Isn't the term "vote with your pocketbook"..kinda negates that huh?
In any case, there's no difference to the producer if you purchased a used game or stole/pirated it outright.
There is absolutly no difference. Now, I'm the first to say that's the way our economy works, tough tiddles and all that...
But at the same time, the sale of used media is a bigger problem for media producers than any amount of piracy could ever be. Personally, I don't think it's that much of a problem. But at the same time, if you're going to make a moral argument against one, you need to make a moral argument against the other.
It's just a matter of different price-points, really.
To say it again. It's not something that there SHOULD be anything done without..it's just I want to see producers of good things get rewarded.
Actually, what I really resent is the companies like EB and GameSTOP that make money off this shit, but I digress.
Actually it used to be MUCH worse around here. It used to be that if you wern't a strict libertarian, you'd be modded into oblivion. Things are a lot different now, but that's how it used to be.
Back when/. was a painfully ugly site to look at as well.
All 4 are kind of the same thing. It's the/., you have karma and ratings and all that.
But in NO way do I think of any of these as weblogs. They're discussion boards. Actually I think of them as slash-sites, but whatever.
If they wanted to review something that is influential AND innovative, they should take a peek at DailyKOS. A more traditional weblog, but mixed with more promiment community collaboration features and slash-style ratings.
It works really well for serious discussion of topical matters.
To be honest, in the long run it doesn't matter what the hell you do..
They're just going to assume that their lost sales went to piracy, regardless of the reality of the situation.
I'll agree. Taking shit for free that isn't free is unethical. However, I don't see anything unethical about surfing P2P sites for new music to enjoy and go out to purchase when you find stuff you do.
The RIAA is actually more concerned about marketshare than piracy. The big concern is that non-RIAA acts will get equal promotion time as RIAA acts.
The real fear is that in the near future, the next Elvis, the next Beatles, the next U2, will be some person/group in their bedroom using a small computer studio to crank out great tunes, but doesn't want anything more than enough donations to keep them in rent/pizzas. They don't want the fame, don't want the admiration. They just want the music.
The model is there, and believe it or not, it does work. That's what the RIAA is afraid of, and why they're trying to get everything redirected through approved sources. Meaning things that you need to be signed with one of their labels in order to get exposure.
Like other people have mentioned, record stores have been getting out of the business left and right. Either they've been closing, or switching over to more mixed media stores. The big boxes don't order huge inventories, especially of back catalog items, and smaller stores have been switching to other media types (DVDs and games mostly, very lucrative and growing markets)
So is this due to piracy?
Err..no.
Sales of the hit new music has remained pretty constant (which is expectable in a mostly stable marketplace), which are often the most easy to download, so it makes it obvious that something else is at play here...
Maybe it could be the MASSIVE growth of used media stores that have been popping up all over the place?
So what can be done about that? It's obviously legal, and easy to say that it's ethical to do, after all, we do have the right to sell what we have paid for...
My suggestion for the RIAA is to actually lay off the worrying about piracy, and instead, run an information and advertising campaign informing consumers about how when they buy a used CD, they are in fact ripping off their favorite artist. By changing the focus, and acting through education and not litigation they can regain some respectability, especially if they make a good argument for it.
As an avid fan of HHG2G, I'm looking forward to the movie a lot.
It seems to be a very good cast, from what I've seen, nobody really huge, so the past movie baggage isn't there (which like it or not, matters a LOT for a movie like this).
As well, for arguments that Hollywood is going to screw it up..well..from everything I heard, the HHG2G story is already going to be screwed up from the first draft written by DNA. It's the same thing as the book was screwed up from the radio script.
It's part of the mythos of the story. Deal with it.
Speaking as a technical support monkey, MS should completely put to an end the entire idea of OEM versions. The OS is designed for you to have the original media, you should have the original media.
Period.
And on the other point, tell me this. When has EULAs actually been defended in a court of law? AFAIK, and I'm a regular/. reader, I've never seen a case go to cout.
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, by the point you've actually paid for the software, with most software, you have not signed a single thing. So then to use what you've legally purchased, you have to unilaterally agree to another agreement?
I think not my friend.
And the whole "license to copy to your HD" argument is beyond infantile. As long as you don't distribute it, you can use it however you want. You can make a billion copies and wallpaper your house with them if you wanted.
The reason why the unemployment rate isn't way above what it is, is that people are being shat out the other side of the jobless market, namely, they're either giving up, going back to school, taking a lower paying.
