Emulation and the Video Game Industry

bshanks writes "Use of a Game Over: Emulation and the Video Game Industry is a paper which examines the business and legal consequences of emulators. The paper makes recommendations to video game companies on how to adapt to and profit from them rather than fight them." From the paper: " A decade ago, video game emulators epitomized the cutting edge of programming technology. Ten years hence, they are the subject of a heated debate over copyrights and the video game industry's future. Emulators, which provide conversion software that enables games to run on personal computers ("PC's") and other systems or platforms for which they were not originally designed, have become a staple among gaming enthusiasts. Several factors have contributed to the robust market for emulation..."

Comments

emulation is life

[frankgod]

I spend most of my at home free time playing emulated games. In fact, I've organized my living room entertainment setup around it. With a digital connections between my souped-up computer and TV/sound system, the emulator is actually better than the original system in many respects.

Emulation has brought so many other things as well, like translation patches for previously Japanese-only games. As an American, this is a must, as I can't even speak English that well. Would Square have released translated versions of older FFs if emulation hadn't shown there was a demand?

I'm also involved in tool-assisted timeattacks, and of course the tool is the emulator. It's a very fascinating hobby for retro gamers like me. It's simply mindblowing to watch the original Legend of Zelda finished in under 25 mins, or a difficult game like Ninja Gaiden run through effortlessly. Recently, Dragon Warrior was finished in under 20 mins!

So more on topic, I read some of the paper and was wondering how downloading any number of N64 games at this point in time hurts actual video game companies. No new games are being made or even sold, so the only ones losing money are the retail industry! Also, the figure they give computes to about $35 a game, a ludicrous price for all but a few N64 games. Of course they could point to Game Boy Advance which is actually losing money, since you can download the games and even play them on the actual system with a flash chip.

I think the game companies are much, much more worried about copied games than emulation.