Interesting article concerning emulation

[carmel_andrews]

Link only

 

 

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njtip/v2/n2/3/

 

 

Lets throw it out there, what do people really think

 

Look at it another way, would the whole classic/retro gaming and computer market be as buoyant and healthy now if emulation and concepts relating to emulation (like reverse engineered console/computer clones like portable vcs, famiclones, genintari etc, tv game joysticks/flashback type devices and similar) didn't exist

 

Remembering of-course that the companies originally making the systems presently emulated only sold xx amount of units which logically means that, take away emulation and concepts relating to emulation will mean that the classic/retro gaming and computing market will not expand beyond the amount of systems those companies sold or made

 

would software development (games and non games) for the retro gaming/computing market be as healthy and as buoyant now if emulation didn't exist

 

Well, simple answer to that is, to using the old saying 'you want to keep selling to the same 40-50 people each and every time', that is what will happen if you take away emulation, fact is, more and more of the software development for the classic/retro platforms are happening on emulation first, mostly because it represents the largest part of the whole classic/retro platform or systems market and also lower costs investment

 

lower costs investment because all your paying for is the costs of development tools and or systems and paying someone to 'host' your program(s) on some website, compare that to the traditional software formats or OMF (Original Media Formats) like tape/disk (5.25 and 3/3.5 versions) as well as game carts and the expense involved in supporting the OMF's (as the likes of tapes/disks or cartridges don't come free and the fact that companies still selling this media only sell it in bulk and unless you're guaranteed to sell xx number of games on tape/disk or cart format, you begin to see why developers on the classic/retro systems/platforms prefer the emulation route first to getting to their market

 

The problem the major hardware manufacturers have regarding emulation, isn't the actual concept/product itself but the business model the market mostly relies on (namely a free to download product) that is the main concern from the hardware manufacturers as they can't see how their platforms can 'profit' or benefit in anyway if the emulation market is geared towards a 'free to download' product, i am not too sure about the arguments from the games publishers because most of the games content comes from companies either no longer trading/in business or that the companies themselves can't be bothered to chase up everyone that downloaded goldeneye for the n64, tomb raider for the playstation or combat for the vcs etc

 

If software companies were that concerned about people downloading things like n64 goldeneye or playstation tomb raider (or similar for other retro computing/gaming platforms) then why didn't they just get someone in their own company to develop an 'official' emulation/emulator version of that program/game and stick it on their own website as a 'paid for' product (that's if these companies were that concerned with protecting not just their software investments but also their preferred business model)

 

Perhaps the gaming industry and the wider computer industry should take a leaf out of the experiences of the film/music industry and embrace the concept of emulation, by getting the emulation market away from a 'free to download' market, to a market geared at a 'paid for' product

 

Now, I've no problem with owning and using actual physical hardware (and related software) and to a certain extent, yes, emulation isn't the same as actually owning and playing with actual physical hardware, however look at it another way lets say your an A8 or ST user, are you going to be able to go out there and get every commercial game that ever existed on these/those platforms with packaging, manuals etc (including proto's or rares as well as other unreleased product)...chances are very rare, compare that to whats available on these platforms through emulation and the fact that more and more unreleased/rare or proto product is finding it's way onto the emulation market (either first or exclusively) plus the fact that the actual emulation product is actually getting better, especially with competition from the likes of hardware emulators like flashback series and mobile hardware devices like iphone/dingoo and gp2x etc alike devices

 

Ultimately whether we like it or not, emulation is here to stay, emulation itself is market forces, point being made here is the same argument as to why most AA members prefer to sell their unwanted hardware/software on ebay instead of selling it directly to AA members on AA itself, because ebay, like emulation is market forces (remembering that the majority of us here voted for a 'capitalist' system, and market forces forms the core of the capitalist system)

 

Why do people prefer emulators, simple, the original hardware is either no longer available or parts for that original hardware are not in plentiful supply should the original hardware fail in anyway, with emulators, you don't have the problem of 'hardware failing', also unlike the actual hardware itself, the emulator can emulate various hardware revisions (i.e 400/800/xl/xe if we're talking A8) without serious modding of original hardware, also any number of hardware upgrades (be it memory upgrades, processor upgrades and gfx/sound hardware upgrades as well as new o/s's can easily be implemented through an emulator as well as emulating hard drives and disk formats not possible on actual hardware without a suitably modded disk hardware)

 

You can compare the emulation market and the whole retro/classic platforms market to the business world use of selling over the phone to selling face to face, i.e in the business world, selling/marketing over the phone (aka telesales/telemarketing) has surpassed client facing sales (face to face selling) by a considerable margin, again because you get to your market quicker via selling over the phone and you also get to 'see' more customers and get decisions made much quicker...market forces again, it's only a matter of time before the emulation market outgrows the whole classic/retro platform market it presently is part of, simply because that is the way things are moving,....i.e companies like atari (infogrammes) or yerronimo ventures (commodore) etc aren't going to invest their profits in rejigging complete hardware lines again (even if they do use the concept of 'system on a chip' type devices or re-engineering classic hardware chip sets like CV is presently doing) After all if there was a market for re releasing compete hardware lines why aren't atari or yerronimo doing it, why are sega getting 3rd parties to doing hardwaere emulations of sega products instead of doing it themselves, simply because the market isn't there for that sort of hardware

Edited February 6, 2010 by carmel_andrews

[+poobah]

Wow, so many inaccuracies in one place, I don't know where to begin.