Listen, you're talking to the wrong person here. Myself, I make just above minimum wage, live a halfway decent life, enjoy myself, and I'm happy. The problem is, Western society says that people like myself are..err...losers.
I'm VERY concerned about the social aspect of it all, when people realize they can't have the big cars, the big house, all that stuff like they were promised. How will people react? Will they just buck up and suck it up, or will they get angry and revolutionary?
Yes, I agree. That's petty.
The main problem with a service based economy, is that it relies on having a very strong consumer class. There are some very serious negative trends against this. Mainly, insane amounts of consumer debt, and growing worry about the economy, growing numbers of unemployed or people employed below their burn rate...
Sure, cheap goods are nice. But if that comes at the expense of everything..well..then it's not worth it.
BTW, I actually see things getting MUCH better on the manafacturing front. Within 20 years, skyrocketing energy costs is going to make Mass Transport too expensive. Things are going to have to be made near where they are sold.
The problem really is, can we hold off the social upheaval, or better yet, mold it in a positive fasion, until the previous scenario takes place?
I'm more concerned about this from a social/political point of view (think Germany in the 30's) than economic.
"We as consumers benefit from outsourcing in the form of lower prices."
Err...no..we don't.
Prices are determined depending on what the market is willing to pay. Costs have very little to do witht this sort of thing, besides a general floor where companies don't want to lower prices below.
Generally speaking, very few companies are anywhere close to that floor, so lower costs to consumers should not be a factor at all.
So when the entire economy, and by extension, the entire society collapses, and everything reverts into Communism/Fascism, that will be all fine and dandy?
This seems to me to be a varient on the classical Free Rider problem.
In a nutshell, all these companies expect somebody else to take the competitiveness hit so the economy will keep humming along. The problem is, nobody is going to blink first.
Put on top of that, the people actually making the decisions will actually BENEFIT from an economic crash/depression. Their relative worth will skyrocket because of the massive deinflation.
What can be done? Well, protectionism is bad, I guess. This is the end of the capitalist empire, I think. The Soviet Union fell..now the west is going to fall as well.
More than likely the FF series has gone the furthest of anything in making political statements of one type or another...in the early games, there's an anti-Imperial bent for sure, the large dominating country that's trying to take over the world. Baron and Vector..
In VII, the pro-enviromentalism aspect of the story is basically impossible to avoid. The large power reactors are killing the planet, and the party is trying to stop them.
VIII and IX really relaxed the political aspects of it all I think, going for a more basic love and fantasy story respectivly..
X really brought it back with a vengence however. It's basically a cautionary tale on the dangers of religious devotion and conservative acting. (Why do we do it? Because we always have). Won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't played it, but everything gets turned upside down on its ear near the end.
Now, I've downloaded untold numbers of live concerts, but that's a different story, now isn't it?
And movies? Sorry, but when it comes to movies I'm an elitest. Either it's worth seeing in a theatre, or on a DVD or not at all. Same with music actually.
Oh, and by the way. There's nothing unethical about using P2P to sample music you would normally not have access to. It's downloading full albums/tracks that you would have bought that's unethical.
(And remember. I'm the one saying that it's not P2P, it's used media sales that are killing the industries.
While I accept the need for the artists/producers to be rewarded, these guys better be careful. The fact is, they're not going to be able to keep the legal grip on things forever, the generations coming up are going to have MUCH different attitudes on this stuff and other govermental matters, how severe the backlash depends on how tight they try to hold on to things.
Completly disrespecting any idea or concept of fair use, frankly is a very dangerous tactic.
I think it's ego getting in the way of their brains.
Maybe so. And I think that consumers do have the right to resell their property.
But I think it highlights the madness that is going through regarding things such as emulation, for example. Offering it for download for free is baaaad, but re-selling it and making money off of your work is good?
Yes, there's a legal difference. But if the media groups want credibility, they have to be honest.
Re-selling is perfectly legal. It's also hurting the industry much more than any sort of P2P or casual copying.
But it's not a 1-1 gain, at least with video games. You trade in a game for what, 10? 15 bucks? Then they sell it for 30 or so. I think that's how it goes. So that's 15 dollars sucked out of that economy. Not AS much, but it still hurts.
In any case, if you didn't notice, when I referred to it as media, that's including music and movies, where such trade-in, just isn't as prevalent.
I think that game rentals, in the long run, hurt more than used, at least in that particular market..not because that most video games are trash, in fact, I think there's more quality there than ever before, but that people can get their fill of a game within a week rental.
