Nintendo Wins $2.1 Million In Lawsuit Against ROM Website

Good for Nintendo, I’m glad they still value their IPs.

insert that robot putting down the "no fun allowed" sign here

I’m not pro-piracy by any means, but if Nintendo offered any feasible way to obtain their massive back catalog legally, they could solve this problem and profit simultaneously. Just seems like a no-brainer.

If the site just offered the ROMS for free and for "archival purposes", they'd have gotten away with the moral victory.

Alas, they juuust had to charge for it. And for "premium" accounts, to boot!

When it comes to piracy Nintendo puts in all their effort to combat it yet they don’t put these same games that people download on rom sites on the marketplace in anyway. For example Fire Emblem Path of Radiance was released all the way back on the GameCube and has yet to be put on any other console and a physical copy of the game is extremely expensive on EBay.

Yeah I'm glad that Nintendo won the lawsuit, but they need to work on their retro offerings more, like have more than just NES and SNES games on Nintendo Switch Online. Doing that will likely lower the amount of people using ROMs.

ROMs aren't exactly morally right, but can you blame anyone using them lol

Hey Nintendo guess what? you wouldn't lose any money, If you would just sell the damn games! But you don't want that right? Bc you can keep giving out lawsuits so you can keep getting paid.

And this is not for me to say nintendo shouldn't have won, I'm glade they did and I think they should, But at the same time you can't blame them for it.

@Boo_Breaker so if I built a style of chair in 2003 and discontinued it, in 2021 it’s ok to come steal it off my porch because I won’t make one for you to have.

Use the money to put more games from publishers like Square, Konami and Capcom onto the catalogue. Please.

@Luigisghost669
Not saying it’s ok to download roms, but when you really want to play a game that now costs 300 dollars you might be willing to explore the life of a pirate.

@Screen I’m not sure how this indicates that they value their IP, but rather that they want to retain profits - people aren’t getting these ROMS to make New New Super Mario Brothers Switch and profit off them, they are getting them as something to play that isn’t being sold by Nintendo anymore (yet). One could argue (on Nintendo’s side) that old unavailable games being made available online like this could increase nostalgia, increase visibility of their old games and then in the long run, create more money for future releases, but clearly they don’t see it that way.

@thesilverbrick I’ll never understand why is it so hard for them to just release past games of their properties, is just common sense to do it.
Still, the moment those guys charged for premium downloads, that’s where they screwed up.

@Thexare If you read my comment below yours, I’m on your side here, but just thought I’d add that the circumstance missed here is that they want to retain the option of releasing old games again and profiting from that in the future. So yes it’s only on the second hand market right now, but they want the right to retain the option of profit for a later re-release.

@Luigisghost669 Not exactly a great comparison. Unless we're making the leap in logic that you were selling these chairs. And continued media presence surrounding these chairs for....some unusual reason.

Chair aficionados are a weird bunch, I'm sure.

I wish everyone wins a lawsuit against Nintendo for selling faulty hardware regarding their cheap drift joy cons

@Screen They should just drop the rights of dead franchises... Or at least be lenient with fanworks kf them. I can understand Mario and Zelda games being taken down, but I wouldn't if it was a dead franchise like F-Zero.

@Luigisghost669 Classic false equivalence. If a company discontinues a product or doesn't make it available for sale, there's no reason someone shouldn't be able to make an archival "chair" for their own purposes, especially if they've bought the "chair" in question once already. The issue that comes into play is when you or I take someone's copyrighted work and start selling it for personal profit. At that point, it's reasonable for a copyright holder to claim material damages and they're going to look toward the person or entity who was paid for the service.

@Thexare so by that logic everything In used stores and thrift shops should be free because it’s not going to who originally made it.

“ Nintendo was unable to show that it had suffered "irreparable harm"”
Lmao be funny if a judge threw cases like this out when they claim ***** like this. Also I know that some ad filled ***** probably provides a better service for retro games than Nintendo does.

Yeeep, this one’s pretty indefensible. I love me an emulator but piracy’s a step too far unless it’s a game that’s pretty much impossible to get hold of otherwise. At that point it’s basically abandonware.

Funny how people feel entitled that they should use Nintendo created properties, all work funded and created by their respective owners. Even if the games are old its not the publics work, when you buy a game you are using it for your personal use, that doesn't include that you can go around the Internet and download whatever game you feel like that you want to download. Whenever you like it or not, Nintendo can do what they think is right because they are the owner.

Its like you go to a Phone store and demand that you get for free a Nokia model from 2000 because its "old" or that you go to a video game store and also demand that they give you without payment an old 1989 Gameboy.

The case is, Nintendo has all the right to defend their own created work. If you dont agree that is another case.

