Pokemon XY/ORAS were trash, and they don't seem to be trying anything new. Compared to the output on Gamecube and GBA/DS, Nintendo isn't exactly in the best shape right now.

Rule of thumb,

Anyone who starts an article or essay with "We need to talk about-" can safely be ignored.

>>2445071
Ironically, as soon as From gained traction with Demon's Souls and were able to make something as great as Dark Souls, their games became progressively shittier and more ridiculous.

Bloodborne honestly reminds me of Bioshock Infinite.

>>2445074
Same thing with people who are trying to make a point and begin their sentence with "look."

>>2445068
for 2 MB of data based on 20 year old ideas made by a guy who doesn't even make games anymore it is.

>>2445070
The biggest reason access to the Mother series has been so limited is probably because of the musical sampling, which breaches copyright but unarguably enhances the experience of playing the game. Boy, I sure am glad we have these copyright laws to protect us from good content.

>>2445070
I think you're the type of person the article is talking about. Earthbound is a game that's totally worth $10. Hell, I think most SNES games are. Also, way to undermine the work that people did building emulators, or getting it on the Wii U by stating "it's simply emulated."

And no, they didn't edit anything that wasn't already edited in the SNES version.

>>2445071
>NSMB2 and SM3DL
Did you play SM3DW? It's the best Mario platformer since Mario 64.

>Pokemon XY/ORAS
I think Pokemon gets better with each generation. The mechanics get more and more in-depth and gamefreak actually knows how to make challenging fights now. Everything before Gen IV feels braindead to me now.

I have a bunch of games for the Wii U and 3DS, and I'm still looking for a reason to buy a Xbone and PS4 (beyond Bloodborne).

>>2445075

Well, From were another one of the companies who had to make the choice between going big and going bust. They went big, and in a lot of ways it cost them.

>>2445080
ten dollars is something that should buy you a monthly subscription that lets you play all of their classic games.

>>2445074
What about advice that starts out by saying "Rule of thumb?"

>>2445080
If video games are art, then art is priceless.

Check and mate.

>>2445084
>>2445087
This is what growing up in a world of torrents and youtube does to people.

>>2445082

I did, it seemed too short and too repetitive. I liked Sunshine, Galaxy and Galaxy 2, they seemed a whole lot more fleshed out to me.

Pokemon XY and ORAS seem to be lacking when it comes to actual content.

>>2445093
I was born in 1988

honestly I believe that all art and media should be freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection and it should be archived and distributed, uncensored, by the government and payed for by tax dollars.

>>2445093
I was into emulation before torrents. When I first discovered it I thought it was the most magical thing in the world because all my video games had been stolen several months prior.

>>2445071
>You can't expect indie devs to put out games with the same breadth of content, and that's the problem.

I guess that's where we differ. I don't see that as a problem at all. I do like big fully formed games like that, but I also like smaller projects as well.

>>2445093
>improved and competing technology and services lowered costs and made goods more accessible for consumers! What a travesty! We need lawyers backed by the threat of men with guns coming to take you away to keep them artificially expensive and scarce!

>>2445085
Overruled by the rule that you're a faggot.

>>2445098
>payed

>>2445108
Bricks and glass houses, dear shitposter.

>>2445105

I can enjoy brief and tight experiences,when you get down to it a whole lot of retro gmes are really short after all. But I also like to sink my teeth into something richer and bigger, like the Monster Hunter example that was put out earlier.

>>2445095
>too short
I take it you didn't get to the bonus worlds then? They're absolutely fantastic, and balls to the walls hard. Some of the best platforming and level design I've seen in a game, period.

I guess it's just different tastes, but I found the game to be constantly fresh and interesting, never doing any one thing too often.

I have about 50 hours into the game, which is about 40 hours more than your average AAA game.

And the recent Pokemon games have had lots of content. I put in like 150 hours in X, and I'm not one of those people that tries to get perfect pokemon and whatnot. I'm getting there with AS, but I've already put in twice as many hours as your average playthrough of the original.

>>2445109
I have dyslexia :c

>>2445113

I'll check it out again after, but I'm afraid my 3DS is out of action for a while.

>>2445112
I totally agree, and it was me who posted Monster Hunter. I like a wide variety of games and game types, which is why I think gaming these days is so amazing.

There's always more new stuff I am interested in coming out than I have time for and there's still a wealth of games from my youth to enjoy in various ways. Ecco the Dolphin in 3D is glorious.

>>2445117
> my 3DS is out of action for a while.

What did you do

>>2445079
"for 2 MB of data based on 20 year old ideas" is an amazingly retarded thing to say and by far the worst post in the thread. You are dumb.

>>2445131
Give me one good reason why copyright protection should last longer than 20 years.

Keep in mind Earthbound itself shirked these laws to add samples of music to the game and was better for it.

>>2444983
>And it's not like he's wrong, night of the living dead didn't went to shit for that reason.
NotLD was a phenomenal success that made no money for the creators because it fell into public domain due to a loophole

So that's not good

>>2445140
The film still made plenty of money and Romero does very well for himself. All the public domain thing did was allow some other people to make non-official remakes and sequels, but they haven't taken away from the original in any meaningful way.

>>2444760
>emulation is killing my ebay & amazon reseller stores
FTFY

>>2445204
If all emulation ever did was kill the reseller market, it should have praise heaped upon it for that alone.

>>2445107
the main reason is that companies don't want to compete with their own back catalog

they really, really don't
also, resources, graphics, music, sound effects, etc from an older game being in the public domain lowers the barrier to entry for competitors in the market, something else companies don't want

>>2445050
>And that shit will just be extended when Mickey's number comes again in 2024.
pretty much this
which is completely and utterly unreasonable

>>2445219
>the main reason is that companies don't want to compete with their own back catalog

How does that make sense? Putting up a game that's already been made is almost pure profit. You loose no development resources but can still sell the product. If someone buys your old game instead of your new game, you still make money. If anything, if the player enjoyed that old game it's only going to encourage them to check out your new one afterwards which is even more profit.

>>2444760
The first comment has more insight than the whole damn article.
>I think the main problem here is that there is not even option to buy the game, because it is: a) not sold anymore and b) there is nobody to sell it. The old studios that made those MS-DOS games are either rebranded, dismantled and absorbed into big AAA publishing houses or outright gone. So only one that is there to claim copyright "infrigement" is the copyright office.