The thing is, even though I support fair use rights, there is a point in this. Used media, of all types, games, software, movies, music, is a killer of sales.
In fact, more than P2P, it's my personal observation that this is where the real damage is to producers.
Think about it for a second..sales of used media are pretty stable, if not increasing. This does one of two things..
#1. It prevents a new sale on something that is still sold shrinkwrapped.
#2. Even on obsolete media, it's taking valuable entertainment dollars out of the market.
It's #2 that I'd be concerned about, more or less. People only have so much to spend on entertainment, and theoretically, it would actually be better, for example, for a consumer to spend that 20 bucks going towards a new game, and download the older game, than taking that money out of the potential market for their product. Now that's no guarentee that it'll work out, but you gotta be bold, be confident I guess.
Now, I buy used media myself, and get it at a good price. (Buy 2 DVDs get 2 free) Even though I know it's hurting the producers, as long as they focus on piracy, and those scare tactics, instead of going after those stores, frankly, I couldn't care less.
NS is great, but has some balancing issues to work out.
Mainly, the more players there are in a game, the more advantage that the Marines have. As well, the Aliens take much more practice to play well, as it's something kind of different in a FPS.
The game is balanced for 6v6, but frankly, NS requires at least 24 players for a fun game, but at that point it's unbalanced.
And DoD is improving, there's another update coming out soon, and it may include morters, (which would be really good I think).
Some levels would be left without any good spells to use, especially with White magic, and there would not be enough points with the 9 max to use cure spells for white. It really limited the options you could use.
The Easy mode on FF Orgins fixed it a bit, breaking the 9 a level limit, making White mages a lot more valuable, and the game a lot more enjoyable. An optional MP based system would be a nice thing to try as well.
Actually, I remember some Christian rock label claiming that their sales have been steadily increasing over the last few years. More interest in it..now for the most part that is a captive audience, but whatever.
I'm not sure if you're a troll or not, but to be honest, P2P is the last bastion of hope for the indie-record store. The small store just can't compete on price-point with the large box stores over the Top-40 hits. The only thing it can do is stock the things that the big stores won't/can't stock. Unfortunately, with the radio consolodation, promotion of those smaller acts is a much more difficult proposition.
I see people raving about a band, and instead of having to sit there and send the MP3, they just say, well get it off of Kazaa. That's how these bands grow in size.
In any case, I have a suggestion for you. In my neck of the woods, CD shops such as your own are being killed by the presence of used CD shops. A friend of mine owns a used CD shop, and his business couln't possibly be better. It's booming. And this is a huge part of the drop in sales being reported. (It's about a 25% increase in business for these shops around here. Again, do the math. I'm assuming with some bigger markets and bigger used shops, the number goes up even more. Plan 9 in Richmond..*drool*)
In any case, if you're looking to save your business, that's where you should look. If you're so moralistic on helping the artists, instead of giving in to the trend and becoming a used (some would say pirate) vendor, you should start an information campaign and explain to people why getting CDs cheap like that is what is really killing the industry. Sure it's legal. But the question is...
Is it ethical?
If you follow that path, I wish you the best of luck. If not? You're just a tool.
How many I can think of, in no particular order..
#1. Viewtiful Joe. Great 2D gameplay, a very unique feel to it. As well, the game was just beautiful in pretty much every way, from the graphics to the music to the little extras. (The old-style movie posters in the credits, the little jokes on the pause screen, the different take on the DiD story.)
#2. Yoshi's Island. Just absolutly amazing. Still is. Throwing eggs around requires a lot of skill. Every stage brings something new to master.
#3. SMB 3. The classic. Best NES game ever, in reality was a 16-bit quality game on a 8-bit system.
#4. Super Metroid. Very short, but I think that was a bit of the charm. You could beat it, go from weak to powerful, in one sitting (2:57 is my best time..I got that time about 20 times..the EXACT same time)
#5. Castlevania SotN. Best of the Castlevania games by far. Metroid style gameplay with a lot of charm
#6. Bubble Bobble. Best old school platformer. The engine in it gave a lot of little tricks you could do with the physics. I still play it.
#7. Guardian Heroes. Best Genesis game (next to Mean Bean Machine) Lots of action and a fair style of gameplay.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't the term "vote with your pocketbook"..kinda negates that huh?
In any case, there's no difference to the producer if you purchased a used game or stole/pirated it outright.
There is absolutly no difference. Now, I'm the first to say that's the way our economy works, tough tiddles and all that...