And this is a good thing?

It’s good but at the same time I would gladly pay $10 each for GBA roms on the Switch. Yet Nintendo continues to ignore my offer…

@JeanPaul But if Nintendo charges what they want people get mad and say greedy Nintendo anyway.

Maybe don't try to sell stolen property. 🤷🏾‍♂️

Wow, I was sympathizing with the guy until I found out he was charging money for his site… he deserves what he gets

Let's hope Nintendo stops using fan ROMs and edits in their products.

How is this guy even going to pay that much?
I don't understand. There's no way this guy made millions of dollars in profit off of this gig.

Rolls Royce no longer make classic cars. Doesn’t make it okay for me to steal one

Sure would be nice if Nintendo provided a legal way to obtain these classics. Like maybe some sort of “virtual” medium that could bring these titles to their current “console”.

People: downloading roms, is bad!
Same people: let me get your Netflix password.

@thesilverbrick
Even if Nintendo made all of their legacy content available on Switch, that wouldn't take away the fact that the purchase of a Switch would still be required. ROM sites like these will continue to exist.

@Thexare by the by, have you seen smelter? A love letter to actraiser, for sure.

I'm not surprised more people are using nintendo ROMs now cause the virtual console for the switch is trash.

@Yoshilapin I wonder the same thing. When a corporation sues an individual for millions, I think it's just as scummy as the guy stealing money off Nintendo for ROMs. Two wrongs don't make a right. But still, I wonder how that works, like is the guy gonna have to pay the damages the rest of his life, or do they essentially just shut him down, since he can't pay? Possible jail time? No idea.

Just pointing out that there's a few false equivalences here already. Property Theft isn't the same thing as Copyright Infringement, nobody can just 'steal' Mario or Donkey Kong or Zelda away from Nintendo. They can potentially devalue those IPs by distributing unauthorised, illegal copies though. It's more akin to somebody buying a dirt cheap knock off Rolex watch and then not buying a real one, and Rolex counting that as a lost sale even though it's impossible to say for certain that person would ever have bought a legit Rolex. Nintendo's well within their rights to go after these sites, I understand why people sometimes resort to using them though.

@Clammy Downloading from ROM sites isn't equivalent to stealing a car. It's equivalent to making a copy of the car.
Which is a lot harder to do for a car than a ROM.

@Luigisghost669 That would be taking the chair away from you.
If I cloned your chair, you'd still have your original chair.

However, ROM sites, I'd say it's only really an issue if they're distributing current gen games.

What makes this legitimately interesting as an argument, and where I think a lot of people falter in their comparisons, is that we know when you steal a physical product there's an implied victim. Of course you can't get a phone, a car, or a game console for free, because either the manufacturer or current owner is expecting payment in order for the goods to change hands. That's how markets manage to work in good faith. But I think the line is much blurrier when you're talking about downloading a copy of someone else's archival copy. The issue, as always, is the scope of the distribution and just exactly who is getting paid for it. To use an old example, no record label would care if I was burning a few mixes to share with my friends. But if I was burning albums by the hundreds and selling them for money, then they'll see me in court.

There should be laws where video games become free to the public domain after 20-25 years of release. Look at games like Goldeneye which nobody will profit from anymore, what is the point of just having it hidden from the gaming public forever more? If you are a retro gamer and you buy the original games etc you aren’t likely funding the company who made them. You are funding the second hand market, or worse scalpers!

@westman98 Of course there will always be pirates. But there are a significant number of people who would gladly pay to play legacy content instead of illegally downloading it. By refusing to provide a reasonable way to play their back catalog, Nintendo has made sure the only way to experience many of their older games is by illegally pirating them.

@Luigisghost669 so if I built a style of chair in 2003 and discontinued it, in 2021 it’s ok to come steal it off my porch because I won’t make one for you to have.

No but if I made a copy and you still had your chair that should be fine. It's not like you were going to sell one to me anyway.

@DoubleDate Its like you go to a Phone store and demand that you get for free a Nokia model from 2000 because its "old" or that you go to a video game store and also demand that they give you without payment an old 1989 Gameboy.

The case is, Nintendo has all the right to defend their own created work. If you dont agree that is another case.

Making a COPY of a digital file is not like these examples at all.

Let's say you bought a CD and I made a copy of it. What have you lost?

@Luigisghost669 horrible analogy. If that chair was floating in the air over everyone's house and reproduced itself everytime someone grabbed it, then it would be a better analogy.

I'm not pro-piracy, however, I am pro-game preservation and when Nintendo provides no alternative other than perhaps getting the original console (which could in and of itself be a pain to acquire), I'm not going to celebrate this victory with champagne alongside Nintendo.