>Now compare it to movies. The directors, studios etc., are still kicking and you are able to buy their "old" stuff everywhere.

Gotta love how the industry and all its shills are still crying about theft when emulation is the only way for normal people to play old games.

>>2444778
>2015
>using the term "intellectual property"

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html

>>2445264
>>>/g/

>>2445268
This man is your friend. He fights for freedom.

I was four years old when the NES came out. The music industry made reprints of records because the demand was high enough. It would be nice if the video game industry reprinted old games. Since they do not, we have emulation which will have to do.

>>2445304
>It would be nice if the video game industry reprinted old games. Since they do not,

Well, virtual console says hi. That was the whole point of it.

>>2445373
>Well, virtual console says hi.
It only concerns a handful of the most popular games. Traditional emulation is the only way to play any title from a given system's library.

>>2444787
If everything goes digital then more effort needs to be put into ensuring the end user can backup and restore what they've got without interference from the publisher, developer, distributor or any other third party, otherwise we'll end up in another situation of things being forcibly removed like P.T.

Absolute freedom is one of the steps leading video games from being mere commercial media to freely accessible art.

>>2445373

Virtual console IS emulation.

>>2445458
So what, should Nintendo still be pumping out the NES and every game they ever made for it?

Should every new console have the hardware of every previous console? But even then, that's still emulation.

I don't understand this stance against using emulation. Emulation is just running a virtual system within a machine.

Do you want Nintendo to have every game they've ever made run natively on their most recent consoles?

Do you even realize what you're saying?

>>2445492

>But even then, that's still emulation
Using native hardware isn't the same thing emulation is. At worst it's virtualization but even then most of the time it runs on bare metal.
Is playing Gamecube games on the Wii emulation?

>>2445515
Technically, yes.

It's just hardware emulation rather than software emulation.

Also, since Nintendo is making their own emulators, and they know the architecture of their own consoles, they can make emulators that are perfectly accurate.

In particular, N64 games. N64 emulation is a complete mess, but the N64 games on the VC run perfectly.

And I still don't see what the problem is. How else do you expect them to make those games available? They're not going to shove the hardware of every single fucking system they've ever made into one machine.

>>2445524
>, they can make emulators that are perfectly accurate.

>In particular, N64 games. N64 emulation is a complete mess, but the N64 games on the VC run perfectly.

This is half-true. N64 VC games run so well because each game has its own emulator specifically coded for that title and that title alone. This is why you can't slap any old N64 rom into an N64 Wii WAD maker and expect it to work.

>>2445524

But... It's not. The Wii turns off its extra hardware and slows down its processor, and then plays the GC game on bare metal. That's literally all there is to it, that's not emulation in the same sense as software emulation is, and it's a bit unfair to say they're the same.

I'm not talking about that, that's completely impractical and I agree with your point there. But I think it's important to distinguish between having hardware made for the job and generic hardware with a software workaround if you're having this discussion.

>>2444991
This is a lame argument that I hear too often. Companies wont re-release an old game because it's so emulated, but they fail to realize the the number one reason it's emulated in the first place is because they let the property sit and rot and become near impossible to obtain. Idiots need to realize that people who emulate hard to get games would easily be willing to pay for a re-release if given the opportunity. Take Earthbound on the VC, even though most people emulated it, it still sold really well on the WiiU because for once they actually had a reasonable means to obtain it legally.

TL;DR, it's the company to blame for not re-releasing it, all they gotta do is make it legally available again and they're golden.

>>2445534
Fine, but emulation is still the best solution to rereleasing and preserving games.

Preserving data doesn't take that much. Preserving hardware? That takes a hell of a lot more, and it's really just not practical on any kind of a large scale.

>>2445547

I'm definitely in support of services like the Virtual Console if that's what you're advocating. But they're never going to have absolute coverage when it comes to digital preservation and there should also be access to other games once they become obsolete.

>Everyone knows that downloading a 1993 movie would be piracy, so why treat games from the same year any differently?

Because movies usually get re-releases at least once every decade or two, while a game usually is produced for a few years and then, more often than not, is never made again.

IP laws are so fucked. Most of this shit should be in the public domain and the way things are now nothing will enter the public domain ever again since megacorps don't die.

>>2445620

>since megacorps don't die.
In the vidya industry, the way things are going, there's hope.

retro, no emulation = speculation

>>2444760
>linking to clickbait websites

Like I give a fuck what they say.

>>2445419
What happened to P.T. is a legitimate nightmare come true, both the cancellation and more importantly the removal from playable existence.

>>2444760
Eurogamer can outright go and fuck itself.

>>2445268
Are you going to make me interject you?

>>2445695
To be fair though, it was designed as a trailer/promo for a game that is no longer being developed. It makes perfect sense they took it down. But it's not like they went out and deleted it from people's hard drives. Anyone who actually wanted it had more than enough chance to get it.

>>2445559
The internet has taken care of this. There are enough complete ROM packs out there on people's drives that unless the entire internet crashes, they'll always be availible in some way.

>>2445695
P.T. is a grim reminder of what happens when games aren't properly preserved on physical media. There are a bunch of games out there barely over 5 years old that the publisher completely withdrew support from, so any DLC that was available for them is now forever lost.

This will only get worse as time goes on.

Entirely irrelevant article.

This data needs to be backed up, and archived, just like everything. Back it all up. Dump everything. Preservation.

>>2446953
Which ones?

If Blizzard the King of Jews are willing to release there old games for free with ZSNES + Rom for free, I'm pretty sure the lesser jews will care that there games are freely available on the internet. Apart from Nintendo, but they are the Jew Masters of the Universe.

>>2446953
PT wasn't a game it, was an advertisement. An advertisement for something that's been canceled at that. It was removed on purpose. What makes you think you should still have the right play it?

>>2445419
>>2445695
>>2446953
>>2447006
PT isn't retro you stupid faggots go the fuck back to /v/

>>2447020
It's relevant to the topic you dunce.

>>2447006
>What makes you think you should still have the right play it?

