I just watched this GDC talk about commercializing emulation

>>3123802
>Would you pay for a Spotify/Netflix type service which gave access to large libraries of emulated classic console games?

No.

>>3123802
>Would you pay for a Spotify/Netflix type service which gave access to large libraries of emulated classic console games?
Easy no.

Absolutely not, for the same reason I don't use the actual Spotify and Netflix. I'd consider it if you paid the publisher directly for the right to download a DRM-free clean dump of the ROM that you could play in any emulator or load onto a flash cart, but I would not fall for the subscription meme.

>>3123802
It depends where the money go but I probably would.

Everything is not black and white, and paying for retro games on virtual console or other services isn't just "paying for emulation".

Paying for retro games on those services is the only way to give publishers money for those games. The fact that the original devs don't get any money from it is besides the point, in most cases, the original devs wouldn't get any money from game sales even for physical copies back in the days, they were paid by the publisher to make the game, period, and then the game belonged to the publisher and -they- made money from it. Buying retro games these days doesn't make much difference in that regard.

My point being, when buying through those services, the money goes to those publishers, not to resellers who ruin the market or to used video games stores. This is very important, because it tells those publishers, yes, we love those games, yes, there is still an audiance for these kind of games.

I don't believe Megaman 9 would have EVER come out if MM1 to 6 weren't so successfull on Wii's virtual console. I believe MM2 was a top seller at the time, and without that, no publisher would have ever want to risk money on "oudated" games.

And MM9 was fantastic, everything we love. And even besides the graphical style, it also tells them people still enjoy retro gameplay mechanics, giving publishers and devs the idea that no, even with modern technical standar, they don't HAVE to make their game a copy of Call of Duty, there are still people buying and enjoying other and older gameplay mechanics.

Let's also not forget that MM9 pretty much started, or at least boosted up, a whole trend of "retro style" games. Yeah, few are actually good, but those few are at least something new we can chew on and enjoy.

These services are the only way to keep retro games, and their kind of mechanics, truely alive inside today's market.

>>3123802
Never. I'm happy to pay for roms, but there's no way I'm paying for DRM.

>>3123837
So basically gog with a bigger variety of systems?

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>>3123802
>paying for abandonware

>>3123802
NOPE

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>>3123802
>Earthbound/Chrono trigger on a Spotify/Netflix type service
It would be worth it just to see resellers squirm.

>>3123852
Yeah, pretty much. They could even distribute the games alongside emulators to make it normie-friendly, as long as they allow advanced users to extract the ROMs and use them separately.

>>3123869
Who gives a fuck, copying roms would still be illegal, I can just download whatever roms I want.

>>3123870
>copying roms would still be illegal
Wait, do you mean copying ROMs between devices you own or copying ROMs and giving the copies to friends? It would definitely be possible to make a service where the former is legal. Such things already exist for music (iTunes, Bandcamp) and even for games (Humble Store, GoG.) I'd love a DRM-free GoG-like store for retro console ROMs.

The latter will probably never be legal, but it isn't legal for any form of media.

>>3123802
Square enix makes way too much money off of IOS ports to ever let their games be available for free, Nintendo and sega too. It would just be weird consoles like turbographics and old abandonware pc games.

>>3123864
virtual console releases didn't make a dent in collectorfag autism, neither would that

>>3123802
>Would you pay for a Spotify/Netflix type service which gave access to large libraries of emulated classic console games?
maybe, depends on what i get and what the fee is.

>>3123802
>Would you pay for a Spotify/Netflix type service which gave access to large libraries of emulated classic console games?
didn't some company do this with mainly arcade games a few years ago? gamefly or something

>>3123802
Definitely no. That shit's free online

>>3123882
Sega's stuff is available on a variety of platforms like Virtual Console, Xbox Marketplace, Playstation Store, Google Playstore or Steam.

>>3124738
>didn't some company do this with mainly arcade games a few years ago? gamefly or something

Sony is doing this right now with 7th Gen games.

>>3124738
https://archive.org/details/internetarcade
free video games!

>>3123802
>Would you pay for a Spotify/Netflix type service which gave access to large libraries of emulated classic console games?

No because you have no idea how well they are really being emulated. Just look at the outrage people have for ZSNES over SNES9x. It's better to just let people emu how they want and custom tune all their own settings.