Comes down to ownership. If its not yours then you are stealing. This stuff is killing gaming the same way the music industry was killed in the early 2000s. Companies will not want to make games when they will lose money on them. That's why we get half finished games at the moment like Aninal Crossing.

@My_ultimate_is_ready Yeah but it's not like they purposely made the stick to be faulty, products gets faulty over time with countless usage. Not only that it's also not like they aren't helping customers fix them either. That is why they don't lose cause they had solutions, sure it didn't fix the issue permanently but c'mon we all know things in life never truly goes away for good permanently, I mean just cause you got cured from an illness today doesn't really mean you'll be cure for life. The illness would still get you the next time and if not you then maybe your next of kin.

@GabeHere
It's not your job to preserve games. It's your job to play them.

@GTHOLLAND The game industry makes record profits and you are blaming people who download old ROMS for half finished, buggy games?

You must be kidding.

If Nintendo would put all these games on their systems, reopen he closed digital shops, and generally make it reasonably easy for people to play classic games, then I'd be ok with shutting down ROM sites. Since they don't do that it totally sucks they are shutting these awesome websites down. I don't like the idea of game creators also being game grim reapers that shut down access to games they've already killed at least once.

Warner Brothers was sued by the family of Joe Shuster for the rights to Superman.
The courts sided with DC Comics, but they did agree that DC was squandering the license's full potential and told them they needed to start making movies. (There's more to it, but this is the just of it.)
Nintendo is the same way.
They have these video games stretching back to the 70's but they don't DO anything with them, except for a few of them!

@GTHOLLAND It's not your job to preserve games. It's your job to play them.

You heard it here folks. Make sure you play the ROMS you download .

Nintendo needs to go back to all the developers and have them make collections. Waive the Switch Tax (cartridge cost) and start pumping these collections out!
Rinse and repeat on every new console!

He must have been doing alright out of the website to be unemployed. Wonder if he's friends with Yoshi.

@Crono1973
Not ROMs you moby but nice try

@Spider-Kev There is a difference though, most of those IPs are not license by Nintendo. They are made and own by Nintendo, even if Nintendo doesn't do anything with them they still had the rights to go after the people or any party that used those IPs without permission for copyright infringement. Unless Nintendo puts their IPs in the public domain where those could be license to another company then will it be license possible. As for IPs that they do license like the Rare IPs or the James Bond GoldenEye 007 stuff, those they would lose the rights to if they got the rights for them and never make a product out of those.

@Crono1973
What does a companies profits have to do with anything. They are in the business of making money. I think maybe you are the type of person I'm talking about.

@GTHOLLAND Did you know that Nintendo makes no money from used games? Doesn't it just make you wonder how they are still in business and further, doesn't it make you wonder how that can be legal? How can people legally be getting Nintendo games without paying Nintendo?

Why do people pretend ROM sites are always about game preservation or backups or no longer ever going be released again title's.
Like guarantee alot of downloads are likes of link to the past , mario and Pokemon.
Let's not pretend not 90% about getting stuff for free

Being forced to rent NES and SNES games instead of owning at least a license is just asking for piracy. Especially those that have save files.

@quinnyboy58 That's a good idea until you realize those games hold no value anymore. A law that allows games to be free 20-25 years from now means it can't be sold anymore, that also applies to used games as well. Soon you'll see a pile of old games that nobody wants to play piling up at Amazon warehouse and garage sales.

Imagine you bought Sonic 3 for your Sega Genesis, you got that game for over 25 years and you realize you're coming of age, you have had enough and want to sell the game so you that get a little bit of retiring cash back but since the game lost its value, you can't sell it for profit cause that's the law now, your only choice is either to get rid of it or donate it. Would you be happy about that? That your game no longer holds any value anymore cause everyone else could already play it cause it's free everywhere now. I know I'll be super piss if the game I own for 30 years all of a sudden is worth nothing anymore. At that point I may as well threw the game in the dumpster cause why keep it when it's already free everywhere else and selling it for money is illegal.

@GTHOLLAND Fair, fair - I'm a games reporter. Not a preserver.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi If downloading old ROM's destroyed the value of the physical copies then you would see copies of Chrono Trigger and Earthbound all over the place for $5.

ROMS have been around for a long time and they don't seem to harm collector values.

@Crono1973 They will be if the law that @quinnyboy58 wanted to happen actually exist. What you're telling me is the world right now. I'm just saying from the perspective of if such a law exist, not the current situation.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi The ease of downloading ROM's for these old games makes them free for all who want them. That hasn't hurt the value of the physical copies. A law that allows them to be free would change nothing since they are already free to those who want them.