Why not ?
The game existed at one point, people played it.
The creators probably didn't want to let the teaser vanish, that was a decision of the publisher.
They have the right to be living shits and destroy what they financed, it's right in the world of laws, but sure is an horrible move in actuality.

>>2447027

Don't answer to him, he's part of those people that troll dreamcast's threads.

>>2446942
It'd be simple enough to just patch out the ending fmv sequence, the game itself is totally capable of standing on its own without it, even if they didn't do that it's still fine, removing it just seems highly unnecessary.

>Anyone who actually wanted it had more than enough chance to get it.
Keep in mind it's removed from the PSN, it could be rendered useless or unobtainable even for people that have it now and it's very likely even for people that have it installed now, they may not be able to launch it due to it not being registered as a valid or authenticatable game, in fact this already happened for a few days, people were not able to launch it or anything else if they had it installed.

DRM issues like this are pretty common, there's some fighting game that had its character DLC pulled when the rights expired.

>>2447020
this >>2447027
The whole issue being raised is that people shouldn't be emulating old games but instead hope for re-releases, in the current state of things this is not nearly as appealing as just emulating it, that will always work, forever, where even going through legitimate means today may not, someone else or some piece of authentication software is the one controlling if you can or cannot play or obtain something. With physical media we can still play our old stuff even today but with that same media being digitized we may not have that option 10 years from now if the servers they rely on simply expire.

>>2447027
Still not retro, you stupid cunt.

>>2447052
I guess you'll have to deal with it you whiny cunt :^)
Learn to ignore it, if it's breaking the rules report it, otherwise shut up because when you bring it up like that you're just going to make people talk about it more which you apparently don't want.

Stop being so easily triggered.

>>2446968
Army of Two springs to mind.

>The downloadable content (DLC) Veteran Map Pack became available for download on Thursday, May 29, 2008. It contains a new co-op map (fighting and eliminating a dangerous Russian militia group based in Kiev's subway system), an expanded Versus map (China Canal Lock), a more dynamic and interactive environment, more destructible objects, and 6 new "secret" achievements. There's also an alternative ending to the game in which the players can take on Dalton in a more dramatic boss battle at SSC's Miami headquarters in which Salem and Rios have to lock him in a vault. These maps were available to download without any cost until EA shut down its servers in 2011.

Saboteur is another:

>A code for a downloadable patch entitled "The Midnight Show" was free to those who purchased a new copy of the game for either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. The extra content provides the player with extra brothels and hiding spots. It also includes a minigame in which the player can earn in-game items such as a car not found during the main campaign. Most notably, however, installing the add-on automatically renders all brothel girls in the game topless, although nudity can still be toggled on and off. For the Windows version, the extra content was already included on the disc.

The servers for the game went down almost immediately after EA closed down Pandemic. At least the PCfags lucked out, it seems.


I'm also pretty sure that Prince of Persia 2008 had a downloadable Altair costume, which is tied to U-play or whatever the fuck system Ubisoft was using at the time. If it's not already gone, it will be in the near future.

>>2447036
So because something existed at some point, it always should? And you should always have access to it because you're entitled to have permanent access to anything you ever experienced? Do you feel that way about movies as well? If you watch it in the theatre, you assume that means you own it forever?

The creators certainly wanted the teaser to vanish because it was at that point a teaser for something that will never exist. There is no reason at all for it to exist at this point.

>>2447080
>entitled
>entitled
>entitled

opinion invalidated

>>2444760
>a thing only huge fucking nerds do to play games that are nigh impossible to buy due to price gouging hipsters and gross neckbeards
>a problem
We don't need to appeal to gamers. Gamers are over.

>>2447084
Ohh boo hoo did I use a word that triggered you? You are literally being "entitled" though. You're saying that the creators of something should have no control over it. They shouldn't have the option to pull a teaser for a game that's no longer being made. You feel "entitled" to have it always free and available to you simply because you want it. You are acting like a spoiled child so that's how I'm treating you.

>>2447093
>implying corporate bean-counters at Konami are "the creators"
>implying that KojiPro, the actual creators, had anything to do with that decision
>implying that any creator would ever, EVER want the fruit of their hard labor and creativity to be erased from existence so that no one would ever be able to enjoy it in the future
>implying that it doesn't deserve to be preserved as part of the Silent Hill legacy regardless of the decisions of petulant corporate cocksuckers at Konami
>implying that advocating against archiving preservation in a community that exists because of these things doesn't make you look like a enormous fucking tool

Into the trash you go. :^)

>>2447093

The creators didn't had any decision in this.
Konami destroyed everything related to kojima and console games, word of del toro, which has been incredibly saddened by how konami treated him and kojima and also said that he will probably never try to work with games after this.

So no, the creators didn't want the teaser to vanish, but hey never stop sucking those cocks anon, we need people like you.

>>2447118
>>2447128
You're still insisting you should have permanent access to something you have no right to. The "corporate bean-counters" paid for it in the first place, it's their property to do with what they want. Stay upset though! :)

>>2447138

You should tweet this to del toro too, he and his fat hearth will surely enjoy it.

>>2447138
>"owning" things is an outdated concept!
>ownership is entitlement!
>being granted a temporary license to access a piece of media (that can be revoked or amended by the rights holder at any time) is the future!

Don Mattrick, pls go

>>2447139
Del Toro should be well aware of how the creative process works when involved with corporations. He is rightly sad that the project has been canceled (as am I) but I'm sure he understands why PT was taken down.

>>2447148
Owning things isn't an outdated concept at all. That's what this whole issue is about. Konami owns PT. What they do with it is their prerogative.

>>2447151
I think what they're saying is that if you downloaded PT, (or in any other case if you paid for a game), then you should own that media and be able to redownload it and access it however you want.

It's a fact that countless games wouldn't exist for 99% of people if emulation didn't exist. Hell, there are already tons of games lost permanently. The number would be fatal without emulation.

>>2447158
I know, and I'm saying they're wrong. If it was a game, and it was purchased, that would be an entirely different situation. But that's not what PT was. PT was a promotional interactive advertisement for a product which is now no longer being made. The people who made and paid for it should (and do) have the prerogative to remove it if they want to.

