Valve Confirms It Contacted Nintendo About Dolphin Emulator Coming To Steam

Does the emulator use closed-source Nintendo code? If not, then I fail to see how Nintendo has the legal standing to remove the emulator. Unless they are distributing the ROMs/ISOs as well, which I doubt they would be stupid enough to do.

So is the narrative gonna shift to “bad Valve” now?

@Arawn93 On some other site? Probably.

Translation: Valve took Dolphin down because they don't want to risk getting sued by Nintendo.

@ROOCIS The emulator contains proprietary cryptographic keys that are used to decrypt games at runtime. According to statements from Nintendo’s lawyer, this is the basis of the takedown request.

Emulation will always be a gray area. No matter how noble and "legal" emulation and homebrew is, it can still be used for illegal consumption of games. So I get where Nintendo is coming from and potential risks (piracy) are still factored in the legal system and can be ruled in favor (against).

That said, this still sucks but I wouldn't worry too much. The Deck isn't the only thing Dolphin can run on.

Then please nintendo, I beg of you, bring over the wii and GameCube games! I will pay money! Please I just want to play the paper Mario games!

"We are an open platform but we are scared of Nintendo."

PC master race in shambles.

@ROOCIS Actually, I kind of does. The Wii encryption keys were found in the source code of the emulator. The thing is, no one has gone to court to argue if it's legal or not.

@ROOCIS
They kinda did use copyrighted code.( or something along those lines)

Poor Nintendo is gonna go bankrupt when people emulate 20 year old gamecube games you can’t buy anymore

@ROOCIS Well the Wii side yes. The Gamecube side of Dolphin emulation is 100% legal

@PipeGuy64Bit @blindsquarel @NatiaAdamo @RedWing512 Ok, thank you for clearing that up. Then yeah, if it uses proprietary code Nintendo would have a legal standing.

"Given Nintendo’s history of taking action against some emulators, we brought this to their attention proactively after the Dolphin team announced it was coming soon to Steam."

Nintendo never took action against any emulators or their makers, that was Sony. Nintendo only go after rom sites, fan made versions of actual games, games that involve their IP usage, leak of company and project info, patent trolls, spoiler leakers, cheat device maker, pirate game sellers, and YouTubers that violate copyright usage despite throwing fair use as an excuse. Unless I miss something, which emulators did Nintendo actually go after before this Dolphin situations? Looks like Valve needs to do more research before they made such a false report.

Sure emulation is legal, but what the users of emulation do, just stare at the app all day? lol.

Putting it on steam is just asking for trouble, just download it on website and be done with it. I'm sure valve doesn't want to be involved in this and getting sued by nintendo.

I know nothing about the actual legality of any of this and lord knows I'm not gonna sift through laws and regulations, so I cannot comment. I will say, however, that this little saga has been pretty amusing.

"Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation."

How in what way exactly, Nintendo? How does me emulating Custom Robo or other abandoned IPs stifle innovation on your team or harm development when you're not even giving a glance to any of these old IPs in fact?

Dinosaurs, everyone of them.

And hadn't Nintendo already warned Dolphin to get that proprietary code out? This story is really funny.

This "illegal" emulator is actually illegal. The cryptographic keys such as the Wii Master Key is the equivalent providing the BIOS already in the download. It's not illegal to provide emulators, but it is illegal to provide certain things like BIOS and ROMS. Dolphin royally screwed up, pure stupidity to put that in there.

Dolphin is perfectly accessable on the website. I don't really see any benefit of it being on steam. Just in case though make sure you get Dolphin installed before this mess possibly explodes into a problem for the emulator.

@SwitchForce yeah sure nintendo can do all that, remasters, rereleases, but theyve proved time and time again thed rather do the dripfeed because that makes them more money. no ones arguing this is legally right, some are just saying its morally right, depends on how you look at it.

People who use unofficial emulators often justify it by saying that the emulator itself is not technically illegal. It must be a big blow to the community to learn that one of the most well-known emulators is actually illegal after all.

I'm glad I still have all my GC games. Even stuff like Baten Kaitos and BK Origins( please release the English dub for the HD version) TTYD, Double Dash and others. I don't have that problem of oh let me buy them.

Nintendo isn't doing anything with its own Gamecube library. Were Nintendo actively making these titles available, they'd have a great excuse to complain. I've never seen one company fight so hard against emulation while doing little to provide enthusiasts with an alternative way to experience some great oldies

@Zyph I don't think it's a grey area at all. What if you want to play backups of your old games?

