Does TNL have an official piracy/emulation policy?

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Originally posted by xS
Well , in my opinion theres nothing wrong with the emulation of older games. No ones losing out , its as simple as that. I dont think anyone would suffer if I downloaded gensis ROMs, or classic arcade games for MAME , except for a bunch of greedy Ebay assholes.I dont think anyone lost out when I got Castlevania :Rhondo no chi ISO from the net.
But I am against the emulation of systems that are currently alive.GBA and wonderswan emulation is just plain wrong ,as your stealing the profits of the companies making the games.
Some people do view pirates as the robin hoods of the gaming industry , especially in asia. I doubt that people would be able to afford an Xbox when the games can cost up to $120 here.Import duties and all add to the price to such an extent that its impossible for people to buy the games.As a matter of fact Ive spent $80 on castlevania :COTM

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I feel we must differentiate between emulation and piracy. If emulators weren't developed, the console development scene would have a hard time getting its act together. Emulating is not illegal -- piracy is. The emulators were developed by people interested in furthering game development and not necessarily piracy. It's the *users* who are furthering this. ^_^

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Originally posted by xS
Well , in my opinion theres nothing wrong with the emulation of older games. No ones losing out , its as simple as that. I dont think anyone would suffer if I downloaded gensis ROMs, or classic arcade games for MAME , except for a bunch of greedy Ebay assholes.

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Translation: If I can't afford it, then anyone who sells it must be a greedy asshole. :rolleyes:

The fact that there was always a good and a bad side to emulation was always amazing. What is even more amazing is how some people would damn near start a holy crusade to try to end it (with all the extreme bashing and such)....:D

I have a couple arguments in favor of emulation.

First off, the flexibility of emulation allows me to do things I simply cannot do with my consoles. My iBook is my friend, and this friend is filled to the brim with emulators. MAME, SNES, Genesis, NES, and so on. With this, I can take it to school, work, on the road, to my friend's place - wherever. I sure can't do that with my SNES. The sheer convienence of being able to play these games wherever I want is a definate advantage.

Now, some more puritanical members might say "That's criminal! Surely you have ROMS of games you don't own on that machine!" Why, yes I do. It's true. But at the same time, I can estimate that there has been no less than 150 seperate occasions when I've been so inspired by a game or series that I've discovered haphazardly through emulation, that I went out and tracked down a copy of the game itself. Not to mention other games in the series. To say emulation causes me to buy more games than if I had never ventured into this field is an understatement.

That's not to say I support full-on piracy of modern games. But if people discover older games through emulation, I'm not going to fault them in any way.

How much does an iBook run for?

Emus on a PDA?! Look out world!! :D :lol:

I managed to get an iBook at a considerable discount (paid $700) for a 99% new floor model from Fry's Electronics in January. Other than that, I'm not sure of the average price for current models.

*Taps his lady's bank account* :lol:

If you can't buy it new - and you don't minbd the drop in quality (usually) then I'm %100 for emulation.

In that respect - I'm for the availability of ISO's for older game systems where you cannot find new titles for, like Saturn for instance. You don't do the developers or the publisher any favors by buying anything off of eBay or from the used rack. Of course you may want the packageing and the legit real-deal game, but if not no harm is done by D/Ling Sega CD or Saturn games. I'm for it.

You can not, nor should you, request ROMS or ISOs here. If you want it - make like anyone else who has to find it for themselves and raid the IRC or run a File Server dedicated to it.

ºTracer

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Originally posted by Wilykat
But at the same time, I can estimate that there has been no less than 150 seperate occasions when I've been so inspired by a game or series that I've discovered haphazardly through emulation, that I went out and tracked down a copy of the game itself.

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'Tis true here as well. Oftentimes I will use emulators to try out newer games that I'm unsure of to decide if I want to pay that amount or if the game is worth anything. If it hadn't been for Mame, I wouldn't have bought Mark of the Wolves (I played the first arcade rom of it, and decided it was worth owning and so immediately went to NCS to place an order for the import soon as they start taking pre-orders), and wouldn't have decided to own a Supergun and begin buying boards (various financial reasons have slowed me, but this will still be finished by years end, and I will still use roms to decide if such-and-such game unknown to me is worth $100-400 dollars).

But far too many abuse it for just the "free games".

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Originally posted by TriForce
Translation: If I can't afford it, then anyone who sells it must be a greedy asshole. :rolleyes:

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.Its true that I cant shell out $500 on saphire . Most of the guys selling radiant silvergun probably dont even play games ,so Im not harming the gaming industry by not buying it off Ebay.
If I were a collector and loved the box art and all , I would gladly purchase the game off Ebay.......