These people are acting like it's their right to have open access to it forever just because they want it. And again, let's keep in mind that Konami didn't outright disable it, which they likely could have if they really wanted to. Anyone who already had it downloaded can still experience it any time they want. All that's been removed is the ability to download it in the future, which makes perfect sense. Why would they keep an advertisement around for something that's never going to see the light of day?

>>2447138
this i s a new level of shilling

>>2447167
>Hell, there are already tons of games lost permanently.

Which ones?

>>2447174
What am I even "shilling"? I am standing up for the rights of the people actually making and producing games. Why is it such a foreign concept that content creators should have control over how that content is distributed?

Sorry, I'm not paying $6 on XBL or PSN to emulate a game from 20+ years ago, when I can emulate it on my computer at the same quality for FREE.
Now if they wanted to sell me a REAL Sega Genesis with that same game for $25, then SURE, I'm all in.
I agree with the dude who said you can still go in to Wal-Mart and buy a copy of the Jurassic Park movie. The same can not be said for NES or Genesis games.
And fuck the retro gaming stores. Charging an arm and a leg for this junk because it's "retro" and "back in style". FUCK THAT.
Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt used to go for $1 or LESS. Now you want me to pay $5 or more? For what has to be the single most produced cartridge alongside Sonic 2?? Fuck off.

>>2447176
Tons of arcade games because the automates got trashed or the collectors are assholes that rather have the machine get buried with them instead releasing a copy on the internet.

I think with NES generation and beyond consoles are pretty covered but there are tons of personal computer games that are lost.

I myself searched for at least 20 PC games that I played in my childhood where a copy is nowhere to be found, not for sale and not to pirate. Some even lack any kind of information on the internet.

Honestly, it's alright with those PC games because most of hem are not worth it nowadays but I really want to play some of those missing arcade games.

There needs to be an exemption to copyright law for orphaned works. If a release is out of print for, say, five years, it should become public domain.

>>2447178
>actually making
nope
>producing
not the same thing, stop conflating the two

I gotta ask, you do realize that these are the very same corporate entities that would charge you a dollar every time you booted up their games if they thought they could get away with it, right?

The same corporate entities that just attempted to permanently erase a piece of Silent Hill history?


How fucked up in the head do you have to be support and defend blatantly anti-consumer practices?

>>2447201
Pretty sure orphaned works work like real orphans... You can spread them around however much you want, because no one will no or care >_>

>>2447202
Both the makers and the producers have the right to decide what to do with the products they made and produced. I see nothing wrong with that. It is perfectly within their rights to permanently erase as much of Silent Hill's history that they want. It's their's.

Also if the people who made your front door could charge you every time you opened it, they would too. That's capitalism for you.

>>2447218
Thanks Obama.

>>2447228
I think the people who create things should have the right to control how it is sold and distributed to the public. It doesn't surprise me that you don't understand that, but it is a little sad.

>>2447237
Because, as has been stated a gazillion times, they didn't create it. They produced it.

>>2447237
actually it's the publisher who own the copyrights
the creator's intent doesn't really matter

>>2447248
>>2447249
Yeah, do you even understand what producing means? Because the way you're talking I don't think you do. The people who did the grunt work of actually putting it together were employees working for a company that was producing the project.

>>2447218
>all this anti-consumer shillery
>muh capitalism
>even as it's actively screwing you and your hobby
>muh capitalism

Disgusting. The Day of the Rope can't come soon enough.


Until then, if the rights holders can't be trusted with properly preserving the works of the creators so that they won't become irrevocably lost and, in fact, actively go out of their way to erase those works from history, it's up to the hobbyists to do it. And if it involves violating the rights of the license holders, then so be it. Their intent doesn't really matter. :^)

>>2447253
This world has gone completely screwy when people who had absolutely nothing to do with making something believe they have more rights over it than those who actually made and paid for it to be made.

>>2447195
>Sorry, I'm not paying $6 on XBL or PSN to emulate a game from 20+ years ago, when I can emulate it on my computer at the same quality for FREE.
Sometimes those ports are terrible or have forced options like filtering too, in situations like that you can't win at all unless you emulate it yourself or have an original copy.

>>2447248
>"creating something" means you get rights over everyone else

Nope.

Copyright should just be abolished. It makes no sense in the age of the internet, the whole purpose of computer networks is to make copying data extremely cheap and effortless.

YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR

>>2444760
So true, I've seen the error of my ways.

I'm going to cut my playthrough of Lennus 2 for the SNES short and wait patiently for an official translated release.

Any day now, right?

>>2447287

Let's ask this again after 3d printing have been perfected.

>>2447253
Wouldn't capitalists be in favor of the consumer in this case? A real capitalist wouldn't even consider non-tangible goods to have any real value, both to the consumer or the publisher. They'd condemn consumers for buying into such a scam to begin with, if this P.T. was sold on physical media it'd be another story. The people you're upset with seem more into laws and copyright nonsense than anything else, capitalism may drive greedy people to think this way but I don't think it's the fault of capitalism more than it is the people inside such a system. Correct me if I'm wrong on anything here though, I certainly may be.

>>2447281
That's the mentality of a child. If the people who put effort into creating things don't have rights to them, what incentive is there for anyone to do it?

>>2447312
>the people inside such a system

That's always the case, but capitalism care about human work not the merchandise per se, so if human work has been spent on a non tangible good they are going to profit on it.

>>2447327

I think the whole concept of copyrights as of now just doesn't work.
First thing you have automatically the rights on the thing you created copyrights are way to enforce this rule, and most of the times is enforce wrongly by companies that just care about moneys and nothing else.
Second, the enforcement last too fucking much on things that have been dead for far too long, after 20 (even 15 really) years if the author and nobody else did nothing with it, it should be automatically made into public domain.
This wouldn't even be a tragedy if the author itself would like to work again on the project, people would still know who the original creator is and he could still sell his product, just like they already do with movies in public domain.

>>2447287

>>2447327
You act as if everyone needs incentive to create outside of wanting to create something. A lot of people in software make things they want themselves and then distribute their work for free to anyone, there's plenty of artists (this includes game makers) who create works and distribute those freely as well.

Rights in these fields don't make sense to me, if you don't want someone taking your thing and making something from it then don't release it in the first place, why stiffel more creation or deprive others from enjoying something you yourself as a creator should also enjoy.