@SeantheDon29 Piracy is bad. For sales of games. For sales of hardware. For profit of the company.

You know companies can't exist without profit?

Nintendo suck. Roms sell switches. Premium accounts were a huge mistake though lol.

What games were being pirated? Switch games? If so then Nintendo is perfectly good to do what they did. If it were Nintendo or Super Nintendo or 64 ROMs though, how are they suffering damages if we currently have no way of playing 90% of their library? Are they angry that people aren't buying overpriced cartridges off e bay? If you don't want website's like this guys' to pop up Nintendo, give us a good service so we can legally give you our money.

They were making money off the roms. This wasn't "preservation" that so many people talk about. They were taking things owned by others and selling access to them. That is theft, not preservation.

Greed is what did this site in really, they shouldn't have been charging for it. That said I have seen Nintendo aggressively go after free archival sites before simply for having old Nintendo games even though the vast majority belong to different publishers, many of whom don't even exist anymore.

@Crono1973 That and I think a lot of people forget how roms aren't always piracy, a lot of people just want backups and an alternative means of playing games they have legally purchased before.

@Crono1973
It's the same for all products. It's called the 2nd hand or used markets.
Toyota sell a car and shock horror they dont chime up when the owner sells it on. THE AUDACITY.
Same with games. Nintendo sell games new and that's where they make their money. You wanna play old games then track down that product

@Trikeboy Preservation is the weakest but only excuse they have. Although preserving something is not playing it.

Considering that Nintendo was able to re-release Star Fox 2 and English Earthbound Beginnings, English Fire Emblem. It's pretty certain Nintendo are already preserving all their games, so pirates don't have to bother.

Pirates are interested in "preservation" only in the sense they get free games.

@TryToBeHopeful They alleged it due to the iNes header, but apparently it was incorrect and is used in the official ones.

Though really if you look at any ROMsite I don't think most the pirates got the preservation memo as download numbers show strangely everyone wants to preserve old games that are available on modern systems like Super Mario Bros, Pokemon or Crash Bandicoot. And few want to preserve obscure unpopular games that nobody wants to play.

All these people bleating that Nintendo should sell these games, why should they? Let’s use an analogy. Disney.

Disney have a load of original movie content. They adapted a vault policy where they sold them for a little while then withdrew them again.

Now we have Disney+. If everyone out there owned the Blu Rays and the physical media, because the market was flooded with them, and they were dead cheap, would there be any need to pay a Disney+ sub?

If you could go our and buy select SNES and NES games would you subscribed to Switch online?

Nintendo’s bank balance is slightly bigger than mine so I’m assuming they know what they’re doing.

And I’m not entitled enough to bleat on a website that I want them to do something so they should do it.

(Disclaimer, I have pretty much every Nintendo ROM ever available - and many many many others. But I also will always buy the original version when available and subscribe to switch online. I’m not defending a moral position - just making a point)

It's been discussed and written about ad nauseaum, on this site among others, but it still doesn't dawn on many fans that if re-releasing and making extra money on back catalogues was really as effortless for companies as reuploading a rom with a pricetag, Virtual Console alone could be bigger than Switch eShop by now. Licensing remains quite a pain in the industry's posterior even nowadays, but look up the credits of that older game you want and have fun guessing which one person or small subcontractor studio or mere piece of music/artwork/code may be a potential necessity to settle royalties and expired agreements, track lost and vaguely transferred rights from, maybe even honour some postmortem dues with the heirs of (if that's a thing here - I'm not a lawyer)... the aforementioned NL feature puts it bluntly that oftentimes, even trying to research all that can appear to cost the publisher more than they're honestly expecting to make on the new release in question.

And once again, let's not lie to ourselves or anyone else. We don't just use roms and images because we lack legal alternatives, we do it because we end users can get away with it. End of story. Take it from someone who's been doing this for over 15 years with no incentive to play innocent or act entitled about it.

If Nintendo wasn't so crappy when it comes to marketing, the world wouldn't need ROMs to begin with. I honestly think charging extra for a loftwing amiibo and forcing Mario Maker players to get the sequel by taking it down is a stupid and very corrupt idea. And what makes it worse is that the sheeple fall for it. So while I'm not angry about Nintendo winning the lawsuit thing, they honestly don't deserve the money they got from it.

Insert gif of me kicking Doug Bowser here

A hell of a lot of old games are tied up with rights issues, even first-party games have this issue sometimes. It's not as simple as just saying 'release them already' unfortunately.