But at the same time, the sale of used media is a bigger problem for media producers than any amount of piracy could ever be. Personally, I don't think it's that much of a problem. But at the same time, if you're going to make a moral argument against one, you need to make a moral argument against the other.
It's just a matter of different price-points, really.
To say it again. It's not something that there SHOULD be anything done without..it's just I want to see producers of good things get rewarded.
Actually, what I really resent is the companies like EB and GameSTOP that make money off this shit, but I digress.
Actually it used to be MUCH worse around here. It used to be that if you wern't a strict libertarian, you'd be modded into oblivion. Things are a lot different now, but that's how it used to be.
/. was a painfully ugly site to look at as well.
Back when
All 4 are kind of the same thing. It's the /., you have karma and ratings and all that.
But in NO way do I think of any of these as weblogs. They're discussion boards. Actually I think of them as slash-sites, but whatever.
If they wanted to review something that is influential AND innovative, they should take a peek at DailyKOS. A more traditional weblog, but mixed with more promiment community collaboration features and slash-style ratings.
It works really well for serious discussion of topical matters.
To be honest, in the long run it doesn't matter what the hell you do..
They're just going to assume that their lost sales went to piracy, regardless of the reality of the situation.
I'll agree. Taking shit for free that isn't free is unethical. However, I don't see anything unethical about surfing P2P sites for new music to enjoy and go out to purchase when you find stuff you do.
The RIAA is actually more concerned about marketshare than piracy. The big concern is that non-RIAA acts will get equal promotion time as RIAA acts.
The real fear is that in the near future, the next Elvis, the next Beatles, the next U2, will be some person/group in their bedroom using a small computer studio to crank out great tunes, but doesn't want anything more than enough donations to keep them in rent/pizzas. They don't want the fame, don't want the admiration. They just want the music.
The model is there, and believe it or not, it does work. That's what the RIAA is afraid of, and why they're trying to get everything redirected through approved sources. Meaning things that you need to be signed with one of their labels in order to get exposure.
Like other people have mentioned, record stores have been getting out of the business left and right. Either they've been closing, or switching over to more mixed media stores. The big boxes don't order huge inventories, especially of back catalog items, and smaller stores have been switching to other media types (DVDs and games mostly, very lucrative and growing markets)
So is this due to piracy?
Err..no.
Sales of the hit new music has remained pretty constant (which is expectable in a mostly stable marketplace), which are often the most easy to download, so it makes it obvious that something else is at play here...
Maybe it could be the MASSIVE growth of used media stores that have been popping up all over the place?
So what can be done about that? It's obviously legal, and easy to say that it's ethical to do, after all, we do have the right to sell what we have paid for...
My suggestion for the RIAA is to actually lay off the worrying about piracy, and instead, run an information and advertising campaign informing consumers about how when they buy a used CD, they are in fact ripping off their favorite artist. By changing the focus, and acting through education and not litigation they can regain some respectability, especially if they make a good argument for it.
As an avid fan of HHG2G, I'm looking forward to the movie a lot.
It seems to be a very good cast, from what I've seen, nobody really huge, so the past movie baggage isn't there (which like it or not, matters a LOT for a movie like this).
As well, for arguments that Hollywood is going to screw it up..well..from everything I heard, the HHG2G story is already going to be screwed up from the first draft written by DNA. It's the same thing as the book was screwed up from the radio script.
It's part of the mythos of the story. Deal with it.
Speaking as a technical support monkey, MS should completely put to an end the entire idea of OEM versions. The OS is designed for you to have the original media, you should have the original media.
/. reader, I've never seen a case go to cout.
Period.
And on the other point, tell me this. When has EULAs actually been defended in a court of law? AFAIK, and I'm a regular
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, by the point you've actually paid for the software, with most software, you have not signed a single thing. So then to use what you've legally purchased, you have to unilaterally agree to another agreement?
I think not my friend.
And the whole "license to copy to your HD" argument is beyond infantile. As long as you don't distribute it, you can use it however you want. You can make a billion copies and wallpaper your house with them if you wanted.
Argh. Add an e.
Doesn't have a single word about used game sales.
Therefor, it can safely be ignored.
A couple of things..
The reason why the unemployment rate isn't way above what it is, is that people are being shat out the other side of the jobless market, namely, they're either giving up, going back to school, taking a lower paying.
Listen, you're talking to the wrong person here. Myself, I make just above minimum wage, live a halfway decent life, enjoy myself, and I'm happy. The problem is, Western society says that people like myself are..err...losers.
