ALRIGHT. First of all - let's separate the sheep from the goats on this matter.
First of all, the emulators themselves are NOT illegal. In fact, they are perfectly legal.
Not entirely true. They're still reverse engineerings of a system that is illegal to modify and/or reverse engineer. They're
more legal than ROMs as they're 100% impossible to govern laws for specifically - down to the fact that Nintendo, etc all use emulators themselves to run ports of games on other systems. Like the SNES games on the Virtual Console, for instance. Emulators can be turned a blind eye to legally because of that loophole, but 'perfectly' legal is totally not the right word.
ROM dumping isn't illegal on its own right either - one is allowed to make a backup copy of something they legally own, right? Well, if someone didn't legally own the original carts, they couldn't dump them into ROM form, and therefore ROMs wouldn't exist.
Actually, you don't legally own
anything when you buy a game other than the box, collective pieces of paper and the media the game comes on. The game itself is yours by means of a licence, but legally, it's owned 100% by the creators. (Well, that's a lie as there are publishers and shareholders and stuff to take into account, but you get what I mean). It is illegal to create a copy of that game on any means at all - just as it is for music, movies and TV shows.
It's very much illegal to create a ROM dump of any game, for whatever purposes.
Like ripping MP3s, of course, it's impossible to control without stuff like DRMs, but that doesn't mean that one should take solace in the fact that they aren't breaking the law - 'cos it aint true.
These are just myths like the "Delete within 24 hours" nonsense that still manages to pervade across many ROM sites.
But seriously now, folks. Before someone calls Captain Capitalism to charge in to defend Justice and the American way (TM), it should perhaps be reminded that there's somewhat of a loop in regard to so-called 'illegal' downloads - not just as far as games are concerned, but also as far as illegal music and movie downloads. This problem is slowly beginning to find its solutions, but we are still far away from any significant revolutions.
The solutions, so far, have all been heavy handed and done nothing but hurt the user (DRM on CDs, and worse - on tracks downloaded specifically for the use you're being controlled over is just... abysmal.). Eventually, we may see sense prevail and the solutions will work with the end-consumer rather than against them. But expect to see games go down the same route as music and movies in the process.
The problem is this: Distributors/publishers overcharge for their media. Some people go 'Wtf? I'm not paying that much!' and download. Distributors/publishers get pissed off, but they won't lower their prices because their fat greedy buttery managers need to buy that extra BMW-jet-engined yacht with propellors and a pink flamingo bust at the front for the kids (who don't even have the liscence to drive one of these things, but screw the law, they have money!), so the prices get raised to cope with their corporate losses. Which only makes MORE people download things, rinse and repeat.
I think you've taken a wrong step there, the real story goes:
Distributors/Publishers over-charge for their media, no-one buys that media because of the price and the price has to go up further to cover that cost. Rinse and repeat.
By not buying, you're not helping push the price margins down for future purchases. Plus, when it comes to games, I think it's fair to say that the days of over-pricing are behind us now. Considering that analysts have reported that to even make a profit on a game developed for the 360/PS3, that game has to clock up
a million sales to work its way back. As Pokemon fans, where we hear about Pokemon games clocking up 5 million without breaking a sweat, it may not faze us as much, but it's a stranglehold on the games that
aren't from major franchises, and people downloading ISOs of those games and running them on modded 360s isn't helping keep those games alive.
Meanwhile, the people that suffer most of all from this madness is the creators of said media (How much of the money do you think really goes to the original creators? Not as much as you think!), and pointless flame wars start. Ugh.
That's a bit of a misplaced argument. Sort of. The music industry is... horrible. Especially the American industry. It's built solely for the benefit of the RIAA and other fatcats. The actual performers are taken in, used, abused and kicked out when they stop making money for the guys upstairs. They, meanwhile, make a tiny fraction of the money their image and name makes in total. It's an awful situation and needs to change - but it's not really the way with the Games industry.
Generally speaking, game designers make a tidy return on their games per sale - publishers are the ones who suffer more often than not, even. Though, of course, there are the notorious stories of the actual people that work behind the scenes on games getting abused for barely suitable pay for the amount of work and hours they put in - but that's a changing scenario and mostly the relics of an industry that changed as much as others would in 50 years in just 10.
Otherwise, the games industry is a decent profit for all involved. Certainly, with Nintendo, who design and publish all their own games
and get a cut of every single game sold on their systems, it's more profitable for them than most.