It's also 100% not Nintendo's fault if third parties won't release their content for whatever reason (somebody above was imploring Nintendo to use the money to release Square, Capcom and Konami titles, for example)

It’s not that hard to understand why Nintendo doesn’t just dump all their old games on the eShop. Every time Nintendo releases an old game, it gets less exciting, and thus less valuable. Just look at how many people complain about Switch Online that “we already have these games,” or “I’ve already played this.”

They know what they’re doing, and like it or not, carefully timed, slow trickle release schedules are a part of valuing IPs.

@Doofenshmirtz
@Kaori-chan indeed, the charging people thing is the main issue here. while i don't mind rom sites and fan made games(which are pretty much just interactive fan fiction) as much as most here do to the point that there are those bickering about it as i type this out... i can see trying to make a profit off of them was just idiotic. especially given the fact that other sites just give the roms out for free and how C&D happy nintendo's lawyers are. about the only place immune from them is pirate bay, given that both the disney overlords and the feds have targeted that site and ultimately failed to get rid of it.

Copyright laws should be changed to only grant copyright for 10 years. Problem solved. If you don't make anything new of value, you can't continue profiting off of history and people's childhoods. The products are already off the market and are no longer sold, no copyright allowed.

@MarsOne GTA5 is 8 years old, might want to revise that 10 year figure up a bit!

@thesilverbrick
this.

@Luigisghost669 No, it's like somebody else makes a chair exactly like yours. It could hurt you if you were planning on selling the same design again. Otherwise not.

@Luigisghost669 if I can make an exact copy of it without you losing your copy absolutely.

Get lost, Nintendo. Although it was stupid to actually charge for access to the ROMs. That's asking for trouble.

$2.1m divided by $35,000 for each "infringement" is 60. So 60 cases of infringement? I would hope Nintendo is not trying claim damages for games they did not create (Capcom, Square, etc).
Although 60 seems a bit low if there were ROMs from multiple systems 🤔

@thesilverbrick why should they? When the public goes nuts for things like mini consoles. I agree with what your saying, but we (the public) except it.

@Boo_Breaker When it came out and it was sold to you by Nintendo they just charged you rrp. Then when the release window ended Nintendo lost their power to control the pricing of the product, therefore in order to help they don't hammer the people that resell their copies, but if anyone tries selling it in other ways they do, otherwise those people are just making money of Nintendo's back.
They could just keep rehashing the games on new systems but I seem to think that this is something they get blasted for already, in fact I cannot remember how many iterations of snes mario kart I own and I was happy to buy it on every occasion.

@thesilverbrick keep it real
The real reason is because people want everything for free

@Snatcher you do realize they can re-release everything because of licensing right?? Lol

@Luigisghost669 Nope, people won't steal the chair, they will be just allowed to make another chair identical to yours.

Piracy / Copyright infringement is not theft, if you steal something, it's gone, if you copy something, the original is still there.

@DoubleDate However, copyright still expires, once something becomes old enough, it becomes public domain, free to be shared and copied, because intellectual property is just stuff inside people's minds, ideas can't be owned, patents and copyright are just a temporary exclusivity so people and companies can profit on their creations, someday, videogames will enter the public domain.

Copyright used to last only 28 years, then it was extended to 56, and then Mickey Mouse was created, when Disney was going to lose the rights to Mickey Mouse to the public domain, they lobbied congress to extend it to 75 years, then again to 95, only recently, works in USA started to come to the public domain again.

People say that Disney did nothing wrong, they are just protecting their own creations, but Disney built an empire by taking stories and characters from the public domain like fairy tales, including stuff that was copyrighted at one point, but when something Disney created is going public, they won't accept it.

"Public domain should not exist, does that mean that if my house is old enough, people can just come in and take it for them?" Does that mean people can steal the chair I made if it's old enough?

Nope, but they can make another house or another chair identical to yours, you can't go in a book store and take the public domain books for free, people are just allowed to make copies of these books for free.

"Public domain should not exist, if characters and franchises like Mickey Mouse, Batman and Lord of The Rings could be used by anyone for free, they would ruin then and disrespect the author."

Just look what CW did to the Powerpuff Girls, big media conglomerates rarely allow the actual creators to own the stuff they created, and ruin them just as well.

@Kriven This would create many Ashcan Copies, where companies would just create cheap and quick things just to keep copyright, it already happens in cases involving deals that companies do to each other.

The only perpetual copyright that I can kinda accept is actually trademarks, which covers things like brands, if a character is too important for a company, becoming a symbol for them and part of their business, they can keep the character as long as they use it, Disney can own Mickey forever, Nintendo can own Mario forever, but Disney and Nintendo can't be allowed to get a trademark on every single character they created, just the few ones that count as company mascots, and the old games featuring Mario can still become public domain.