Anything 15+ years old is fair game imo.

I bet that was the shortest conversation!
Valve : Can we...
Nintendo : No!
🤣

I doubt their proactive attempt here. This is the same Valve that: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/10/random-valves-latest-steam-deck-trailer-briefly-shows-a-switch-emulator

People saying Nintendo are the bad guys needs to understand that in the end of the day, it’s Nintendo’s product and they have all legal rights to protect it and prevent other people misusing their products. If I am Nintendo and people are selling things that are designed to pirate the things I put my money and effort to make, I sure as hell will be mad as well.

“Oh but Dolphin Emulator can be used for something else! It doesn’t specifically say it’s used for pirating Nintendo games!” Really? You really think people are getting the dolphin emulator for some noble cause like playing some home made indie game? You and I both know people are getting that emulator so they can play pirates GameCube and Wii games.

“If Nintendo doesn’t want us to pirate their games, they should release it!” Yes! It sucks and Nintendo sucks for making their games so hard to get access to but that doesn’t make what Dolphin is doing right, two wrongs don’t make a right.

“Nintendo you liar, how does downloading chibi robo will ultimately result in the quote Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation?”, last time I checked, companies need money to make video games, guess how they make such profit? By making you buy a game rather than pirating. Most pirates aren’t pirating Chibi Robo only if they decide to pirate the game, they’ll be pirating other games and eventually theyll be pirating Metroid Prime and Zelda WW and look at that, they happen to be on the switch. Say if you do only pirate Chibi Robo, that’s still a game you pirated which then begs the question of why Nintendo would re-release it in the future for the 5 people who wants it if the 5 people already pirated the game.

Nintendo does a lot of stupid things but protecting their IPs is not stupid or scummy.

Despite actively supporting emulation and pretty much always favouring this freedom over Nintendo's incredibly childish stance on all this, I can't wrap my head around this idea of publishing Dolphin on Steam. Seems like the dumbest idea ever...

I will always support emulation no matter legality. There's been at least 50 games I got to play thanks to it that literally changed my outlook on life, shaped my philosophies, made me the person I am today. I'd go to jail to protect that.

@SwitchForce
Most people don’t, so they’ve come up with the pathetically weak argument “game is old, it belongs to everyone for free now,” and that hides behind the “game preservation” excuse. As if Nintendo have lost their games.

@locky-mavo Game preservation is a serious issue though, as "everything not saved will be lost" and losing any kind of cultural/inventive thought or idea is a shame, no matter how small it is.

As for supporting the devs - even though I do not condone downloading roms, I kinda feel like I'm not really supporting the devs by buying overpriced used games, either. That's why I don't really have a strong stand in the matter, and I suppose it should be judged by case to case basis.

Coming back to preservation - I think it's really important, but putting it on torrents is... not the way to go.

It's the same old argument in every post about this, Valve just didn't want the drama even if they are misguided and Nintendo don't come after emulators I can understand why they are cautious.

I can see both sides, Nintendo have a right to do this and it's going to be high on their radar since even new releases like TOTK are emulated on release. However there is no way to legally access their old games anymore in a way that they would still make them profit, only people selling them second hand, usually for large amounts of money. The ones they do give us are drip-fed and NSO could be removed and we lose access to them anytime they like. They butcher the creativity of their fans by taking down products like Pokemon Uranium, which is really sad but at the same time they don't want people accidentally thinking projects that use their IP's are official.

Emulators are legal but no-one is going to use them for anything other than pirating games, let's be real. And anyone can just download dolphin still, absolutely no need to put it on steam where people will 100% play Nintendo games on Steamdeck and weird flex about it.

@Thirteen1355 then I'd expect you'd not begrudge paying for them or rewarding the developer of those games if they had such an impact. But you just got them for free so well done you.

Excellent job, Valve.
Emulation, cool as it is, is a hot button topic.
Of COURSE there are all the "for" arguments. Preservation, legal backups, etc, but 95% of emulation use is NOT that. And if you're about to at-me and argue the opposite, then you must have the absolute perfect set of friends and family that have never once, ever, asked you "as their friendly computer geek" to download an album/movie for them.

@Thirteen1355 I think that is a great argument, what games do you mean, I'm curious?

@SeantheDon29 If for example Nintendo wants to rerelease a Wii or GameCube game on the Switch. And what happens is they won't be able to stop piracy of newer systems as well.

This is ultimately a good move by Nintendo.