Personally I hold the opposite view of these copyright holders, if I were to create something only to have someone else control is and prevent others from enjoying it then that's an incentive NOT to create something, it's a waste of my time to put effort into the creation only to have nobody else even see or use it, as a creator I want as many people viewing/using whatever I create.

Is there even such need?

Emulation is dead anyway.

>>2447345

People with no monetary incentive can still release their works freely. Having copyright law doesn't prevent that.

>>2447260
Honestly, I don't think I'd be this much oof an issue if P.T. was physically preserved on a demo disc or something. That way, even if Konami decided to can the project and cease further support, the copies would still be out there for the fans to enjoy. But the idea that they can snap their fingers and simply will the game out of existence is fucking horrifying. Aside from the possible fear of backlash, nothing was really stopping them from outright blocking the game on PSN, so that even the people who downloaded it would have no way of playing it again. The only means of preserving it then would be piracy.


They can't be trusted with preserving it.

Someone has to.

Because being able to instantly rip a chunk out of the layer of cultural heritage that is vidya whenever you feel like it is too much power for anyone to yield. Especially for a money-grubbing corporate behemoth that has already proven themselves to be criminally irresponsible with their IPs.

>>2447287
I wouldn't what now?

>>2447287
>he wouldn't download a car

>>2444760
ITT:
WWWAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
WWWWWAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
I WANT EVERYTHING TO BE FREE
IM SO IMPORTANT WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR ANYTHING
WAAAAHHHHHHH

why not just re-release the games
a lot of people would still buy them

>>2444760
Good. Emulation is illegal.

Guys i hope you can detect a troll that didn't read shit.

While I enjoy physical media, prices are becoming retarded. Before I get jumped all over with muh free market/supply and demand, I understand, but it doesn't mean I can't hate and curse resellers and the stupid hipsters/hoarders that pay those outrageous prices even though I could certainly afford to. While VC/PSN/releases a step in the right direction, not every game gets rereleased, only the more popular ones. And for people that are worrying about the poor publishers, I'm sure they're more annoyed by people reselling their games than emulators. If you recall, back in the day Nintendo, Sega, and other publishers tried hated the used game market. They probably still do.

>>2447425
i can't wait for when gamestop puts all of these shitty retro reseller shitbags out of business

>>2447435

Not /vr/, I laughed when Nintendo released the Metroid Prime Trilogy on the wii u eshop for like $10 and the boxed copy dropped from $250 to ~$40.

I would gladly purchase alot of classic games with some stipulations. Is it worth $10-15 a pop for a 20 year old game? Absolutely not. Most of them can be beaten in an hour or less with virtually no replay ability even with nostalgia goggles on.

They need to set it up a convenient multi platform launcher with game pad support charging 99 cents to $2.99 a title. I wouldn't even mind recommendations for similar titles when I start it up.

>>2447415
>waaah people stopped biting my obvious bait, I'm entitled to replies

>>2447460
Wasn't me. I just got bored trying to explain to children why they shouldn't feel entitled to have more ownership over something than the people who made it in the first place. It's pathetic, but they can think what they want.

>>2447598
>they shouldn't feel entitled to have more ownership over something than the people who made it
I agree, publishers should not be able to own copyright.

>>2444834
Your analogy fails, because Jurassic World is actually going to be fucking awesome, its the only movie I've been actually hyped to see in a long ass time.

Maybe you cunts should just stop reading clickbait articles and should realize that 99% of journalists in the gaming industry are fucking losers who are trying to be edgy.

If a company can't bother to keep their games in circulation, then fans will through posterity of emulation.

Digital games are pretty shit for collectors though, and official emulators aren't necessarily better than what nerds cook up. If one of my favorite classics goes on sale on PSN I usually pick it up, but in no way is their infrastructure more ideal, or convenient than piracy. It's low hanging fruit. You have to go out of your way to support businesses. And that's just not in line with human nature.

>>2447425
Everyone making a product hates the used-x market.

You think Mitsubishi or Ford wants you buying a used car? Of course not, thats a potential buyer who just slipped away, who is now using your product but you gained no profit from it.

The difference is for some reason only game and movie companies get BTFO about it. I agree its ridiculous that games are pushing more then their MSRB now when they're not new, but I understand that its because their out of print and there is a limited supply now. But seeing a cart only X2 or X3 for like 100 bucks is pretty fucking annoying.

Granted, there were a shitload less copies printed in those days then now. Especially the PS3-Xbox360 era where most games had a 100k+ print run easily.

>>2447625
I would argue that it is more convenient for emulation.

Anything on the PSN is going to work. Pay your 9.99 or whatever, wait 15 minutes and you're good to go.

Most emulators require some kind of tweaking to get working correctly (especially 3D, with N64 and PS1). I haven't used Retroarch but I've heard the UI is anywhere from hard to use to non-existant.

Its way easier to buy a digital copy on PSN then to download and get an emulator working with a working ROM. This wasn't the case hell 10 years ago (time flies, 2005 was 10 years ago) when your ONLY option was to find a copy of the game out in the wild or on eBay (prices were still pretty good back then, but it would still be frequently more expensive with shipping and shit), or find an emulator and working roms.

Plus you don't have to fuck around with controllers and shit connecting to USB. We always had trouble doing shit on PC with controllers on multiplayer games (but this was back in the 2000's)

>>2447459
Have you ever played an old videogame?

Serious question.

>TBH I wrote some of those old spectrum games and I don't care about getting paid for them. I have been paid for them in the 80s and I consider that done now.

>You make something... you get paid for it... I don't quite understand the need to be paid forever for something you created. It is nice ofc to get a steady stream of income... but I have done quite a lot of new things that make me money.

>And yeah... maybe you shouldn't pay for an old movie or an old book.

Wow an actual content creator says he doesn't see why people should be continually paid, because he made something and got paid for it, meanwhile the kike software houses and publishers want to wring the public dry. Big surprise.

>>2447714
I can't stand the term "content creator".

Mostly because it was taken over by faggots on Youtube and Twitch who believe vlogs and reviews or lets plays are "worthwhile" content.