@Lgndk11r Yup, and seriously, premium accounts for 3 mb games... lol

@Boo_Breaker Because it sold terribly. I pirated it and it's great but Nintendo doesn't care that much. Maybe now that fire emblem is more popular than ever but I still think we have a ways to go before a port of the game. I'd much rather support the company I'm playing games from than download it from a website and play it how it wasn't intended but if it isn't available on the switch I honestly could care less of I pirate it.

Good god people.. just use torrents, you can get the entire library easily and quickly. And no company can take torrents down, no matter how hard they try. You can find the entire 100% library of every NES, SNES, N64 game out there, easily and quickly. Using websites is kinda dumb, of course greedy Nintendo will take them down. Then offer no way of buying said games legally, because... Nintendo.

This has become more of a complicated issue for me. I am totally against piracy but the real problem is the loss of games and the ability to play them. Nintendo may be sitting on these waiting for the moment to capture more income but many times companies do this and then go out of business and the IP gets entangled in a legal nightmare. I am leaning more towards the Id philosophy of releasing the code for the fans to create more content but not monetize it.

There needs to be some resolution to this. Games/Roms cannot be free, at least during the peak saleable period of time, but eventually we need to save these for others to play and enjoy. Or laugh at.

@victordamazio
Ok going by analogy lets copy your bank/credit info and allow others to use it. Its not theft right because the original still exists?

@Zidentia It's different because one thing is personal confidential information, another thing is published artistic works like books and music that you want other people to see.

And yes, getting and sharing confidential information from people is still not theft, it's another crime, stealing the money from the bank is theft.

Hey Nintendo, obviously we love your stuff but I'm confused, how was there lost revenue if a massive portion of your back catalog is nearly impossible to access for so many people? If you're worried about lost revenue, create a comprehensive virtual console service for the Switch. The free games are cool but there are so many great games out there not represented there, I'd gladly pay to download them. Piracy is wrong but you aren't meeting your audience's demands so wtf do you expect? What's the line? "If you build it, they will come." Prices on retro media are so sky high now that if you put GBA, N64, GameCube, Wii, DS/3DS titles on the eShop for reasonable prices, people will buy them up. Puts away soap box thank you.

@Luigisghost669 last time I checked a chair isn’t a video game silly 🙀

@Luigisghost669 It would be more in line with making my own chair to the exact same specifications as the one you discontinued. It's an infringement of your IP but it isn't the same as me taking physical property from you (the arguable harm would be that if you decided to sell it again you would be competing against the infringing items created, sold, or shared).

@GTHOLLAND Same with games. Nintendo sell games new and that's where they make their money. You wanna play old games then track down that product

....but Nintendo isn't making money from used products. To them it's no different than downloading ROMs and I'll bet they would put a stop to used games sales if they could.

@Zidentia Ok going by analogy lets copy your bank/credit info and allow others to use it. Its not theft right because the original still exists?

When you use that info to take my money though, I won't still have the money. It's not the same thing as copying a digital file an unlimited number of times. Why is this so hard for people to wrap their minds around?

@Crono1973 You seem to be having the issue understanding. The act of downloading a copy takes away the opportunity to sell that to someone and removed money from them. Same principal in your analogy.

@victordamazio You would be wrong. Stealing personal and confidential information is identity theft.

When someone/company create IP it belongs to them and they offer you a license to view/use/play it. Sometimes this license is in perpetuity but not always. They want to sell you the license or product not give it away. Theft is theft no matter how you try to rationalize it.

@Zidentia You seem to be having the issue understanding. The act of downloading a copy takes away the opportunity to sell that to someone and removed money from them. Same principal in your analogy.

Not if they aren't selling the game anywhere. Also, I already pointed out that ROM's haven't hurt the prices of used physical copies.

@Darkyoshi98 OH GEE REALLY????? HEY wile were at it, we should tell nintendo of this IDea, theY coULD sUR UEs it.

Get real dude, Not trying to be rude or nothin but everyone knows that they could at any time, But they don't and that annoy's people.

The elephant in the room is that ROM"s are free and Nintendo is trying to force a value on them for their own benefit.

Were people actually paying this guy to get free roms? Lmao

@Judal27 Were people actually paying this guy to get free roms? Lmao I don't think any of us can answer this.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi
Please re-read my comment.
I never said Nintendo should do it, I said they need to go to the developers.

It seems reading comprehension has fallen away.
And it isn't just here, it's everywhere!

Honestly, when you are making money off of not only their IP, but their product, and giving them a portion of that money....then you kind of have it coming.

@sanderev You are aware, (or should be) that piracy only affects less than 5% of a game companies total profits and that those said companies should focus their efforts on more important matters like infrastructure and customer satisfaction instead of punishing them with useless drm to combat those pirates, right?