>>3124758
thanks

now i remember, it was called gametap and it is apparently gone

I personally don't pay for any type of streaming service or rental service, but I feel very strongly that retro games need to archived and preserved.

>>3124738
there's a company called consoleclassix that does this and has done this for years. it's a legal grey area, but they collect a ton of cartridges and basically check them out to emulators.

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>emuparadise exists
>"would you pay for..."
NO. Fuck off.

>>3123802

The thing is, IF a company wanted to do this successfully, shit would have to be dirt cheap. If the price isn't low enough for people just to pay for the convenience of not having to find some shady ROM site and get everything they want for free, then it'll never work.

That's why the Virtual Console hasn't curbed emulation at all, and the fact that people can side-load emulators onto the Wii just shows how little effect it has without a decent price.

speaking of emulation, what are the preferred sites to get roms now? Last time i looked for anything i think was when cool roms got their shit pushed in and took all the nintendo shit down.

>>3124986
Internet archive
No ads, no captcha, no registration, great reputation

>>3123837
the problem is GOG does this and the response is "HURRR PAYING FOR ABANDONWARE FAAAAAAAAAGS!"

The reality is that hosting large quantities of games on a website aint free, and when we start getting into PS2 and eventually 360 exclusives (Can't wait until I can emulate Forza 4) it's going to skyrocket.

If it's done in a mostly fair and non jewish way I'm all for it, GOG games are easily copied and easily pirated, as they should be, but sometimes I like having a collection of games in the cloud that I can access at any time on any computer with a nice wood panel layout to boot.

>>3127201
gog actually fixes games.

>>3127232
More like they steal fan patches.

While it would be nice for the types of people who use the virtual console and the like, there's just no way in hell it will be as robust and nowhere near the level of "preservation" we have now outside of, MAYBE, the development of system specific emulators.
The problem comes with licensing. There will always be games where the license is in someone's hand and they don't want to give it up, or a publisher will have gone under and it'll be impossible to obtain. In the end, the number of games available will be less than in the NoIntro sets.
Arguably, the number of people interested in the most obscure of games is so low that they don't even make sense to be released that way (hence they don't make it to VC as it is).

For the most part, an emulation service is pointless for the consumer, for the companies, and for preservation. (Though if a company wanted to make an emulator for their outdated consoles, that might actually be the best route.)

>would you pay for a service that you already get for free

What the fuck?

>>3127248
Got proof?

Refusal to prove is considered admission of defeat.

>>3127262
This what the hell is going on in this thread. I might buy some old games on modern portables, but there is no way in hell I'd pay for roms on my own PC.

>>3127274
>Refusal to prove is considered admission of defeat.
>proclaiming victory means you're right

>>3123802
Hell yes. If they are official releases and I don't have to deal with the often hit or miss roms and emulators that are out there, I'd be all over it.

I love emulators, use a few, but official support would go a long ways I feel. I'd pay a couple bucks a month for sure.

It would be pure shit

Nothing by major companies would be on it due to licensing fees

Gamers should be pushing for PUBLIC DOMAIN laws to apply to vidya not begging to be charged money the 100th time.

Maybe a sub service of xbox /nintendo/sony to get unlimited access to recently unsupported game library's (ps2/ps3/vita). Paying money to play nes games is stupid. Wtf nintendo. If it was 10000 games in 1 3ds card id pay 20 or 30 bucks for that but the current prices are shit.i bought these games many times in the first place

>>3124662
It did for a few months.

Then it just made it worse. Never thought I would feel like a Fucking Goofball for selling my EarthBound cart for "only" $100 back in the day.

>>3128037
Why wouldn't public domain laws apply to games? Given enough time games will fall into the public domain just like books, movies or music. The main difference is that games aren't old enough for that to have happened.

>>3128037
>>3128264
Even then, "Public Domain" laws can be a MESS.

They differ from country to country, here in France they are different than from the European Union, which it is supposed to follow.

So sometimes, the right owner will claim that they follow this law rather than that other law, just to keep the rights longer. They may be wrong about that, because, for instance, the EU law should prevail over France's, but the only way to figure out if they're wrong is to release the thing on your own, wait for the original right owners to suit you, and see who wins. Nobody's risking at.

