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Post by toei on Aug 9, 2018 22:20:53 GMT -5
I feel like these discussions have already been had a bazillion times all over the Internet over the course of the last twenty years. I'd say that's more an issue of cataloging than anything else. After all, what's the incentive to download an obscure PS2 game that's barely been covered at all? Especially if it's crappy? Some things are forgotten for good reason. I knew someone would post some variation of this. It's beyond silly to assume that anything really obscure must be bad. In order to be forgotten, a game has to have been known in the first place. There are games that were barely marketed, came out in limited quantities, and haven't been widely rediscovered yet. There are games that were quickly dismissed due to some flaw or another that offer things few other games do, or went unnoticed at a time where a few too many games like it were being made, and are still well-worth playing. I've written in-depth articles about such games for this very site. The incentive is discovery, of course. The incentive is revisiting a library as vast as the PS2's and realizing there's so much you'd missed the first time around. I'm glad I got to play Code of the Samurai or Yakuza Fury, for example, two Japanese PS2 games only released in English in Europe. Thanks to emulation, I was even able to force Code to run at 60fps like the Japanese original, rescuing it from a PAL version that destroyed the timing-based battle system by slowing it all down. I took it upon myself to try Hissatsu!, a Saturn game released in a small print in Japan alone and based on a live-action show, and it was actually good. I discovered Samurai Nihon-ichi to be the best '80s single-plane beat-'em-up, despite being nearly unknown compared to crap games like Black Belt or China Warrior. I only tried it because it had the word "Samurai" in the title, because no one talked about it. If torrents are what it comes down to, I'll get into torrents. I'd honestly rather support an above-board emulation solution, but it seems like no one cares to make that happen.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2018 23:19:45 GMT -5
Most people, that is, the general public and even the general gaming population, have no idea what E.V.O.: Search for Eden is. This game is never going to be rereleased, and that holds doubly true for its predecessor. By most accounts, these would be "forgotten games", but they certainly aren't bad. If only the "worthwhile" experiences are preserved, one could posit that the Michael Bay Transformer movies are good because they made billions of dollars.
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Post by ResidentTsundere on Aug 10, 2018 2:09:23 GMT -5
A certain point has been made elsewhere, that these emulation sites changing or shutting down, wouldn't be so bad if game companies weren't shit at preserving their history. Didn't Sega lose the code for games like Panzer Dragoon Saga?
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Post by eatersthemanfool on Aug 10, 2018 2:49:32 GMT -5
I would not be at all opposed to buying re-releases of old games if companies would actually release them instead of sitting on them. (Mostly because they're stuck in copyright hell.)
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Aug 10, 2018 6:11:14 GMT -5
The (non-piracy) future of this sort of thing is probably in services like Spotify, but they won't cover the obscure stuff. Spotify doesn't even cover 30% of all songs ever recorded.
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Post by toei on Aug 10, 2018 6:22:32 GMT -5
The (non-piracy) future of this sort of thing is probably in services like Spotify, but they won't cover the obscure stuff. Spotify doesn't even cover 30% of all songs ever recorded. Case in point, there's a lot more variety of music on youtube than Spotify. If big business doesn't provide, people will find a way. Of course the royalties artists get from Spotify are so minuscule that it's barely better than piracy...
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Post by moran on Aug 10, 2018 7:42:23 GMT -5
If it compares to anything in the music realm it’s Metallica vs Napster. Just the idea of someone getting something they owned for free, no matter how minuscule it’s effect on their bottom line, sent them into a rage and they attacked and shut down that system. And in a nutshell, from their ashes rose many more applications that got better with time which led to streaming and destroyed and changed the infrastructure of the music business. I don’t know or think that this will have monumental repurcussions as that, but this could be on the same lines if people respond in similar fashion. Major publishers make money hand over fist while developers find themselves bankrupt and forgotten about. I don’t think emulations of older titles that aren’t in circulation is hurting anything in a major way other than it’s theirs and they don’t want you to have it until they say so.