Really, the worst thing that's happening to the gaming industry economy wise is the second-hand trade industry in Game shops. It's stunting sales of new games and preventing money going back to the publishers and designers. Good for us, bad for the people working to give us what we want. Exactly like ROMs.
There are always people who will pay to buy things legally for moral reasons, And always a few people that will download things out of either protest or just the will to screw the system by obtaining as much as they can for free. And quite a few people that are in between.
Anyone downloading games out of protest shouldn't be fucking playing them. They don't want to support the people making the games then don't play them. They don't deserve to. I'm sure not one of them would like it if their work was stolen and not paid for "out of protest". Protest with your mouth, not your mouse.
In case of emulation, for instance, sometimes people will download a game's ROM to try it out and see if it's actually worth buying - because in quite a few cases there's a big difference between playing the game on a computer, with a keyboard, and playing it on a console with a proper controller (Not to mention that some things cannot be properly emulated).
That is true, and I've done it before myself. Take the Xbox 360's Live Marketplace for example, almost all of fairly big and a few of the not-so-big releases have received a demo of the game available to download for free before the game was released. It's a fantastic option, and is so much better than relying on reviews and previews online or in magazines. It's a pity that the DS download stations have all but been a massive flop - it could have been fantastic to have the option to try out DS game demos before committing to the game. It's also a pity that Nintendo is retarded when it comes to all things online, otherwise they could have implemented a demo download system for both the DS and Wii. I expect that with working emulators for the DS now coming out of the woodwork that the practice of try-before-you-buy will continue for the DS.
I can't argue against it really. It's still illegal, but it's got more chance of getting someone out to buy that game than it does of them not, so it's a fairly positive use.
And - Regarding the idea of old games being released for a small fee - that still creates an issue of what games would be re-released. Take the Wii virtual console, for instance. Groundbreaking? Oh yes. The video game answer to iTunes. But still, the decision of what game gets re-released and what doesn't remains in the hands of Nintendo (and co-developers which may, as mentioned before, may now be another company's bitch) as opposed to the gamers themselves, who would actually want to see a few games that Nintendo might not exactly give a damn about.
It appears that the Virtual Console will continue to be updated weekly throughout the rest of its lifespan (which could be more than 5 years, I know Sony and Microsoft would much rather wait this time around and try and make as much back as they can. Especially since they're both fortunate enough to have consoles that will continue to expand and grow without needing to have them replaced. Hell, the VC could even be a permanent fixture on all Ninty consoles.), there's every chance that every game that can legally be released on the system will be. And even games that will require some legal wrangling too.
It's never going to be a complete library of every game ever released in any language, but neither were the original systems.
Also, Personally, I really pity companies that try to milk the consumers for all they're worth by actually selling their ancient abandoned games (Remakes with added features don't count - I'm talking about direct ports here) - that, to me, is quite definitely beating a dead horse. A lot of people nowadays wouldn't buy outdated games as is, and for the rest of the nostalgia maniacs out there - that is what the Internets is for. You stopped making money from these games years ago. Live and let fucking die.
Unfortunately, it's an incredibly simple business model to use. Whip out a game that was made 10/20 years ago, slap it onto a new form of media, stick it through an emulator and sell it on again with ['RETRO'] stamped on it. Costs are low, revenue is relatively high. They'll never make a further million copies from it, but they'll make some quick cash. And there's got to be
some audience out there to keep buying them anyway. Hell, I guess I'm even one of them considering how many times I've paid for a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Overall, I have this to say on the subject:
I have used emulators and ROMs in the past. Sometimes for specific purposes (Screenshots can be taken in one of two ways, you either get extremely lucky when speaking to Nintendo and get your hands on a DevKit, or you download an emulator and screenshot a ROM), sometimes purely to play a game I've never had the chance to play through never owning the system. (I'd have never played any SNES games without an emulator until the Wii came along).
Nothing beats playing the game as intended, and keyboards are definitely not how those games were intended. On that fact alone, it's worth paying for the games you want to play.
But as something I love, I can't really just sit back and steal from the gaming industry when it gives so much back to me. I used to play games pretty much every day. That's kinda been cut back to just pretty much every week as the real world kinda catches up with me, but it's still a massive part of my life and I'm happy to pay for that and give back to the people providing me with this form of entertainment.
I really think that anyone thinking otherwise should probably be outside kicking a football or something around - 'cos they really don't deserve to be playing someone's hard work for free.
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