@KingMike : ah, that old chestnut which makes people feel okay about it. Okay, it’s like not paying the barber for your haircut, no physical object was stolen.

@Clammy ah, that old chestnut which makes people feel okay about it. Okay, it’s like not paying the barber for your haircut, no physical object was stolen.

Still not a good analogy. That barber lost time and time is money. With digital files, nothing is lost when a copy is made.

Let me give you an example. If I downloaded Lufia II and played it on my SNES Classic, who lost money? Who lost anything?

We have had a quarter of a century of digital piracy and the movie, music and gaming industry are still thriving. There is limited actual evidence that mega corporations who have bought up as much intellectual property they can are suffering in any tangible way (and there seems to be some real confusion on here between the rights of the creator and the rights of the corporation who buy / own rights to property).

Evidence has shown that the people pirating movies are the ones with huge dvd / Blu-ray collections, the ones who go to cinemas and the ones who subscribe to streaming services.

Likewise music pirates may steal a lot of music but are also paying for a lot to. I suspect it is the same with gamers - piracy is undertaken by people who own a number of consoles and huge collections of games.

Where it gets interesting is that pirates are often providing lots of free promotion to the good content out there, encouraging a wider reach outside traditional advertising and promotion. They are a boon to the industry in some respects.

Where the big companies are being disingenuous is the suggestion that each download represents a lost sale. It doesn't, those sales were never going to happen - there isn't enough disposable income in the world to pay for them - it's like asking for unlimited money that doesn't exist.

Furthermore, most piracy isn't by a casual user - it's by hoarders, fans who will never even use the content but want for completions sake.

It is notable that piracy decreases when easy accessibility increases. Music torrenting is now niche due to the availability of streaming services. I don't think the genie can be put back in the bottle, there is a demand for nostalgia which if not met by the big gaming companies will be met elsewhere...

I have zero issues downloading roms or buying bootleg vinyl records. I go out of my way to support the companies and artists that I enjoy but if they don't make their art available to me, I will buy it from someone who will. Simple as that, I'm not getting any younger and I'm not waiting for Nintendo to put Little Nemo on NES online.

@Crono1973 : If that allows you to justify it to yourself.. Then fill your boots.

@Crono1973 So the culmination of thousands of hours of work is worth less to you than a 10 pence mix-up, just because it can be stored digitally?

@Dr_Lugae I buy my games (as well as keep a ROM collection) but you simply can't pretend that free ROM's don't exist and are easy to get. No amount of shaming consumers is going to change that.

@Doofenshmirtz SWAT Bot from Sonic SatAM

I post here all the time to almost near silence, I make an anti piracy analogy and I get torn apart by semantics arguments about why it’s ok because it’s a game people wanna play and Nintendo won’t indulge them. Geeze.

@Crono1973 they guy that was maybe gonna re-release Lucia 2. Regardless of how many people say oh I have the roms for backup but if the game became Available I’d buy it. I’d bet my sons life that maybe 1 in 1,000,000 people will actually by the copy after getting the rom. My brother in law used to tell me how stupid I was for buying ds/2ds games because he could just jail break my system and hook it up for free.

@Luigisghost669 Did you proofread this?

First of all, no one is going to re-release Lufia 2 that I am aware of. I do own the cartridge but I want to play it on my SNES Classic.

Secondly, I would say most people have downloaded ROM's but millions still subscribe to NSO and have bought games off of the one or all of the Virtual Consoles. Further, retro game stores seem to sell enough to stay in business so obviously many people are still buying retro games. Your One in a Million stat is complete BS.

@Luigisghost669 I post here all the time to almost near silence, I make an anti piracy analogy and I get torn apart by semantics arguments about why it’s ok because it’s a game people wanna play and Nintendo won’t indulge them. Geeze.

It must be frustrating for you being unable to keep everyone inside Nintendo's walled garden.

Cool. Now if only Nintendo put that $2.1 million toward porting it’s old games to switch so those of us who want to buy them have a chance to

@Crono1973 you tell yourself what ever you have to tell your self. It’s stealing plain and simple. No grey areas no exceptions it’s stealing.

yOu WoUlDn'T dOwNlOaD a CaR, wHy WoUlD yOu DoWnLoAd A rOm?!?

@The-Nate @Shadowmoon522 Thank you

@Luigisghost669 I have a ton of import games, because I had played the ROMs to figure out which were the games worth buying, assuming I could even find a copy to buy of the desirable games (it was actually more difficult to find less popular games online in the early 2000s. Not as many Japanese sellers on ebay, and even then ebay encouraged listings that would actually sell relatively soonish, not like now where they can list thousands of games that might take months or years to find a buyer.)