I'm currently in game development and it kind of makes me sick that people play my game on twitch and youtube and probably make more money from it then I do

>>2447735
just the first word that came to mind, I'm out of touch when it comes to streaming, yeah i guess that does suck, I'm a programmer too but it's not my job, I write free software

>>2447170
>All that's been removed is the ability to download it in the future
Except that's wrong. Everything you download from PSN, free or otherwise, has a license associated with it and this gets validated every time you go online. The license check for PT was removed, resulting in a lockout from even running the demo. This also caused other problems for a while as it would mistakenly flag a persons entire PSN account as having unauthorized material associated with it and completely locking them out of everything.

People had two choices; go online and lose everything or never go online again.

>>2447735
>then I do

it's than

>>2447741
You're a fucking idiot mate.

I'm always connected to PSN and I have the PT Demo on my PS4. I literally JUST went fired it up and guess what?

Nothing happened.

>>2447341
>after 20 (even 15 really) years if the author and nobody else did nothing with it, it should be automatically made into public domain.
This used to be the case. Disney got the law changed to about 70 years.

>>2447714
If one rightsholder is happy to distribute his work for free that is his right. It doesn't mean everyone else should be forced to give their work away free as well.

>>2445536
They haven't "gotta" do anything. It's their property, if they wish to re-release it or not then it's their decision. But if they choose not to then it doesn't give other people the right to start redistributing it themselves.

>>2447767
>company chooses not to rerelease something
>doesn't get money from it
>person distributes it and they STILL don't get money from it
>somehow the latter situation is worse for the company

>>2447774
Companies are people too, which means they reserve the right to say "na-na na-na na-boo-boo I have this and you can't!"

>>2447774
/vr/ you are fucking retarded sometimes.

>company chooses not to release something for whatever reason
>someone else releases the company's IP without their permission

If you can't see why the second half is wrong, then I don't know what to tell you. Its like an amusement park being closed down, then you just go in and open the amusement park for anyone to use.

>>2447761
>Nothing happened.
Because Sony fixed the problem. They no longer perform license checks on items removed from the store. That doesn't mean the problem wasn't occurring in the first place. PT was being locked out, PSN's were being restricted and in the case of german users, it was being forcibly removed from the console itself when you tried to run it.

>>2447784
That's really not the same thing at all, and even if it was the person opening the park is seen as right in the eyes of the people

>>2447784
>comparing virtual things to real world things

always with-out a doubt 100 per cent of the time undeniably irrefutably a bad, irredeemable argument that simply does not ever under and circumstance work, stop doing it for the love of god

>>2444782
the time that a piece of media was produced doesn't always impact the time that it is enjoyed. Stephen King could have written It last week, and you could still pick it up and enjoy it. the fact that the book is 20 years old is irrevelant.

so, a guy who makes a game, 20 years ago, is doing so to entertain people. if you pick it up, and are entertained, then you owe that guy money

now, I can understand experiences where the time it was created does actually impact the experience. Like, if the creator is dead, or if the work is extremely dated. Bram Stoker could not have written Dracula last week. nevermind that he is dead, writing techniques, cultural norms, and our concepts of vampires have evolved beyond the point that Dracula can have any serious impact. Also, Dracula is a foundational work that has allowed for a lot of current culture to exist. I don't think there should not be an entry fee for experiences like that.

so, these ZX Spectrum guys are probably write, but not because of some kind of expiration date on a paycheck. Dracula basically belongs to everybody, so you shouldn't have to pay for it. Super Mario Brothers 3 is not the same thing.

>>2447824
SMB is not the same thing because lawyers keep lobbying for fair use to never ever take hold. If these people existed hundreds of years ago, then Dracula WOULDN'T be everyones, and the stories of today will never be public domain which is kind of sad

>>2444917
truth truth.

the article ignores 4 causes for emulation
1 The game being unobtainable through legitimate means besides Ebay and a slew of equipment to get the game working
2 the licensing company being kaput
3 the license existing in some legal pocket dimension, like with movie tie-in games
4 fucking Japan

seriously, if you want to pay NES Gremlins 2, you can't. the game is fantastic, but Sunsoft is dead, as is their license for that game. Another example is stuff like PT, which the company intentionally withdrew from the marketplace and buried.

Then, there is truly weird stuff like the Working Designs release of Magic Knight Rayearth. Original developer is dead, Working Designs is dead, the source code for the Japanese release of MKR is vanished, the Sega Saturn is dead... the chance of that coming out on PSN or the App Store is about the same as a snowflake's chance in Hell

>>2447824
Totally false, Dracula is still an amazing read to this day... and I'm not a big reader at all. It gets a little boring half way through but that's not to do with the time it was released. Most people only don't/rarely read old books for the same reason they don't play old games... it's not heavily hyped by big bucks and not "cool".

>>2447625
hold on, now... you do remember Napster, right? the Great Devil that was killing the record industry? Napster was not killed by battalions of lawyers. it got killed by iTunes. turns out, Easy beats Free, any day.

>>2447824
>draacula basically belongs to everybody

because Bram Stoker is dead and the copyright ran out, like every copyright should after 25 years, the fact that big companies can lobby for extensions doesn't mean it's right

>>2447832
SMB3 is still a viable product. I think the NES SMB1 would fit your argument better. or, the great white whale of the Public Domain: MIckey Mouse.

>>2447848

true, Dracula can be snappy, in parts. some of the imagery is still good. still, the concept of the monster is that he represents dirty Eastern European immigrants, and sexual corruption. this was terrifying to a Victorian Englishman, but who still thinks that the worst thing in the world is to have sex out of wedlock?

maybe I should have picked something a little more primitive and tedious, like Victor Hugo's The Man Who Smiled, or a Dickens novel.

>>2447872
>primitive and tedious
Anything by Oscar Wilde.

>>2447843

Did you read the article? The article isn't about ignoring or not ignoring that stuff. The article is about how the public (and the press!!) didn't once say "um, you aren't supposed to do that kind of thing out in the open." when the Internet Arcade started distributing these old games.

The author says 1. he approves ('applauds') the use of (illegal) emulation to keep old games preserved and 2. individual use of emulation is 'insignificant'. He is freaked out though that the public seemingly doesn't even RECOGNIZE that, hey, you technically shouldn't do some of this (so just keep it to yourself).