Dolphin is an illegal emulator, since it contains Wii decryption keys. There is no 2 ways about that. If it was purely based on reverse engineered code (black box), it would've been okay. But as it stands right now, it is not. And actually most emulators use illegal boot or decryption code. Because a purely black box emulator would only work if you get the decryption code from your actual hardware, or you would be limited to uncrypted games (homebrew).

@Jacket_p I don't begrudge that whatsoever. I don't know what made you think so. I bought the entire Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster collection even though I don't like these versions, to support the devs. I bought the Live A Live remake even though I'll probably still stick to the original. I often buy remastered releases even when mostly, they play like ***** compared to just emulating.

@ComfyAko Final Fantasy VI gave me my outlook on humanity, and that even if we all eventually die, our striving to make every day a good one is what keeps us going. Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask (this was before the 3DS versions were released, which I bought for my brother eventually) gave me an outlook on maturity and what it meant (kindness, perseverance and not looks, acting all tough etc). Super Mario Galaxy 2 caused me to completely shift my stance on how gameplay alone can make a piece of art, Metroid started my appreciation for the Metroidvania genre, and yeah many more things.

My most profound example is Mother 3, though, which shaped my outlook on the world and my decision to study Psychology and do coaching and give workshops.

Some of these games eventually release as remasters, and even though they often play much worse compared to just emulating, I buy them to show my support.

@ROOCIS According to another article on Nintendo Life, Dolphin DOES use proprietary code from Nintendo, specifically the Wii. So Nintendo's argument here is justified, sad to say. Had it not used any code from a Nintendo platform, then Nintendo would supposedly not have any legal basis to stand on, even if they say it's illegal to distribute the program.

Of course, emulation is one big gray area. While Nintendo argues that any emulation other than what they themselves do is illegal, numerous others will state that it is not illegal to emulate the ROM of a game that you already own, but it is illegal to distribute that ROM to others, even for free.

Personally, though, I fail to see how emulation stifles innovation, as Nintendo argues. After all, look at how fans released tech demos of Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time running on the Unreal 4 engine, in 4K quality, to boot! Sometimes, fans can release graphical updates far superior to whatever Nintendo ever cares to put out.

Furthermore, Nintendo has always been at the forefront of gameplay innovation (having ceded the latest graphics and processing power to Microsoft and Sony since the Wii era), so there's no way someone taking a 20-year-old game and putting it on a computer is going to stifle innovation and creativity from Nintendo... or any game company, for that matter.

@Thirteen1355 This is a brilliant set of games, Final Fantasy is a big eye opener for philosophical matters. Zeldas are pretty great too.

I got some games like that, too, but I mostly bought them all when the opportunity arose. I'm struggling not to get Mother 3 now, as I'm losing hope in Nintendo's ability to count money.

Boy can't wait to see how the internet still turns this into a "Nintendo bad" situation and calls everyone that disagrees a "corporate bootlicker".
It'a like a hivemind.

@Arkay It's already happened

These comment sections never get anywhere.

"If we say 'illegal' enough times, then eventually it'll be true!" - Nintendo

Am I the only one who was glad Valve brought it to their attention? If Nintendo wanted people to play Gamecube games on Steam then they obviously would have done so by now. These fan projects are doomed as soon as they gain any amount of traction, but these idiots never learn.

@ComfyAko There's a many more games that simply got me into a genre, made me support indie scenes and developers, but these specific games genuinely influenced my personality and my career. Other games I can think of are Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 (which I think are on Switch Online by now), Mega Man, Castlevania, Live A Live, and more Squaresoft games.

Most of these games weren't even remastered when I started emulating. And though I'd like to go more into these official remasters now that they exist, oftentimes it's just not as good as sticking to a world where fans of all ages create wonderful improvement hacks and where you can choose which version or translation you like best.

Which makes me realise: Toby Fox, creator of Undertale, started with a ROM hack of EarthBound. Suddenly I realise Undertale wouldn't exist without emulation.

@WiltonRoots

comment section takes offence to that and travels to Pluto, while whistling Mary-had-a-little-lamb.

I see no issue with emulation. I was doing it earlier. It’s not a crime or it would’ve been shut down when the first console emulator came out in the 90s. However, dolphin drawing attention to themselves by using infringed code then gallantly throwing it onto steam will draw all kinds of bad attention to emulation for the rest of the year or longer depending who or what gets involved. They’re so stupid. Now if Dolphin dies we have to use one of the awful backups or hopefully MMJ steps up. Stop drawing attention to the emulation scene. It exists we all know if you want in then come in and learn otherwise leave it off platforms outside of your own site and git deposits.