Besides, powerful companies and entities can make damn sure their stuff won't be public domain during your lifetime through shenanigans. A Nintendo game will never be public domain.

>>3128283
Nintendo games will fall in the public domain 50 years after the death of the authors in accordance with Japanese copyright law.
Most countries have a copyright clause that means they don't have to protect something that has fallen into the public domain in its country of origin.

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>>3124662
virtual console is a pile of shit

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>>3128371

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>>3128374
"hey i know, let's turn down the contrast, water down the color palette and add input lag to every game! gamers will love this!"

>>3123802
>Paying for stream services at all
Fuck no. Get common sense you idiots.

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>>3127274
>>3127324

You can find posts about them googling "GoG uses cracks" but I haven't found if it was the publisher that lazily gave them a cracked exe or GoG repacking the game with the crack.

Pic related that I found from the research doesn't make sense to me because I would assume that it would just be zeroed out.

>>3128460
Who cares, if the game will be playable with it or not. Like Nintendo used the ROM with the emu header. It's theier property and can do what they want with it.

>>3128460
So far it looks like GoG has to resort to "various approaches".

>>3128460
Why does it matter if they use cracks anyway? They can legally do so.

If a game is 20+ years old it should be free.

>>3128490
>If a song is 20+ years old it should be free.
>If a book is 20+ years old it should be free.
>If a film is 20+ years old it should be free.

>>3128490
that sense of entitlement tho

>>3128520
Yes.
If a patent is 20 years old, it should expire.

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>>3123802
Gametap anyone?

there was another program (pretty sure there was some malware in there somewhere) but it was essentially retro arch but with a cheesy xp UI and you could only play 2600 and nes for free and snes and others for 5 bucks a month

but if you looked in the the program files you'd find zsnes, nesticle and the likes that you could use with your own roms.

>>3128520
>>3128490
Let's expand on this.

If something goes 20 years without a significant contribution to its content, then it goes public domain.

Like Zelda, a significant contribution would be a few new dungeons. Or Baldur's Gate getting new quests and classes. A texture hack however is not "content". Hell, make the standards based on a percentage so you have to add more and more content each time.

>>3128520
What speaks against it?
Most actually IS free after about 70 years. But 70 years in current fast development is actually too long and no one cares and copies anyway. So 20 or even 10 years should be more than fine. Would also fuel innovation instead of recycling old shit again and again.

>>3128560
Copyright in the US is 95 years after the publication date.

>>3128520
But copyright should only last 20 years anyways. When copyright law was around in the early 20th century the term was only 15 years, but it ballooned in size because government let itself get bribed into extending it.

>>3123802
if the emulation was higan quality and you had the option buy games, then definitely

gametap already did this btw, which frank cifaldi had a part in

>>3128569
And that keeps getting higher because Disney getting in people's faces saying "LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY".

>>3128381
these wiiu screens? even kamiya bitched about it

>>3128605
they're all screenshots from the original Wii virtual console. i used the same capture card and settings for both VC and original console.

>>3128595
>higan quality

Emphasis on bsnes. Higan is a suite of emulators of which only the SNES core is worth anything. The rest aren't really up to much.

>>3128609
for such an autistic bastard, you'd think he'd concentrate on making the definitive nes core before adding a ton of cores.

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>>3128601
>>3128569
>>3128584
Much like /vr/, public domain in the US is a fixed date, not a moving window.

Nothing from after 1928 will EVER be public domain.

That's the final cutoff year and it will not change until the day the earth is nuked to glass.

Copyright laws will always be altered to be "however many years ago 1928 was"

>>3128534
Nice bait.
>equating retroarch to some cobbled together payware emu that uses standalone exes

>>3128636
There are enough NES emus that already do a damn fine job, the GBA emulator is an extension of the ST018 emulation (that he then took and ran with), the Gameboy emulation was added for SGB support without the use of Gambatte. Now he's legitimately focusing on Wonderswan.

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>>3128792
They will enter public domain in 2019 unless a new copyright extension is passed before that.

Disney died in 1966 so his works will become public domain in Japan, China and other countries with lifetime + 50 years at the beginning of the next year.
I'm curious what results that will have.

>>3128837
>I'm curious what results that will have.
a bunch of lawyers will have some extra work on their hands.