Life is too short to worry about emulation.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Aug 10, 2018 9:01:52 GMT -5
I don’t think emulations of older titles that aren’t in circulation is hurting anything in a major way other than it’s theirs and they don’t want you to have it until they say so. Maybe not, but it's not like it's feasible for companies to complain about just the ROMs that are in circulation right now. That makes me wonder if a ROM site that only limits its selection to games that haven't seen any release in ages would be targeted as well. But it all doesn't really matter anyway. It's the internet. If you want to get something for free, you'll be able to find a way.
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Post by moran on Aug 10, 2018 9:20:22 GMT -5
Of course, there’s rational reasons on both sides. I can’t blame them for protecting their rights in the least bit. But like you said and has been mention, it’s not the end. It’s not like they confiscated all the roms.
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Post by ZenithianHero on Aug 10, 2018 10:08:17 GMT -5
At least when Nintendo goes on a Rom site raid they re-release majority of their back catalog. Save for obscure and/or Japan only stuff. Shame the whole archive goes down with their copyright strikes. It really does remind me of Youtube channel takedowns because people love to archive videos of shows we never see ever again. Like Viacom for example. They won't rerelease older game shows except maybe Double Dare.
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Post by ReyVGM on Aug 10, 2018 11:38:23 GMT -5
At least when Nintendo goes on a Rom site raid they re-release majority of their back catalog. Save for obscure and/or Japan only stuff. Shame the whole archive goes down with their copyright strikes. It really does remind me of Youtube channel takedowns because people love to archive videos of shows we never see ever again. Like Viacom for example. They won't rerelease older game shows except maybe Double Dare. Nintendo actually has no say in roms other than the ones for their own IPs. The only thing Nintendo can sue them for, is for their own games. Maybe you could make a case of games released on their systems, but even so, they wouldn't take down games from other consoles then. If the sites take down all the content, it's because they wanted to. Maybe they got scared, maybe it wasn't worth the trouble, maybe they thought Sony or Sega would follow suit. I mean, I guess Ninendo could demand the entire site to shut down, but if that went to court, I'm sure a judge would only demand Nintendo's games to be removed, not the games they don't have copyright for. But of course, no rom site will ever take that to court. This is really nothing new, and other sites (such as emuparadise) have removed all Nintendo games from their downloads because they know Nintendo is usually the one that goes after rom sites.
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Post by starscream on Aug 10, 2018 12:01:14 GMT -5
I'd just assume that any of these sites have a limited life span, not because of copyright, but because they're privately owned with rather limited audiences and staff. Dunno exactly how the economics work out if you offering big collections, but there are other considerations as well. I think any of such sites being around for about 2 decades or more time is already respectable. As a user, you benefit from having alternative sources, if you don't have them, you'll always have rude awakenings.
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Post by KGRAMR on Aug 10, 2018 13:59:40 GMT -5
There needs to be a new copyright law for games that the copyright expires and it becomes public domain if after ten years the game is not readily available in a legal manner. This would provide incentive for publishers to keep their games available and if not, if they're too lazy or the rights have been lost to time, like what happened to NOLF, the games can be legally downloaded and shared by anyone. Yeah, i do agree on that part. It sucks that good games on systems that are mostly ignored by a mayority of the community won't get another chance in the spotlight due to copyright or a trademark.
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Post by jorpho on Aug 10, 2018 23:01:15 GMT -5
Most people, that is, the general public and even the general gaming population, have no idea what E.V.O.: Search for Eden is. I wouldn't be so sure about that. I mean, you could say most of the general gaming population could only name about a dozen SNES games in the first place. E.V.O., at least, got more than average coverage in Nintendo Power back in the day. But was the barrier to entry not much, much lower with the Playstation? Is there not a correspondingly greater proportion of forgettable Playstation games? Maybe not, but it's not like it's feasible for companies to complain about just the ROMs that are in circulation right now. That makes me wonder if a ROM site that only limits its selection to games that haven't seen any release in ages would be targeted as well. Trixter notes that the magic words are "beyond economic recovery". trixter.oldskool.org/2016/01/
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Post by moran on Aug 10, 2018 23:52:57 GMT -5
I don’t know, back then if it wasn’t a related to first party Nintendo or Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter the general public wasn’t aware of what was going on. To be completely honest here, I was dedicated to Nintendo then and I have no idea what the hell E.V.O. is.
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