>emulation gets killed
>have to buy from resellers with even higher pricing
> only selection from the current are indie games or interactive movies, which even then are unreliable to work
rip vidya games

>>2444760
why does it even matter, they can whine and moan all they want but it's not going to make emulation end, it doesn't work like that.

>>2447918
emulation is not going to killed off buy some shitty article from a site no one even cares about

>>2447881
Public emulation actually seems like a decent idea. It'd give a better indication of what old games or systems people are interested in and maybe companies would work towards bringing back a series or putting the old games back into the market and out of overpriced resellers hands. In the events they can't do native ports due to lost source code, they might even try their hand at their own emulation systems which could be a cover-all for an entire platform, plus they'd put more effort into ensuring their games are properly preserved so they'd work on that system.

But that's probably wishful thinking. In reality they'd probably spend the resources hitting people with lawsuits and wondering why their modern titles aren't selling.

>>2447934
thanks cap'n

>>2444775
>it's "killing the industry"

That means we hit a technological jackpot, then.

Who cares what some magazine faggot thinks? Who cares what some law makers think?

Shit's free software. It CANNOT be stopped.

>>2448412
Because the discussion is an important one, Anon-kun. This is an issue that affects how and what you play in the future.

>>2445373
I've bought games on Virtual Console on Wii. It's not the same and I'm not 100% sure that Nintendo even plays through all of these because I've seen glitches and bugs in some. I'm talking about full on reprints. Make them pink so autist collectors don't go apeshit.

>>2444769
You think they want to sell you a decades old movie?

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls052091214/

Huh? You think they're at all okay with you disrepectful lazyassed commoners wanting to weasel out of getting off your asses to go see a normal, up-to-date version of the movie and appreciate the full proper movie experience?

>>2448453
>Heavy Metal

First I've heard of this. So long as it's not 2000 levels of bad it mite b cool.

>>2448453

That list is so fucking sad.

>>2444972
>i dont believe in capitalism

Fucking commies on my board

>>2448453
>Mad Max: Fury Road

That's just a sequel, though. The franchise still ends with Thunderdome with Fury Road taking place sometime between 1 and 3.

>>2444972
DEMOCRACY IS TRUTH
COMMUNISM IS DEATH

>>2447602
You really don't understand the role or importance of publishers do you?

>majority of old PC digital releases come packaged with DOSBox so rights holders don't have to do shit
>emulation is bad

Hahaha.

>>2444972
>Also I don't really believe in capitalism, I think it's ridiculous.
It lit a fire under people's asses to make games so kids would pop quarters into arcade machines. I'm sorry, but there are no free or open games I would play that somebody wasn't capitalizing on at some point. Even Epic's retarded free UT15 is impossible to get source code unless you rent UT Engine tools. Money will always be the greatest motivator because people need to eat.

>>2451478
That's not true, anyone can access the source for UT15.

>Money will always be the greatest motivator because people need to eat.
People were eating and creating before the concept of money even existed, you can't generalize like that and assume everyone shares capitalist ideals or even worse assume it will last forever. Funny enough we're on the cusp of a food revolution with this cloned meat thing and those automated mushroom farms.

>>2451542
Exactly. It's funny how people associate money with food. Money doesn't grow on trees... but food does. Money is just printed off by the government and decreed to be worth something. We should be free to pick food and eat water as in pre-civilized times. Property is based off someone claiming land hundreds or thousands of years ago, and supposed consenting exchanges ever since and everyone is supposed to respect that?

If civilization wants to claim that it's giving us something extra like videogames, that's fair enough that someone should put something back in. But food, water and a safe environment? They should be completely free.

I would be extremely wary of any cloned meat, similar to genetically modifying foods and such. It is NOT like the computer revolution.

>>2451609
I'm all for the free necessities but in the interim between now and then we do need systems like capitalism in place, I just feel like we're on the verge of not needing that soon, maybe not in our lifetime but soon.

There's a lot of "impossible" technology coming out all the time and I'm glad to see it, my favorite example currently is that self driving car, there's no reason we need that and we certainly shouldn't have to pay someone for transport, we're always working towards solving the energy problem as well and even maintenance can be automated by machines in a cyclical way and these things can be applied to the automated food or harvesting fields too.

We're getting a bit off topic though.

>>2451638
>no reason we need that
need people for that*
I seriously thought we'd see railways everywhere before a self driving car but I'm glad we have the car since it seems cheaper and more modular/capable.

>>2444760
Until official channels provide as much customization and freedom as emulators they are going nowhere. I bought SOTN on my vita from the european store and it only runs in 50hz. That is the type of stuff that makes me not want to buy any classics again.

>>2455401
>customization and freedom
elaborate

>I bought SOTN on my vita from the european store and it only runs in 50hz
Isn't that ROM specific? If the ROM is made for 50Hz, there's little that can be done about it. Of course you may raise a valid point that the non-EU version is not available in the EU store. Region locking has sucked, still sucks, and will always suck. It has no place in gaming

>>2444834
I agree with you, but I'd like to make the following corrections:

>does Jurrasic World really need the Jurrasic in it?
No, but it makes more money like that. That's the other side of franchise exploitation. Sometimes there are creative independent projects and ideas that are simply put to serve an existing franchise to be more profitable.

>Just look at the wealth of new cool things that sprung out of Tolkien's mythology
Tolkien's stuff is HEAVILY copyrighted and rights (especially movie ones) and their profits, are still fiercely contested by Tolkien's family and licensed companies.

>(D&D and just about every RPG ever)
This is a common misconception. D&D is chiefly inspired by sword and sorcery. Gigax only took a couple of creature names from tolkien books, and that's it. In fact, he actually wrote an article dor Dragon Magazine on why D&D wasn't based on LOTR at all.

>>2455442
Tolkien's estate is a perfect example of why shit needs to make it's way into the public domain by letting copyright expire. Are any of his leech offspring making new and interesting ideas, or are they just milking the cash cow at this point? Sure, you should be able to give your family a revenue stream after you die for a time, but Tolkien's been dead for almost 50 years now.