 

Perhaps my favorite pet peeve...

"Moore's Law, which hypothesizes that the processing power of PCs doubles every eighteen months"

 

Moore actually said that the number of transistors [in a processor] would double every 2 years. Yes, I know, No, I don't care- they aren't the same.

 

 

"Today, game enthusiasts can download 298 Nintendo 64 ("N64") games along with an emulator in less than one hour, an act that results in a potential US$10,920 loss per customer to the gaming industry."

 

Right, $10,920 exactly..... uh-huh.

 

I fail to see how P2P has fueled emulation. emulators and ROM sets were around long before bittorrent.

 

and it goes on and on, which is a shame because I agree with their point, that video game manufacturers have an opportunity to avoid the music and movie industry's errors.

[carmel_andrews]

If I could suggest a 'solution' to certain issues relating to emulation as far as software and hardware companies are concerned

 

the various websites that make up both the classic/retro platform scene (everything from magnavox/atari right through to the 3do/gamecube/jaguar/dc and ps1 and anything in between) as well as the websites that make up the emulation scene (everything from magnavox/atari right through to the 3do/gamecube/jaguar/dc and ps1 andf anything in between) should work together with the software and hardware companies to create in effect a 'paid for' product model, that establishes a legal footing for both the emulators themselves as well as the software (games/non games files) that permits you to doing anything useful with emulators

 

Idea being is that both the original software company/programmer gets a percentage of each download, as does the hardware company (for emulators themselves) and also the website the paid for download content is available on

 

The benefit here is that everyone benefits, i.e emulation/classic platform sites (generating an income/revenue), emulation itself becomes legitimate and therefore ripe to make investments in, i.e coming out with better emulators or software for those platforms currently emulated, which enables both the software and hardware companies to generate additional sales from software and also create a potential user base to sell new hardware platforms to, additionally it allows the computer and gaming industries to put in place a substantial 'digital archive' or 'electronic/digital media and hardware museum' as each website supporting the retro platform or the emulation market is effectively an archive/museum protecting both the hardware (via software) and the game files (i.e roms or software images) that would have otherwise have disappeared into the dustbin of history

 

the other benefit here is software development on emulated platforms, as more people will come into the market to develop games and non games programs and given the rise in open hardware emulators (i.e hardware emulators that allow you to install or load in games software via memory cards or memory sticks or a cable attaching the hardware emulator to a pc/mac) it will allow for NMF (New Media Formats)to be created for those systems being emulated (i.e sd cards/sim cards and memory sticks etc) that in turn will engender a market for potentially re-releasing entire back catalogues/catalogs of classic games like super mario, star raiders, tomb raider, pacman, etc etc, allow the original software companies/programmers etc to generating more income or revenue from games that otherwise will just disappear into digital oblivion

[ls650]

Moore's Law- read all about it here:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

[+poobah]

Moore's Law- read all about it here:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

 

Should be required reading by anyone before using the term.

Nice link

[Albert]

"Today, game enthusiasts can download 298 Nintendo 64 ("N64") games along with an emulator in less than one hour, an act that results in a potential US$10,920 loss per customer to the gaming industry."

 

Right, $10,920 exactly..... uh-huh.

No kidding, if you look at the footnote, it states,

 

This figure was calculated by tallying the number of N64 emulated games available on file-sharing services multiplied by the average retail price of $39 per game.

So, Nintendo is still selling producing and selling Nintendo 64 games for $39 a piece, are they? And what are the odds that someone who downloaded 298 N64 game would ever purchase all of those games? Pretty much nil. A more realistic argument for losses would be to add up the cost of whatever N64 games Nintendo may be offering on the Wii, which would be a fraction in terms of number and cost. And of course there is no way to know if someone who pirates games would even buy the games if piracy was not an option.

 

Not trying to defend piracy, but arguments like the one made above are just ridiculous and stopped me from reading the rest of the paper.

 

..Al

[mckafka99]

Are there any 'official' comments from any actual copyright owners regarding the roms for various classic systems or classic arcade games? (by classic, I tend to mean games/systems from the 7800 (1986) and back)For example, I am surprised to see so many 2600/5200/7800 roms available here at AA. Certainly this has got to be one of the highest profile sites for Atari retro material so if Atari really had any problems with the availability of the roms from here, they probably would not be here, right? (In the same way that apparently, Activision asked for their roms not be hosted here). The only thing I am aware of is the known public domain status of the original Vectrex catalog.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Well, you have to remember that it doesn't matter if they are posting actual losses due to downloading. Well, it matters, but the company still has the right to claim that their brand is being devalued even if they're not seeing significant monetary losses due to downloading. For example, Nintendo can claim that its Mario brand is being devalued by downloading because often a lot of sources of the ROMs are fly-by-night operations that are very shady. By associating with companies that are on their face illicit, it can potentially be claimed that the value of Mario as a brand is being damaged in reputation, as a consumer may choose to go elsewhere due to the association. Even if it's a game that is no longer being produced or sold at retail levels, there is still that brand recognition and association there that can still cause problems.

