Whether or not Nintendo loses a sale, if that person would have otherwise bought secondhand, then someone is losing a sale. Just because it's not Nintendo specifically doesn't mean it's OK. In fact it's probably going to hurt your average middle-class Joe far more than a multibillion-dollar corporation.
That doesn't matter, though. Nobody is entitled to buy my used stuff, y'know? If the creator is making their game legally available, that's one thing, but there's no moral imperative for me to buy a second-hand copy of an out-of-print game from Joe Nobody.
And I'd argue that buying games second-hand is at least as "wrong" as piracy when it comes to depriving the content creators of compensation for their product when it comes to games that can be bought new. I don't know how it is now, but people in the industry used to point out, quite frequently, that used game sales were way more a problem than piracy when it came to consoles.
some people consider "Fan Games" piracy too, but I don't, it is openly admited as a game of a specific maker and they are always free & don't take away from revenue, so as i see it, they don't fall under the "grey area"
"If failure is the greatest teacher, how come we are not the most superior beings in the universe ???"
I tend to look at games on a more entertainment tip. Calling them art is a tad pretentious lol. Sure they have some artistry, craft and artwork, but a video game, played in the context of a video game is not bloody art people!
And basically, while there are folk willing to be entertained, e.g someone willing to play through Zelda on NES, then Nintendo do right to sell that entertainment and protect their livelihood.
@GrailUK I feel like hat seems a bit narrow-minded since you could make that same argument for movies, music, and books. Just as all those fields have their stuff that is purely for enjoyment, they also have things that can make people step back and get touched. I don't see why video games can't also fit under those circumstances.
The problem, imo, is that the AAA industry for the most part thinks that it's best to try emulating movies instead of trying to truly intertwine storytelling to video games. Games like Dark Souls, Undertale, or even to a small extent Ocarina of Time (even if it's not the deepest story ever nor completely intertwined, being a Zelda game) are those types of games that embody video game storytelling and try to take it places books or movies can't.
Games are defined by interactivity and the experience you get, not just enjoyment. Even though I actually err more on games that are fun above all else like Nintendo, indies, and select other guys like Platinum Games, there is a lot of potential for video game art if we continue to build on the strengths of games as a medium instead of just copying what books and movies do.
Metroid, Xenoblade, EarthBound shill
I run a YouTube/Twitch channel for fun. Check me out if you want to!
Please let me know before you send me a FC request, thanks.
As for my thoughts on video game preservation, for the most part people only care about the big games. Barely anyone ever wants the smaller, niche titles like The Adventures of Cookie & Cream on PS2 to be made preserved for future generations. There are people that genuinely want all that, but for the most part the arguments for preservation are really only for the classics, not any B-grade quality games.
Metroid, Xenoblade, EarthBound shill
I run a YouTube/Twitch channel for fun. Check me out if you want to!
Please let me know before you send me a FC request, thanks.
@jhewitt3476 I'm sure it's like religion and personal but for me art tends to challenge, hmm not necessarily challenge, but question or experiment with concepts abstract or more physical that we as human beings experience and experiencing them in a different way can make you reflect on things. More often than not it leaves me thinking 'What the heck was that!?' Lol. (Eek, my brain hurts now!)
I never drive faster than I can see. Besides, it's all in the reflexes.
Why do I consider emulation morally wrong? At it's core, it's because emulation is piracy, which is a form of theft. When you buy physical media it is your legal right to give it away or sell it to someone else. What you don't have the legal right to do is duplicate it and give or sell that duplicate to someone else. Doing so is not only legally wrong, but I feel it's morally wrong too.
Then there's the fact that emulation makers will blatantly do their best to create an emulator for not only defunct systems like the NES but for current gen consoles. In just 30 seconds of looking I found 3 different PS4 emulators and Xbox 360 emulators (none for XB1... yet) This means that yes, emulation does directly take away hardware and software sales that could have gone to the console manufacturer and game developers. This isn't just "letting people play games for old consoles that are no longer manufactured", it's "letting people pirate games for any console".