>>2444760
>Someone criticizes emulation
>OMG THEY'RE GOING TO DESTROY IT OR SOMETHING

>>2444778
>Legally it's irrelevant.
Well, then we should force it to be legally relevant by making emulation of games that haven't been sold for X years legal for emulation or we carry on as we have where the majority of developers will look the other way if they don't feel that profit is possible.

The reason we've lost huge chunks of old TV is because tapes were wiped when it was deemed that they were no longer profitable. We lost a lot of TV history that way (especially in the UK).
Why should we let the same happen to games when it's possible to prevent that?

In fact, a point of interest. The only reason we have a lot of old TV is because the people who were meant to wipe or destroy tapes said "fuck that" and stole them, an illegal act, but something that saved a lot of TV history. I see emulation of older and obscure games to be in the same vein.

Also, current copyright laws are fucked, we shouldn't be looked at copyright (as it currently stands) like it's a good thing for society.

I read through a good chunk of it and while I do think the author is a bit of an ass-hat for saying "emulation devalues video game as a culture as well as a hobby", some of what he said did hold some truth.

But really, what else are we supposed to do when companies don't give a shit about preserving video games?

>>2456303
>But really, what else are we supposed to do when companies don't give a shit about preserving video games?

Emulate as individuals, but stop short acting like we can do so out in the open and/or do so as part of a public business or organization. He says himself that "It feels different when an individual does it".

>>2444997
exactly this. copyright and patent law is absolutely ridiculous. Especially copyright though. I say 5-7 years max. That's plenty of time to get your sales. And the best part about it would be... less ability to "remaster" old games. You would have to do a full blown remake.

>>2447046
>The whole issue being raised is that people shouldn't be emulating old games but instead hope for re-releases, in the current state of things this is not nearly as appealing as just emulating it, that will always work, forever, where even going through legitimate means today may not, someone else or some piece of authentication software is the one controlling if you can or cannot play or obtain something. With physical media we can still play our old stuff even today but with that same media being digitized we may not have that option 10 years from now if the servers they rely on simply expire.

Yeah. This is why emulation and roms being allowed is so important too. Eventually all those old games will have to be digital as over time wear and tear will cause all of the old cartridges and discs to die out. But with it being a sort of "open-source" project by many emulation communities old games will last forever. There will always be someone that can and will afford and pay the price of servers to keep up these old games.

Its a problem when it's all isolated to old developers/pubs. They can just decide to not support the old games for fear of attention drawn from newer ones and even then they don't have to make sure they even work when rereleased. Sure on GOG they make sure the games work. But if a dev is too lazy to fix an old game to work today then they can just go straight to steam. Tons of old games that don't work, yet are still sold (for some reason this is legal).

>>2447623
You just know that... because? Fanboyism?

>>2444834
Hell if anyone needs an example of why copyright and trademarks should be far FAR less time I got one... Dracula. Look at all the good things that have come out because that's public domain.

It's also why Open source is better than individual projects. With more people and more ideas being allowed in the mix and being allowed to flourish you get more creativity. Can you imagine for instance, if by now more people were allowed to make their own iterations of Resident Evil or god forbid just any game that's went down the shitter recently?

You could still go to Capcom, etc. for the originals but other people could enhance and improve on the concepts or take them in a whole new direction using their own ideas.

>>2444894
Mostly because of secondhand transfers. Once the original Cracker has bought the game, due to sales transfer ideas that permeate literally every other facet of the market, people see it as normal to just acquire the good on the terms of the cracker. In this time and place it is free on a torrent site.

If you were to buy a good at walmart you could sell it or give it away for free. Nobody expects to get permission from the original creator or company in order for that exchange or giving to go off. Also the fact that most people legitimately understand that digital goods are literally infinite in quantity and can be replicated forever, unlike most physical goods.

>>2447780
No they aren't.

>>2447784
This argument doesn't work. But beyond that you "believe" its right for the copyright holder to stop these people. That means nothing. What is right to you is completely the opposite to others. There is no point in talking about it in moral terms.

What matters is the benefit to almost everyone. Most benefit from emulation. The original creator may not but in the long term it urges them to move on and actually create something fresh and new rather than sitting on old shit to make profit for eternity. That benefits the society as a whole.

>>2456625
What about Dracula?

Dracula is surname for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler

Vampires are a very common theme in folklore.

Theres nothing "copyright" about Dracula besides Bram Stokers book. You can't copyright a name, you can't copyright vampires.

>>2444995
I agree with this statement. Not because of the competition factor but simply because it keeps people's expectations high. People stay knowledgeable about whether games are declining from the past to now or whether they are actually getting better with more features and better mechanics. If a new game in a series comes out with less features than the older ones then what does that say? Games such as GTA 4 and 5 vs. San Andreas are an example.

Another problem is with DLC. For example most people can easily play FF7 and see all the breadth of content available. Then when they play a modern game with half as much content but a slew of DLC "quests" and junk they know that standards are dropping and will fight it appropriately.

>>2456652
>>2444995
Although I'm not a harken for graphics these two things together are a good example of the comparison of MHtri to MH3U. People were able to use the Dolphin emulator to realize that they actually downgraded the models and textures of MH3U on the WiiU, essentially meaning it was nothing more than a shoddy port. Models are more complex and all textures except for monster ones are better in Tri.

>>2445112
Actually I would like to add that even the "smaller" games of older days weren't necessarily small. They just had shortcuts and other tricks that make them much shorter. There are a lot of complexities and reasons to replay some older games beyond that too, depending on the game you're referencing. Amount of content isn't always the best measure of a good game.

>>2456657
Do people actually give this much of a shit about this?

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate looked fine. Monster Hunter was never some series that was super graphically impressive anyways. I'm just happy it came out on Home Console at all, considering they abandonned it for MH4 and potentially the new Monster Hunter X as well.

>>2456642
I said trademark as well. My point is that no one can even use the likeness of characters today even the original idea is shit and someone could do it better because of trademark.

Emulation keeps old games alive. I don't want games to be like film where there are hundreds of movies that are completely lost to time.

>>2444760
>Euro gamer is outright calling for an end to emulation.

yeah and Euro gamer needs to outright shut the fuck up.

I mean shit emulation is sometimes the only way to preserve these games for others to play in the future due to licensing issues and devs being cuntwads with their IPs.