>>3123802
>paying for pirated content
This is what the jews want, don't you see.
It's all part of the plan.

>>3123802
>Spotify
Try magicaltune.com its made by anon on /g/.
And its free.

>>3123802
>streaming games

Fuck no. As if the input lag on actual emulators downloaded on the computer wasn't bad enough.

>>3128837
You actually think law wording means shit when there's big money involved?

>>3123864
They are both in virtual console and if anything it made the games even more expensive because people had to have the original versions.

>>3128381
The WiiU VC is god awful. At least the Wii VC is better. NES games are still a little dark but at least they aren't the blurry input lag ridden mess that they are on WiiU. N64 games look great on the Wii VC.

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>>3128837
>They will enter public domain in 2019 unless a new copyright extension is passed before that.
A new copyright extension will be passed before that.

Also expired copyrights can be extended retroactively - they were in the European Union

>>3123802
>Would you pay for something you can get for free?

No.

>>3128534
I really like that UI.

>>3123802
The thing is, you can't trust a company to keep its software alive forever.

But you can trust internet piracy most of the time.

>>3123802
One important thing the guy overlooks is the fact that digital distribution is inherently detrimental to preservation. The PSN, 360, and Wii digital stores are all going to be shut down one day, we're already seeing this with the closures of the PSN, DSi, and OG Xbox store fronts. What happens to all those digital-only games once the stores close down and you can't redownload or purchase games? You're fucked. The only way to ever get those games again is piracy, and that's assuming pirates have dumped every single game. Then you're at the mercy of a publisher to relist those games on newer platforms, which is impossible to guarantee.

Relying on digital-only methods to preserve older games has the same issue, once the service shuts down you're fucked. Same applies to a "Spotify/Netflix" style of service for older games, but that's even worse.

>>3129252
>digital distribution is inherently detrimental to preservation
wrong. DRM is inherently detrimental. Digital distribution is almost ideal, as it ends up nearly instantly as distributed backup via torrents. Really hard to lose that data.

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>>3123802
I guess... But then I'd have to build an HTPC. Ugh.

Also it's literally impossible to gather all the rights needed to make all of those games available. A lot of those publishers don't even exist as holding companies any more. It makes more sense to just wrap emulators in a shell with a nice UI, and HDMI that HTPC out to your receiver/TV. And it would be incredibly difficult for whoever put together this 'official' service to handle emulation of more complicated retro hardware like the Saturn or original Xbox. So it's better to just emulate on your own, or use original hardware-which is my personal preference. That said, I'm not shelling out a buttload of money for "le precious grails" at "collector prices". So I'll emulate shit that's more than like $15.

>>3127201
>Can't wait until I can emulate Forza 4
Ha ha ha. Microsoft themselves can't even emulate the original Xbox completely, good luck waiting for a 360 emulator.

>>3129304
It sucks. It's the only retro console you really have to get physical discs for. Although you could just load everything onto a hard drive and do it that way I suppose...

>>3127201
>The reality is that hosting large quantities of games on a website aint free
Hosting redundant copies on a ton of private computers is free though. Artificial scarcity is undermining all the advantages of digital data, it's ridiculous.

>sometimes I like having a collection of games in the cloud that I can access at any time on any computer
That's its own service then, and paying for that is fair. Then you know about the shortcomings though, and have alternatives, if the terms aren't agreeable

>>3129306
Aye. I'm pissed about it myself. Just wanna play some damn Unreal Championship and Brute Force. Luckily the consoles cost nothing but I don't know about keeping that massive box around for just a few games.

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>>3129315
I dunno, I love that big dumb box. And I've got it loaded with a metric shit ton of 3rd-5th gen games because it emulates so well. Although N64 emulation on it is real sketchy.

>>3128460
people behind GoG were common bootlegers before communism fall and shortly after, they've been doing those "repacs" for almost 30 years now

>>3128371
>>3128374
>>3128381
isnt that the wii u though?

>>3129351
Wii VC nes games are dark for some reason.

>>3129479
adjusting the gamma for HD LCD, instead of CRT?

>>3129351
No, it's an original Wii.

source: i made the screenshots.

>>3129787
Well it looks much worse on WiiU. Not only are they darker, but the input lag is worse, and the graphics are covered in Vaseline.