 

These are companies that have spent literally decades building up their reputations in the video gaming world and, as far as I'm concerned, they should reserve the right to pick and choose who they will be associating with in the business world. Of course, this is an unrealistic expectation in the internet world, but nonetheless -- if you are a company and you have the right to pick who your vendors and suppliers are, you have the right to keep your brand within certain guidelines and I believe that damages should be able to be assessed for anyone or any organization that potentially damages that brand recognition.

 

It's all a convoluted mess, because you've got the one side argument of copyright, in that dumping a ROM does create a copy and therefore is infringing, but on the other hand, you've got fair use claims for people who are trying to further education of video game history (and let's be honest, the people who are downloading all the N64 ROMs aren't interested in them to learn about the history of video games).

 

Honestly I'm of the opinion with emulation and the like companies shouldn't take either of these stances. You sold 5 million units back in 1983 and that's very admirable, but that in itself is what did the footwork for the brand recognition. To me, emulation only strengthens that brand recognition -- when I play a version of a Mario/Kirby/Pac-Man game I am immediately thinking of those mascots in a company association format and am more likely to purchase their product. But then again I feel wrong emulating stuff I don't own or am actively trying to own.....

 

Basically it's a long and difficult road for any sort of legal precedence for emulation as a legitimate form. Companies own the rights to these products and if they choose to sue they choose to sue, that's within their rights. It's very damaging to the retro community and very sad, but that's the facts....

[carmel_andrews]

Perhpas we need to look at it another way from a purely commercial or buusiness viewpoint

 

Emulation exists because the market dictates that it exists, purely to service those systems no longer produced, manufactured or marketed and to preserve the technology that those systems represented (albeit in reverse engineered form via software)

 

For those that don't view emulation as a 'product', just look at the arguments that software houses way back when where having with the crackers and pirates that were cracking or copying the game put out by the software houses, the argument being that software houses referred to their software as a 'product' or copyrighted product to quote the numerous times that argument cropped up (in the various computer games magazines)

 

And since the software houses referred to their 'software' as a 'product' and since the majority of emulators exist in software form, then to using the arguments from the software houses, emulators are therefore technically a 'product' (irrespective and regardless whether it's free or paid for)

 

Its a shame that the various hardware manufacturers other then atari (under tramiel), amiga and amstrad didn't take a leaf out of atari, amiga's or amstrads books by officially supporting or giving backing for particular emulators, i site you the following examples, namely st xformer (one of the first commercially available emulators emulating a retro system) from what i remember atari not only supported the effort, they even allowed the publisher (branch always software) to reverse engineer/copy the firmware (o/s and basic roms) needed to make the emulator functional, apparenly the same two companies partnered again with the first ST emulator for the PC, the gemulator, which was also one of the first commerically available hardware emulators, amiga did the same thing with the emulator win UAE and it's commerical version amiga forever (by cloanto) and i recall hearing that amstrad made available the sans roms for both the amstrad and sinclair range of home computers for use in various amstrad and sinclair emulators

 

There is just so much potential here for creating not just a market but an industry in it's own right, unfortunately the men in suits that run the hardware companies and the software companies are just too blind and ignorant to realise this, they complain that emulators are screwing with their copyrights and people reverse engineering the games software that are used on these emulators are screwing with potential sales of said software, if they had any sense (or something called brain cells/a brain) between their left and right ears, they'd be taking on the groups coming out with these emuilators and publishing their own 'officially sanctioned' emulators (like the ones mentioned previously) and not only that the software companies getting in on the act by releasing officially sanctioned emulator versions of old software therefore taking on the illegal roms sites (i think you know the ones)

 

After all, if the emulator is good enough and accurately mimics/emulates said system in it's entirety then people will be more then happy to pay for it, just like they did pay for the physical hardware (that's been emulated) when it was actaully available and the same applies to the games images that are used for said emulators, if the software is good enough and works without problems on said emulators, people again will gladly pay for it just like they did when the software was in it's original form, further more because of the numbers of people coming into the emulator market (be it users or software developers) hardware companies benefit because it's more people to sell emulators to and also sell new hardware platforms to, not only that but also intreoducing new hardware platforms as emulators first and offering users of these emulators a discount should they then decide to by that hardware platform, the software companies also benefit because they get additional sales not just on old software but also a revenue stream for selling new games on old platforms

[Cebus Capucinis]

Agreed, carmel! Look at the Flashback machines. I'm not sure about total numbers for them (Curt would have to chime in on that) but those were above-the-board recreations of original hardware and software and those did well on the market. I think that's a specific case-study example of how there is definitely an industry for retro recreations. All the Yobo clones and Sega clones that are still being made are a perfect example as well! If the first-party companies would actually produce these systems we would likely see a high revenue in sales while providing for a higher quality product (in the case of the Yobos and Segas, the Flashback is already great quality) with more resources for fleshed out features and the like.