I'm VERY concerned about the social aspect of it all, when people realize they can't have the big cars, the big house, all that stuff like they were promised. How will people react? Will they just buck up and suck it up, or will they get angry and revolutionary?
Yes, I agree. That's petty.
The main problem with a service based economy, is that it relies on having a very strong consumer class. There are some very serious negative trends against this. Mainly, insane amounts of consumer debt, and growing worry about the economy, growing numbers of unemployed or people employed below their burn rate...
Sure, cheap goods are nice. But if that comes at the expense of everything..well..then it's not worth it.
BTW, I actually see things getting MUCH better on the manafacturing front. Within 20 years, skyrocketing energy costs is going to make Mass Transport too expensive. Things are going to have to be made near where they are sold.
The problem really is, can we hold off the social upheaval, or better yet, mold it in a positive fasion, until the previous scenario takes place?
I'm more concerned about this from a social/political point of view (think Germany in the 30's) than economic.
"We as consumers benefit from outsourcing in the form of lower prices."
Err...no..we don't.
Prices are determined depending on what the market is willing to pay. Costs have very little to do witht this sort of thing, besides a general floor where companies don't want to lower prices below.
Generally speaking, very few companies are anywhere close to that floor, so lower costs to consumers should not be a factor at all.
So when the entire economy, and by extension, the entire society collapses, and everything reverts into Communism/Fascism, that will be all fine and dandy?
Sorry. Don't work like that.
This seems to me to be a varient on the classical Free Rider problem.
In a nutshell, all these companies expect somebody else to take the competitiveness hit so the economy will keep humming along. The problem is, nobody is going to blink first.
Put on top of that, the people actually making the decisions will actually BENEFIT from an economic crash/depression. Their relative worth will skyrocket because of the massive deinflation.
What can be done? Well, protectionism is bad, I guess. This is the end of the capitalist empire, I think. The Soviet Union fell..now the west is going to fall as well.
More than likely the FF series has gone the furthest of anything in making political statements of one type or another...in the early games, there's an anti-Imperial bent for sure, the large dominating country that's trying to take over the world. Baron and Vector..
In VII, the pro-enviromentalism aspect of the story is basically impossible to avoid. The large power reactors are killing the planet, and the party is trying to stop them.
VIII and IX really relaxed the political aspects of it all I think, going for a more basic love and fantasy story respectivly..
X really brought it back with a vengence however. It's basically a cautionary tale on the dangers of religious devotion and conservative acting. (Why do we do it? Because we always have). Won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't played it, but everything gets turned upside down on its ear near the end.
Commercial songs and movies?
Actually, the number is zero.
Now, I've downloaded untold numbers of live concerts, but that's a different story, now isn't it?
And movies? Sorry, but when it comes to movies I'm an elitest. Either it's worth seeing in a theatre, or on a DVD or not at all. Same with music actually.
Oh, and by the way. There's nothing unethical about using P2P to sample music you would normally not have access to. It's downloading full albums/tracks that you would have bought that's unethical.
(And remember. I'm the one saying that it's not P2P, it's used media sales that are killing the industries.
Yet he supports the law.
Which makes him an unethical son-of-a-bitch not worth giving the time of day to.
People just don't have any concept of morality these days.
While I accept the need for the artists/producers to be rewarded, these guys better be careful. The fact is, they're not going to be able to keep the legal grip on things forever, the generations coming up are going to have MUCH different attitudes on this stuff and other govermental matters, how severe the backlash depends on how tight they try to hold on to things.
Completly disrespecting any idea or concept of fair use, frankly is a very dangerous tactic.
I think it's ego getting in the way of their brains.
Maybe so. And I think that consumers do have the right to resell their property.
But I think it highlights the madness that is going through regarding things such as emulation, for example. Offering it for download for free is baaaad, but re-selling it and making money off of your work is good?
Yes, there's a legal difference. But if the media groups want credibility, they have to be honest.
Re-selling is perfectly legal. It's also hurting the industry much more than any sort of P2P or casual copying.
But it's not a 1-1 gain, at least with video games. You trade in a game for what, 10? 15 bucks? Then they sell it for 30 or so. I think that's how it goes. So that's 15 dollars sucked out of that economy. Not AS much, but it still hurts.
In any case, if you didn't notice, when I referred to it as media, that's including music and movies, where such trade-in, just isn't as prevalent.
I think that game rentals, in the long run, hurt more than used, at least in that particular market..not because that most video games are trash, in fact, I think there's more quality there than ever before, but that people can get their fill of a game within a week rental.