@Lightsiyd Wasn't sure what you meant but it made me laugh!

Cartridges don't last forever, discs only have a 5-10 year shelf life. The law needs to step in and make a stand on whether something that is no longer available to purchase is illegal to play.

@ATaco
Not sure what that has to do with the "PC Master Race".

Even if emulators were somehow essential for PC gaming, it's not even like the emulator is gone or anything. Valve does not represent pc gaming either.

Also funny that people keep acting like Nintendo did anything. Valve contacted Nintendo, Valve took Dolphin off Steam. Nintendo has never pursued any direct action against Dolphin in the past and they didn't here either.

I suspected there was something fishy about this situation. Why DMCA now instead of years ago?

More importantly though, why did the Dolphin devs take the easy route and use some proprietary stuff? No wonder emulation was so easy for the GameCube and Wii.

"well THAT little bit of honesty helped no one!"

@SeantheDon29 For Third, Kirby gets his games made frequently, because Hal develops them. They are a second-party studio, and can make their own decisions (just not stuff like trying to leave Nintendo's sphere). Anyways, what about Advance Wars and Famicom Detective Club? They got the remaster treatment, and they are niche (compared to Mario and Zelda). We also got Metroid Prime Remastered.

@Snow-Dust How about you not make up a bunch of people when you do your explanations? It makes you look condescending.

So I have a question. So many are defending this, and saying it’s for preserving the games. I have Starfox Adventures for Gamecube, have had the disc for multiple years. I can emulate that easily since I own it.
I also want to play Starfox assault, but I lost it like, 15-16 years ago. In the spirit of preservation. I can download this game because I bought it and owned it in 2005. That’s how this works right?

You can run dolphin on steamdeck already, just install it as a non-steam application. All we are talking about here is distributing dolphin on their store.

@FightMikes if you own and paid a lot of money for a game but you lost it, I'm not sure it is legal to download the same game off the internet to replace the lost copy. That said, I don't really see an ethical implication, seems like fair thing to do in my opinion.

@Snow-Dust Emulators have plenty of use, regardless of whether or not the ISOs the user provides are legally sourced.

@PessitheMystic If Nintendo wanted to people to play GameCube games on Switch, then obviously they would've done so by now.

@FightMikes No. By the letter of the law you can't just go online and download the game. If this was let's say 2005 the same would apply you'd need to get a different copy of the game. Just because you "owned" the game at some point does not entitle you to a copy online.

It's the same with the Switch. Just because let's say you bought I dunno... Doom (2016) for PS4 does not mean you get the Switch version for free. Or let's say you bought the physical version on Switch does not mean you just get a digital copy on the same platform. A similar concept applies to emulators. The only protection we generally have to rip our own ROMs/ISOs is through the right to backup software (section 117 of the Copyright Act).

But, what exactly is "preservation" has never been properly defined in these debates. If the debate is that the original ROM/ISO file is archived and protected would mean the game is preserved. But, if it means the game is widely accessible that is different. It's very difficult to have this discussion in generally as very few people actually hammer down on the key talking point. What exactly makes something "preserved" or not.

As an owner of current, and past, Nintendo consoles & handhelds, and have legitimately bought many games for these (currently have 70+ physical Switch games), I feel that I have suitably (and loyally) lined Nintendo's pockets over the years. As such, I do not see an issue with regard to downloading ROMs for the older consoles for games no longer available at retail. I have done this for many a game having now modded my Wii so that I can indulge myself in Nintendo's great back catalogue. I have not paid a penny and yet despite my loyalty as previously mentioned, I would be deemed a 'right wrong un' for indulging in this gray area of an activity. Yet, for the second hand games I've bought too from eBay, CeX etc, I've lined a second hand seller's pockets, resold a few to line my own pockets, and yet this is never called into question/debate.

@Tipehtfomottob Okay this is going to get messy so strap in Megaman.

The secondhand debate is more so because that copy of the game was already bought and the developer was compensated at some point. You are paying the person to own their license to the software. You are exchanging ownership of the game through a transaction. The developer was already compensated at some point is the key point and the key here is transfer ownership. The seller no longer has the software as they have transferred you their copy and while you may be giving them money, you are compensating them for ownership of their purchased good. The developer was already compensated in the initial purchase of the one copy of software. We can discuss if it is ethical to sell the game to someone else for above MSRP, but in the realm of supply and demand it's messy, but legal.

