Post by ie on Feb 10, 2008 4:34:13 GMT -5
Ah, emulation. This used to be a big deal back around the turn of the century, because we were still so young. The RIAA was serious business. The discussion of the legality of emulation came up quite a bit, which allowed me to sharpen this classic argument:
PersonA buys TheGame for $20. TheGameCompany that made TheGame might get $15 for that, whereas CompanyA gets $5. PersonA plays it for a couple years then sells it to CompanyB (or hell, even CompanyA) for $1. Really. CompanyB (to avoid cynicism) stocks TheGame for $5. Repeat as necessary. Eventually, you purchase TheGame for $10 from CompanyX. Legally, you've put $10 into this game. But who got your $10? Not TheGameCompany. Nope, it was CompanyX who received 100% of your money. Because of this, it doesn't matter to TheGameCompany whether you bought TheGame or not, because PersonA bought it; that's the only profit involved for them.* Because you cannot purchase TheGame directly from TheGameCompany, there is no legally binding reason to be forced into buying TheGame, since TheGameCompany is no longer receiving money from TheGame. Therefore, buying old games is only for the collecting aspect. QED.
* There was talk of Nintendo or some other company trying to cut back on used video game sales for this reason, though not stated as that reason.
Feel free to talk about anything related to emulation, from faults in my argument (possible, I wrote this at 2AM) to favorite emulators (NNNesterJ and ZSNES, mainly). Of course, we live in a different time now, so emulation and piracy is much more laid back now, but video games have a history, and this is part of it.
PersonA buys TheGame for $20. TheGameCompany that made TheGame might get $15 for that, whereas CompanyA gets $5. PersonA plays it for a couple years then sells it to CompanyB (or hell, even CompanyA) for $1. Really. CompanyB (to avoid cynicism) stocks TheGame for $5. Repeat as necessary. Eventually, you purchase TheGame for $10 from CompanyX. Legally, you've put $10 into this game. But who got your $10? Not TheGameCompany. Nope, it was CompanyX who received 100% of your money. Because of this, it doesn't matter to TheGameCompany whether you bought TheGame or not, because PersonA bought it; that's the only profit involved for them.* Because you cannot purchase TheGame directly from TheGameCompany, there is no legally binding reason to be forced into buying TheGame, since TheGameCompany is no longer receiving money from TheGame. Therefore, buying old games is only for the collecting aspect. QED.
* There was talk of Nintendo or some other company trying to cut back on used video game sales for this reason, though not stated as that reason.
Feel free to talk about anything related to emulation, from faults in my argument (possible, I wrote this at 2AM) to favorite emulators (NNNesterJ and ZSNES, mainly). Of course, we live in a different time now, so emulation and piracy is much more laid back now, but video games have a history, and this is part of it.