The thing is, even though I support fair use rights, there is a point in this. Used media, of all types, games, software, movies, music, is a killer of sales.
In fact, more than P2P, it's my personal observation that this is where the real damage is to producers.
Think about it for a second..sales of used media are pretty stable, if not increasing. This does one of two things..
#1. It prevents a new sale on something that is still sold shrinkwrapped.
#2. Even on obsolete media, it's taking valuable entertainment dollars out of the market.
It's #2 that I'd be concerned about, more or less. People only have so much to spend on entertainment, and theoretically, it would actually be better, for example, for a consumer to spend that 20 bucks going towards a new game, and download the older game, than taking that money out of the potential market for their product. Now that's no guarentee that it'll work out, but you gotta be bold, be confident I guess.
Now, I buy used media myself, and get it at a good price. (Buy 2 DVDs get 2 free) Even though I know it's hurting the producers, as long as they focus on piracy, and those scare tactics, instead of going after those stores, frankly, I couldn't care less.
But it IS hurting them.
NS is great, but has some balancing issues to work out.
Mainly, the more players there are in a game, the more advantage that the Marines have. As well, the Aliens take much more practice to play well, as it's something kind of different in a FPS.
The game is balanced for 6v6, but frankly, NS requires at least 24 players for a fun game, but at that point it's unbalanced.
And DoD is improving, there's another update coming out soon, and it may include morters, (which would be really good I think).
Because the FF1 magic system kind of suckd.
Ok, it really sucked.
Some levels would be left without any good spells to use, especially with White magic, and there would not be enough points with the 9 max to use cure spells for white. It really limited the options you could use.
The Easy mode on FF Orgins fixed it a bit, breaking the 9 a level limit, making White mages a lot more valuable, and the game a lot more enjoyable. An optional MP based system would be a nice thing to try as well.
Actually the GBA doesn't feature version encoding.
You can play Japaneese games on a US game boy and vice versa.
Actually, I remember some Christian rock label claiming that their sales have been steadily increasing over the last few years. More interest in it..now for the most part that is a captive audience, but whatever.
I'm not sure if you're a troll or not, but to be honest, P2P is the last bastion of hope for the indie-record store. The small store just can't compete on price-point with the large box stores over the Top-40 hits. The only thing it can do is stock the things that the big stores won't/can't stock. Unfortunately, with the radio consolodation, promotion of those smaller acts is a much more difficult proposition.
I see people raving about a band, and instead of having to sit there and send the MP3, they just say, well get it off of Kazaa. That's how these bands grow in size.
In any case, I have a suggestion for you. In my neck of the woods, CD shops such as your own are being killed by the presence of used CD shops. A friend of mine owns a used CD shop, and his business couln't possibly be better. It's booming. And this is a huge part of the drop in sales being reported. (It's about a 25% increase in business for these shops around here. Again, do the math. I'm assuming with some bigger markets and bigger used shops, the number goes up even more. Plan 9 in Richmond..*drool*)
In any case, if you're looking to save your business, that's where you should look. If you're so moralistic on helping the artists, instead of giving in to the trend and becoming a used (some would say pirate) vendor, you should start an information campaign and explain to people why getting CDs cheap like that is what is really killing the industry. Sure it's legal. But the question is...
Is it ethical?
If you follow that path, I wish you the best of luck. If not? You're just a tool.
How many I can think of, in no particular order.. #1. Viewtiful Joe. Great 2D gameplay, a very unique feel to it. As well, the game was just beautiful in pretty much every way, from the graphics to the music to the little extras. (The old-style movie posters in the credits, the little jokes on the pause screen, the different take on the DiD story.) #2. Yoshi's Island. Just absolutly amazing. Still is. Throwing eggs around requires a lot of skill. Every stage brings something new to master. #3. SMB 3. The classic. Best NES game ever, in reality was a 16-bit quality game on a 8-bit system. #4. Super Metroid. Very short, but I think that was a bit of the charm. You could beat it, go from weak to powerful, in one sitting (2:57 is my best time..I got that time about 20 times..the EXACT same time) #5. Castlevania SotN. Best of the Castlevania games by far. Metroid style gameplay with a lot of charm #6. Bubble Bobble. Best old school platformer. The engine in it gave a lot of little tricks you could do with the physics. I still play it. #7. Guardian Heroes. Best Genesis game (next to Mean Bean Machine) Lots of action and a fair style of gameplay.