And as someone else pointed out, Emulator creators and rom sites aren't non-profit. They are for-profit. Do you know what they're using the money they make for? No, you don't. For all you know, the money raised by them could be funding terrorists. And even if they aren't doing that, how do you know the money isn't used to fund something you'd find objectionable?
Emulation is just as morally wrong as pirating PC games or movies. And it's just as inherently risky to do as well.
@GrailUK
You don't consider them art? Do you consider movies art?
I consider anything that has personal expression behind it to be art. My wife is a dentist and she says there's art to dentistry; she can see the personal touches and differences between dentists and the fillings, crowns, root canals, etc. they do.
@rallydefault I've opened up a right can of worms haven't I lol. Ok, I can appreciate how she can see the art in something. After all, art is the practice of creating something. But would she consider the filing in someone's mouth a piece of art? See, in it's context...it's not. It's a bloomin' filling!
in its most basic and universal form, art is bringing imagination to life and the creation of the real into another form beyond the ability of the subject matter, skill is about experience, not superior ability
yes, programming can be a complicated and fantastic art, even beyond the visual, music, story, ect.
"If failure is the greatest teacher, how come we are not the most superior beings in the universe ???"
@gcunit How? Hunting down a copy of Earthbound on eBay, or just downloading a ROM are equally ''useless'' for Nintendo; they earn nothing from either option.
Disagree. There's a finite number of physical copies of Earthbound. The second-hand market gives them value. If you couldn't buy it second-hand (eg. if the physical media somehow only loaded for the original buyer) then the game becomes worthless.
What would happen to game sales if those £50 Day 1 purchases become instantly worthless once you've had enough of it?
Sure, that's not gonna do much to affect Jaxon's buying habits, but there's a lot of us out there, myself included, who wouldn't drop that sort of cash on a game. Even with the option of selling it, the most I've ever spent on a single game is £37.
I don't personally tend to sell many of my games at all (though many do) but I have started taking a few more risks on games, having had a positive experience from selling those I ended up not wanting. This confidence is good for a market, particularly in the context of broken games etc. getting released.
And of course, do me that have sold a game take that money and spend it on gardening tools? Maybe, but quite often, they take the money and confidence they've recovered from selling their game and put it towards the next new release.
All the second hand market really does is encourage those with lower budgets into the market. I bought my first console (Gamecube) second-hand, on ebay, when I was about 26 years old. Consoles and console games had always been beyond my budget, but ebay finally created a market place for me to try it out at a price I was comfortable with. Despite loving the couple of occasions I got to play Super Mario Kart on the SNES when I was 12, it took me another 14 years and the help of ebay to get me to buy a Nintendo console. I doubt it would ever have happened if I didn't have the chance to buy a second-hand bundle.
I've only ever bought used cars. If I couldn't buy used cars, I wouldn't save up for a new car at 5-10 times the price, I'd just cycle/bus/taxi more.
And as for piracy, the whole reason I have any interest and fondness for gaming in my 30s is because my brother saved and saved for an Amiga A500 in the knowledge that we'd be able to copy games for free to make buying the hardware worthwhile in the first place. If you couldn't copy games we'd never have got the Amiga and I'd never have gotten into gaming.
Gaming is expensive for kids and the industry benefits from having ways for lower income people to get into it, helping breed lifelong gamers.
It's kind of weird, there's plenty of backlog and games I want to buy but I'll probably end up doing Xenoblade 2 NG+ (base game and Torna) if a Smash Direct + demo/beta isn't inbound soon.
@GrailUK I'm going to have to agree with you in saying games are not art. Some games may have artistic qualities and some can certainly move me but like 99% of movies, television and film they are entertainment and I think SOME of the people who see them as more than just entertainment do so to try and justify the investment of time and money to what is just a but of time killing entertainment. Also some people just love being pretentious.
As for preservation being justification for piracy you know what anyone who wants to pirate something go ahead thats your choice whether it is for the convenience or financial reasons or whatever but I highly doubt every ROM site user who claims they are doing it for preservation is a games scholar looking to help the next generation of gamers these are the people who need to be more honest with themselves.
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