And I know I'm not the only person in the scene who had the "if you like a game, buy it".
But on the other hand, not too many people are going to just gladly fork out 5, 10 times the original selling price of a game just because a handful of other people with bottomless wallets have decided that is what a game should cost.
Does anyone seriously think Little Samson is a game that provides $600 worth of gameplay?

The real problem I believe that games, along with TV shows have faced, compared to movies, is licensing.

From what I understand, movies had their content licensed for permanent ownership of that film. That is, the movie studios can rerelease the films whenever and however they want without needing to get anyone's permission.
Games and TV were licensed on far cheaper limited-time usage of licensed content.
Such that even though emulation covers much of the issue of outdated tech required to play older games, they still run into the issue of usually being judged not worth renewing content licenses.

@thesilverbrick While you can't ask them to make absolutely everything available (due to licensing issues if nothing else), a reasonable chunk of Nintendo's back catalog is feasibly available between the Wii U eShop, 3DS eShop, various compilations and other remasters/remakes, the NES/SNES Classics, and Nintendo Switch Online. You can even play GameCube games on most Wiis and DS games on most (2/3)DS's

For anything else, look online or in a used game store, and you can find well over 90% of it available at a reasonable price as long as you have some kind of hardware to play it (which is a reasonable investment if you're a hardcore retro gamer). For the remainder, just accept that you won't be able to play it (at least not without shelling out major bucks) and that you aren't entitled to free entertainment just because something is rare and/or expensive.

What, you want everything on the Switch? That's never going to happen, nor has it ever been a reasonable expectation. Quit whining and learn to keep your older systems around.

@Thexare So you're instead taking money away from the sellers in the used markets, most of whom need the money more than Nintendo and other developers do. While some rare games are extremely expensive (but are priced that way due to some people being willing to actually pay that much for them), that's only something like 1% or 2% of all used titles. For everything else, you absolutely should be buying used games online or from a used game store before you even consider piracy.

@swedetrap Not everything needs to be on the Switch. You want retro games that aren't on Switch? Just dig out or go out and buy an older system that can play those games (including the still active 3DS and Wii U eShops). It's really not that hard, and a lot of old systems (or their clones) aren't very expensive. It's not like older systems and games suddenly stopped working just because a new system was released.

@dluxxx Guess what?! "Little Nemo" is available. It's kind of expensive but not too pricey if you really want it. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=Little+Nemo+NES&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=Little+Nemo

@Crono1973 You don't need to play it on your SNES Classic when you already have the cartridge. It's not that inconvenient to just play the cartridge on something that can play it.

That's a terrible logical fallacy. Just because businesses can get by with piracy doesn't mean they don't deserve to do even better with less piracy.

@BulbasaurusRex You don't need to play it on your SNES Classic when you already have the cartridge. It's not that inconvenient to just play the cartridge on something that can play it.

Why though, I have the option and no amount of shaming is going to make me give up that option.

Besides, Lufia 2 is a buggy game and I can play the patched version on the SNES Classic. Can't do that on the cartridge.

What an idiot.

When it comes to having a paid system (no matter the style) then I will be on Nintendo's side when it comes to taking down these websites but if they just have game games for download with no monetary gain from doing so then I am against Nintendo on this.

I have pirated games but I will only pirate games that fall under the "grey market". This means that if a game can't be bought legit in a digital store font digital or new (without costing an arm and a leg) then I will download it. I have done this with may PC games only for then GOG to add them to their store page to buy and I buy them right away as I want to show that I am willing to buy these older games if given the chance.

Same goes for Nintendo games. If they offered a way for me to buy their older titles in a digital form atleast then I wouldn't have to go and download them elsewhere as I rather have these games legit as possible.

@Luigisghost669 That's literally not how digital piracy works. It's more like, you designed a chair and sold it and then stopped selling it. So I copied your design for myself and now you're throwing a fit.

I'm usually anti-piracy as well, especially if the game is accessible to everyone (Like Breathe of the Wild) but for some games, like Pokemon XD, in a used game shop where I live is 259.99 or Rule of Rose is 499.99 (Not including luck on finding those). Not many people have that kind of money for a video game. Nintendo is also not profiting from me when I buy a used Nintendo game at a store and I wouldn't be shocked if one day they tried stopping that even. I think some people try to be morally righteous as possible (I'm guilty of that too sometimes) that they don't see that not everyone can buy an ultra expensive game, or even have access.

Also the chair comparison is silly, but everyone else has already said what I was thinking on that.

I bet if I hummed the super mario nes theme at work, I'd probably get taken down by the fbi.