This is also a debate developers and publishers have had since the 1980s with services like Blockbuster. Do they deserve a cut of the transfer of ownership (even if it is a temporary transfer). But, that is a different debate.

The difference with piracy is that instead the software is being copied and now another copy is being given to you without ever compensating the developer for this new copy. The uploader and the downloader both have access to the software while (potentially) the developer was only compensated for one of these copies. Now multiply that for how many people downloaded the software without compensation and now we get into the ethical quagmire as the developer in theory was only ever compensated for one of those possibly thousands of rouge copies that they never authorized.

Now, we can debate the ethics of this such as abandonware, or if it's ethically okay to download a game if the game is no longer available on newer platforms. Generally though that is why a used copy is seen as more ethically permissible than the pirated copy in most people's eyes.

@Wexter Which isn't helped by some post-market games having astronomically high prices. See the current market for certain 3DS games, namely Ace Combat Assault Horizon Legacy as an example, which currently runs for upwards of 100 bucks online. Being the only existing remake of Ace Combat 2, it's the only way to legally experience Ace Combat 2, unless you own a functioning disc of the original game from the PSX era with console in hand.

Also not helped by the fact that the number of existing cartridges are finite and very few people are willing to part with them, or have any inclination to sell them at a fair price. It's situations like this that are why piracy exists: when there's no legal way to own/play a game without having to pay exorbitant prices for the experience.

There's a reason Gabe Newell called piracy a "service problem"... it's cause he's right. It is, for the most part.

Yeah there are some who will do it anyway, that's inevitable, but it's also a proven fact that if you have the right price for a proven great experience, people at large will be willing to pay for it.

And people will still simp for big corporations on social media lol

@MegaVel91 That is where the ethical part of the debate is important to have. I mean I agree for the most part that players should not have to pay higher than MSRP prices for a game... but at the same time as someone who owns a few very valuable games like Devils Third which goes from $450-900USD I'd have a hard time parting with it for anything under that amount. The used game debate is a hard one to have especially for games that are finite and in some cases were not that well circulated in the new market to begin with.

This is why I do agree that accessibility should be a far higher priority in these discussion than preservation. As the former is far more beneficial to people than the ambiguous later term which can get people quickly into a semantic quagmire.

@SeantheDon29 its not up to you to decide that anyhow, it's their IP not yours, just because you have unused and and abandoned stuff in your basement doesn't mean i have the right to broke into your house and start using them as i please just bc you're not using your things at the moment, grow up dude.

@AstroTheGamosian Of course, emulation is one big gray area. While Nintendo argues that any emulation other than what they themselves do is illegal, numerous others will state that it is not illegal to emulate the ROM of a game that you already own, but it is illegal to distribute that ROM to others, even for free.
Here's the problem with this fallacy argument. First you don't own the IP or Rights to the Game. And if done for self and no others - NO console makers is going to knows that happened. One should read up on how poorly paid these developers are before talking on freely distributing hurts them not the Publishers

@Wexter I already posted two sites on other discussion whom does preservation already but we all know what is meant when people talk preservation here is about Privacy and Illegal Distribution without paying the Creators of the Game not the Publishers.

@Wexter To preserve it means not just to archive and protect it, but to make available for all to experience. That's part of the point of games preservation: to ensure people can see where video games have been to further appreciate and understand where they are now, by being able to experience them.

If a company/corporation refuses to make some games available to the wider public, then preservation via piracy is the only real avenue to do so. The reason piracy exists (outside of people who do it purely because they want it free) is because, as you mentioned, lack of convenient access to a product, but also exorbitant prices (like the after-market price of some games no longer in circulation) and companies/corporations unwillingness to keep the former of the two in play.

Ace Combat Assault Horizon Legacy, like I mentioned above, is an example of a game that, currently, suffers from both problems at once. That makes piracy of it more desirable for some people because piracy eliminates both of those problems (assuming your comp isn't a total potato and can run the necessary emulator) ...and that's also assuming current emulators can even run it at a respectable framerate.

And the fact of the matter is, preservation being only an archival and protection effort, with no means of access, will only exacerbate the problem of piracy further by pushing people to other means.

@KingMike so does a bong to smoke weed, it has many uses and it isn’t illegal to own a bong but 99% of bong owners are sure as hell going to use it for smoking weeds. Same with an emulator, it can be used for other applications but it sure as hell will have 99% of the users using it to pirate games. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking the devs of Dolphin Emulator wouldn’t know what their users are really using Dolphin for, this is why they tried to ship the product with the Wii’s cryptographic key.

