Your thoughts on emulators

[Spuuky]

I have emulated many games in the past. How, exactly, was I supposed to play Dragon Quest 5, or Seiken Densetsu 3, or whatever you wish to name? They wouldn't sell them in my country or in my language, and I had no reason to believe they ever would (they did eventually with Dragon Quest, but not in the original form, which does matter).

Of course it is illegal, and I never "pirate" games I could buy anymore. When I was a child I did, but I feel no regrets about that, either. I wouldn't have bought them - I didn't have the money, and it's as simple as that. There was 0 chance that I would have purchased them. As soon as I became financially independent and was able to buy games, I stopped pirating them.

[Elskidor]

I like emulators for older systems like NES and SNES and GBA. I have not thought a lot of newer emulators, but I bet I would use those too if ever I thought of a game I wanted to play.

[Mirage]

I like to use PS2 emulators to save that poor old laser diode in my fat ps2. Also, people without modified consoles can use it to play game modification hacks and translation hacks even if they own the games.

[Ayen]

I'm not a lawyer but I think it's mainly games that are currently in stores that are illegal. Older games that are off the market and the company is no longer making money off of is a different story and a game that was never released in America isn't costing anyone money since there were no games over here to purchase in the first place.

No, it is still entirely against the law (in most countries). The question is if the copyright holder cares enough about it anymore to want to first find out who's pirating it, and then also pressing charges.

Ah well, I take the South Park stance on piracy anyway.

[Dr Unne]

Another point in favor of emulation is format shifting. I own a bunch of PSP games and my PSP is dying. There's a good PSP emulator (PPSSPP) that I can use to play those games full-screen on my computer monitor using an xbox controller with the sound coming out of my nice speakers. Why shouldn't I be allowed to do this?

The technology exists to let us do all kinds of insanely cool things. Region-locking, DRM, anti-jailbreaking features, proprietary disk formats and AV cables, handheld devices lacking video-out ports, this crap is all bad news. Emulators are one counter to the tight control that some people try to exert over technology.

[black orb]

>>> The emulators I play..
MAME, Nes, Snes, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Gameboy, Gameboy advance, PSX.

The emulators I Dont play.
Nintendo DS, N64, Gamecube, Wii, PSP, PS2, Dreamcast, Sega Saturn.

[Ghosteses]

not sure my opinion really counts because i only started emulating since i joined here. someone in chat told me about it but i only downloaded the games that i own xD

i know that sounds boring but... i just feel guilty playing a game that the person did not get paid for ;o maybe it is just me xD

i think if you own the game or the game is loooong gone or not sold in your country you can do it. like everyone else said. but i think you should only do it if you own the game already but that is just me.

i am not going to go yelling at people who dont do that. i just personally feel bad doing it. i downloaded a NES game and deleted to because it just felt wrong to be playing it when i never actually brought it xD

[Pike]

I only emulate games that I no longer own the console for (C64/NES/SNES) or alternatively Pokemon games that I already own because that way I can actually have more than one save file. I do not really feel guilty about it, no. 95% of the stuff I emulate is stuff I actually own or owned at one point, anyway.

I would definitely prefer if more of this stuff was readily and easily "legally" available because then I would pay for it. I don't emulate Sega Genesis games, for example, because Sega re-releases most of their classics on basically every platform available so I have many of them on Steam or whatnot. On the other hand, Nintendo loves to make it difficult unless you have a Wii or something which I don't have, thus I mostly emulate Nintendo games. And obviously you aren't going to find much Commodore 64 stuff around, so those games get emulated too.

[Tasura]

I use emulators mainly for NES, SNES, GBA and DS. I use the first 3 because where am I going to find a new game for those today, where the money goes to the company? I use the DS emulator mainly as a way to test out games to see if they're worth buying, hell most of the DS games I own I bought after trying them on an emulator. I also use it to play games that are hard to find, case in point Monster Rancher DS, I have never seen a copy (new or used) in any store since it's release.

[Jiro]

I pirate occasionally because I'm poor as smurf and want to try things out. Most of my pirating has been of old systems and games, the ones I can't really get a hold of any more, and then there was a big chunk of GBA stuff because some smurfer stole my GBA and games.

[qwertysaur]

I try to avoid it if possible. But if it's a game that was never released in America like Mother 3 for example then it's my only feasible option.

[Mirage]

I use emulators mainly for NES, SNES, GBA and DS. I use the first 3 because where am I going to find a new game for those today, where the money goes to the company? I use the DS emulator mainly as a way to test out games to see if they're worth buying, hell most of the DS games I own I bought after trying them on an emulator. I also use it to play games that are hard to find, case in point Monster Rancher DS, I have never seen a copy (new or used) in any store since it's release.

Tons of them on ebay.

[Tasura]

I use emulators mainly for NES, SNES, GBA and DS. I use the first 3 because where am I going to find a new game for those today, where the money goes to the company? I use the DS emulator mainly as a way to test out games to see if they're worth buying, hell most of the DS games I own I bought after trying them on an emulator. I also use it to play games that are hard to find, case in point Monster Rancher DS, I have never seen a copy (new or used) in any store since it's release.

Tons of them on ebay.

Most are without cases, or more than the game would be new, or with shipping as much as the game itself.

[KentaRawr!]

I have no moral qualm with emulating games, though I've only done it with PSX games and the emulator I went (ePSX) with was terrible and put me off from ever wanting to go through such a method again because of how glitchy and awful it was. Since then, I prefer to play games on the console in which they were designed for because emulators are just too much of a hassle for me to deal with.

ePSXe is actually pretty great; you just have to know how to set it up. But then there are other emulators which require basically no set up, especially for older systems like NES and SNES, or some which require minimal set up, like emulators designed for Sega CD and PC Engine.

My stance on emulation is pretty much the same as everyone else's here. Pirating games which are currently being sold = bad, whereas pirating games which one has no other feasible method of obtaining = good, even if both = illegal.

[Spooniest]

I have emulated many games in the past. How, exactly, was I supposed to play Dragon Quest 5, or Seiken Densetsu 3, or whatever you wish to name? They wouldn't sell them in my country or in my language, and I had no reason to believe they ever would (they did eventually with Dragon Quest, but not in the original form, which does matter).

Of course it is illegal, and I never "pirate" games I could buy anymore. When I was a child I did, but I feel no regrets about that, either. I wouldn't have bought them - I didn't have the money, and it's as simple as that. There was 0 chance that I would have purchased them. As soon as I became financially independent and was able to buy games, I stopped pirating them.

This.

So many games I've played on an emulator. Games I never would have tried or seen for sale.

Samurai Pizza Cats in particular.