I think a lot of people misread the situation that people who dislike Nintendos stance on emulation have. There is almost no one who is knowledgeable about emulation who thinks it should be or is legal. Obviously it isn’t. But Nintendo doesn’t give people a good option to experience their legacy titles. It took 6 years to get damn game boy games on the switch, who knows how long we could be waiting for gamecube or Wii. Maybe never! Piracy is almost always a service problem, a lot of people who emulate gamecube and Wii games on Dolphin illegally would probably buy them, if there was a chance to do so. If Nintendo wants people to stop emulating their back catalog, maybe they should provide solid alternatives

@SwitchForce And how does pirating -specifically- old games, hurt developers? Especially ones that are no longer widely available on the market? For that matter, any money made after-market is not going to the developers at all. They aren't getting some royalty or residual for that. So how do you square that as hurting the devs?

Can someone enlighten me please. What exactly is the point of emulators if not to play ROMs? I mean, that is exactly what they are emulating.

@MegaVel91 The problem with preservation as a term is that it can mean very different things. One is how far is preservation? Is it just the access to the software or is also the materials to development? Does this include, source code, concept art, archival builds etc. Because all those do count when having the discussion and why the term is murky. For example film preservation also includes trying to replicate the original viewing conditions, not just duplication and archival. Is that also part of preservation for games? This is why I say it is murky to have that discussion as it means many different things rather than just the blunt response of accessibility which 9/10 times is what most gamers are talking about not preservation.

This is where I tend to have the "bigger fish to fry" argument because so much of the medium is lost on the daily. A lot of devs have no idea is they can find the source code for things they developed just five years ago, let alone twenty. And this is where we really need to put the devs feet to the fire. As with better archival practices we can get more efficient ports and remasters of older games. The reason Panzer Dragoon Saga has not been re-released is because of poor archival practices. While let's be honest Nintendo 1st party games will always at some point get re-releases (especially fan favorites like Super Mario Bros. Zelda, Kirby, Xenoblade etc.), those are not necessarily the games most in danger of being lost (Nintendo even re-released StarFox 2 and Earthbound Beginnings which never had official releases) rather it is the lesser known ones that may have lost their publishers years ago or exist in the belly of other uncaring companies who have no idea they have the rights to them.

As for accessibility, that too is complicated as while in principle I think it is extremely important and I think is a high priority from our perspective. But, from a dev perspective the important parts of preservation tends to get lost as those are key to allow for accessibility in the future. So, we need to be far more vocal about the nitty gritties of preservation and not just use it as a catch all for accessibility.

Nintendo, just let us BUY the games then! Take those roms, sell them for 20 dollars a pop on the eshop, and people will buy them! Or, better yet. Make a PC launcher for your old games. This won't stop all pirating, but it will CERTAINLY eliminate a good amount of it.

Nintendo should have no legal standing for consoles and games they no longer sell. If people want to compare this to physical goods (even though a copy doesn't eliminate the original) then consider that GM has no interest in a stolen 2005 Yukon as they quit selling those long ago.

It’s baffling to me that you’d stop people from playing your older games on emulators if you don’t offer some kind of alternative.
I can’t imagine how much money I’ve spent on Zelda after discovering A Link to the Past on an emulator.

The pirating of older, inaccessible games has little to no impact on the industry, unless one is in the business of exclusively releasing retro titles. All of the major companies are firmly aware that the most money is to be made in the latest, greatest technology, which is why they are always moving forward and not backward. Valve, and perhaps GoG, are the only companies who have any real sense on this issue and believe that the best way to combat it is to make your games as widely available as possible at reasonable prices. Piracy will always happen, and complaining about it is about as useful as complaining about the weather.

@SwitchForce

Just how often are the actual creators of older games getting paid from the sales of those titles? My guess would be hardly ever. In many cases the money may be going to a company full of employees who had nothing to do with the original release, given how far back games now go. I believe most developers/creators are either salaried or contractual workers with no residual/royalty income.

I'm kind of curious if Nintendo couldn't just let it go with the provision that the major emulators report statistics and gauge relative engagement based on usage to figure out which remasters would likely be profitable. If people are gonna do it, at least get the marketing data.

They absolutely never would go for it, but I think it's an interesting alternative approach.

Give back Wii u era virtual console. So I won't have to find pikmin 2 myself. I understand that some people will just play the first Metroid prime on dolphin which drops sales. But most people use dolphin since it is the only way to play some old games and and sometimes it's used for lesser known titles which will probably never see the light of day. Good virtual console will kill most dolphin usage since people will be able to play the big games from the that time easily.

@Snow-Dust I could try to make an intelligent discussion but since you want for a weed comparison, I will let you stick with your narrow-minded opinion.

@KingMike ahh falling to using insults just to try to prove a point much like a child who’s unable to hold a sensible debate, very nice 👍

I don’t use Dolphin since both my Wii and Wii U are homebrewed with several games on them, but some people don’t have an option to play on the original consoles. I’d like it if Nintendo could release a good Virtual Console on the Switch instead of the games on NSO, or just rerelease their older games more often. If Nintendo refuses to rerelease Rhythm Heaven Fever or Xenoblade X I’ll find another way to play them

@SwitchForce I bought Virtual Console games I liked, even though I owned several of the games in original form. Availability of playing a game should not depend on when and if Nintendo wants to give us a half-assed legal emulation of it (things like no button mapping on Wii VC, not even basic SGB emulation on 3DS). Emulation doesn't stifle creativity, if gives Nintendo ideas when and if they feel like using for their own self-serving purposes. Until they decide to take ideas from it, and even after, they whine and moan about it.

@LawnChairMan
Yeah its similar to the whole "piracy is a service issue" idea.

Naturally its not an absolute, there are those who will pirate regardless but it definitely feels like there is a market for being able to buy the games legit for modern systems if the amount of retro compilations weve been getting is anything to go by.

Nintendoughs anti game preservation efforts is why a majority of people with wavering ethics feel it's 100% morally correct to pirate from the big N.

So...after reading the article, for like, 20 times now. (Weird, i know).

I just gotta ask everyone...are we really supposed to be mad at Valve for doing this just to avoid a lawsuit? I don't blame them at all. It's wasn't like they wanted to not have the Dolphin emulator on their storefront but they knew full well of what to expect if they didn't.

So I'm not blaming or marking Valve as the bad guy. But I do put blame on the Dolphin Emulator team for BASICALLY releasing it in the open. Could've done that on their own website.

@Zachuratedphat I seem to recall myself owning some game discs dating from the 90's in good condition. Disc's CAN LAST LONG if they're taken care well. Same goes for cartridges. Sure nothing is forever but nobody is saying good care can prolong their shelf-life, right?

Good on Valve. They were not looking for legal issues.

@SeantheDon29 That's the same thing for the Virtual Console. If you forget to redownload it after the servers shut down, you lost it forever. Granted, they're keeping the servers open for redownload, but who knows for how long?

@Zachuratedphat Disks can last a very long time if they are not damaged and are stored properly. I'm talking an order of magnitude more than the figure you're suggesting, if not more.

I feel so dumb, I've been buying games on steam to support the industry, but now Valve does this!? I think I should just go back to pirate games, you can't trust your heroes.

@Snow-Dust The problem tho is that when nintendo isn't providing an option for people to buy or play these classic games, you basically have no choice but to emulate, or use original hardware. And people pirating games that are no longer being sold does not harm the company whatsoever. What's the difference between pirating a 15 - 20 year old game that is no longer being sold or officially available in any way and buying an original copy? Nothing. They will make 0 dollars and 0 cents from that download or purchase. They are making no money from those specific titles. And even if they are selling it, people will still buy. It would only be a real problem if everyone pirated it and barely anyone bought the game. Also you can't throw emulators in with the devices that people use to run custom software. These emulators are not being sold for money. They are makinig no profit. These emulators are not designed for the sole purpose of pirating, Alot of the time they start as experiments, just for fun or as a proof of concept and they grow from there. Not everyone pirates games, you can totally use emulators to play your original games.

@Jokerwolf Oh crap, just hit me that Minecraft turns 15 next year... Damn, I'm old

@SteamEngenius Considering they were able to finish and release Star Fox 2 decades after launch. Release the English Earthbound Beginnings and Fire Emblem (NES) they're top tier when it comes to game preservation, preserving the source rather than some poxy ROM file. They even preserved the source Secret of Mana code despite it not even being their IP.

I'd wager the majority of piracy of Nintendo's games are done with no regard to whether Nintendo has preserved the game.

If only Nintendo themselves released GC games on switch!

Would buy wave race, TTYD etc in a heartbeat…

@Benderv2 i agree it sucks that Nintendo isn’t making it more available and while pirating won’t hurt obscure games that will never see re-release ever again, it may potentially hurt games that may actually hurt the more popular titles like Mario and Zelda on the GameCube and Wii.

Here’s the thing, companies will always want you to buy their games and emulators are allowing an alternate but illegal option to get the game. As long as the majority don’t pirate, it’s not an issue but companies want 100% purchase rate and 0% piracy. It’s unrealistic but it’s what they want and honestly, can you blame them? If it’s your game, wouldn’t you want to have your game purchased instead pirated.

Fact is majority of the people who’s looking for emulators are trying to use it for pirating games.

@Snatcher
I would buy the hell out of a paper Mario collection.

For me i really wish that the games on NSO were made available for purchase, i have no issue with the service being available but wish it wasn't the only way to play these older games on the system since while digital definitely has its inherent flaws it at least for the most part offers a kind of "safety net" if the games are delisted or the service ends.

Wow, I had no idea Dolphin used proprietary code. I can totally understand not having that on Steam.

I don't personally mind emulation.

Heck, I grew up during the era when these games came out and I have owned the games in the past.

I mostly use it to relive those experiences (even if I do it for like a day or 2) and then just get rid of them. I don't have a collection of consoles and games just taking up space, so it's a great way to get that nostalgia-induced dopamine every once in a while.

I'll buy a re-release collection or two from time to time, so I also support "proper" methods of playing the games.

@Benderv2 I too don't know what some users are expecting people to do about the 90% of games that will never be rereleased because of licensing. Never play them?
Remember that if you buy a used game, rent it, or borrow it from a friend, you're still a "pirate" by their logic.

The way I see it is human beings on average live to be about 75 in most countries, so by that logic 15 years seems to be a fair amount of time to make money off of a game, after that time if you're not providing a way that is easy for people to get any game that released in the past, that's tough ***** for you as a company or a developer (I am a developer FYI).

"But I have no choice, Nintendo won't release it."

What if Nintendo released it tomorrow? You never know when they'll release something which is why it's never ok to pirate.

So what do you do? You move on with your life. Play something else instead. There are thousands upon thousands of video games to choose from. Are you telling me there's nothing else you want to play?

Nothing justifies piracy, period.

@Rainbowfire

If they release it tomorrow, you have the option to buy it, and, in the meantime, you can enjoy the pirated copy. Of course, you can deny yourself this if you wish, but you can't deny it of everyone else.

@ROOCIS the games on emulator belong to Nintendo. Pirating is still illegal no matter if its on emulator or not. I don't understand how pc gamers are justifying digital theft. I'm sorry you have be like everyone else and pay for your games.

@Rainbowfire They don't care that they're doing something illegal. They're criminals that have no morals or values. They come up with any excuses to justify themselves on why they steal.

@Jokerwolf If you're a developer then you should be ashamed of yourself encouraging people to steal. Nintendo keeps paying for the copyright then it belongs to them, and doesn't matter how you feel. I wouldn't want someone to pirate your games. You work too hard on it for somebody to steal it from you. I don't care if it 20 years or 30 years. If you pay for the copyright then its yours.

@Hellburner918 I have Pikmin 1 & 2 on my homebrewed Wii, I’m definitely a wanted criminal by now

@Hellburner918

Not all theft is equal, which should be rather obvious. The same is true of other types of illegal activity. Buying something like marijuana for personal use in a place where it's illegal is hardly the same as importing a massive amount of an illegal drug for the purpose of selling, yet you would undeniably equate the two.

@LawnChairMan the benefit was that the steam version was specifically made for steam deck users both in interface and everything. The site version was awkward, REALLY awkward on the deck, and this was dolphin and steams solution.

It was also going to have cloud save support.

@fenlix Valve is still a corporation. They were never your friend, all Gabe wants is the money from your wallet.

@NinjaWaddleDee Well, at least the PC port begging took longer than I expected.

@FirstEmperor lol, believe me I'm not begging for ports. I still buy and play nintendo hardware. I'm just spit balling an idea for how Nintendo could POSSIBLY combat PC pirates.

@Hellburner918 The first thing you have to accept as a developer is that people are going to pirate your games/software but those people were very likely never going to buy it in the first place so from a logic standpoint you don't really care as a developer at the end of the day.

Also I can guarantee you the people who worked on those games aren't getting any money from those games anymore it's only the faceless huge corporation that gets money now.

@NinjaWaddleDee I mean, you literally said "Or, better yet. Make a PC launcher for your old games." That certainly sounds like port begging but thank you for the clarification.

@FirstEmperor Gotta love the Nintendo community.