I wanted to hear some of the opinions y'all had on Nintendo suing popular ROM sites. I stumbled upon it on a cringy Kotaku article, and saw that they were suing LoveROMS and LoveRetro for millions of dollars. I'm kinda neutral in this... Like, yes, these games are technically pirated, but it gives a lot of diversity when playing games. This means that I can go and play some Super Mario World without buying a SNES or paying a ridiculous sum to some dude on eBay for a classic edition that has like 3 games I'd actually play. I understand that Nintendo is a successful company that needs to protect their properties.. but is this going too far?
Nintendo Suing LoveROMS.. Opinions?
- Thread starter koopasta
- Start date
DJStarstryker
Senior Member
Considering the Switch doesn't even have Virtual Console, the only way Nintendo is currently releasing their older games is through the NES Classic and SNES Classic. But those have limited game selection. That means that, for any other games, you'd have to buy the old, original hardware, used, from somebody else. So Nintendo isn't getting any money anyway.
Honestly, I believe in supporting creators and not pirating things. ROMs and emulators are pretty much another flavor of pirating. But at the same time, many retro games have never, and will never, be released again.
Honestly, I believe in supporting creators and not pirating things. ROMs and emulators are pretty much another flavor of pirating. But at the same time, many retro games have never, and will never, be released again.
xSuperMario64x
a very tired Bug 🪲💤
I think it's wrong that they would sue ROM websites like that. I'm pretty sure it's only bad if the site is selling the game without Nintendo's endorsement (the only ROM sites I've seen that charge prices either have ninty's endorsement or are frauds, I think LoveROM was the latter so that's why they were shut down. But sites like emuparadise are free so theres no issue there). Even if people are downloading them, putting them on game carts, and passing them off as real games, thats not the fault of the ROM distributor (in this case it's likely a lost cause because there's so many hackers out there who already have the ROM, sueing the dist. isn't gonna affect that).
And like the person above said, its not like they're releasing these games to be played freely. Now if they started selling N64 games again for a reasonable price I would definitely buy from them, but until then, if there's a rare game that I want to try our before I buy it, I'm gonna download a ROM first.
And like the person above said, its not like they're releasing these games to be played freely. Now if they started selling N64 games again for a reasonable price I would definitely buy from them, but until then, if there's a rare game that I want to try our before I buy it, I'm gonna download a ROM first.
^What you said. Unless you live in Japan or actually have money to collect old stuff or obscure new stuff that is the only way for most people to try and play stuff at all. Just keep supporting 3ds/Wii U VC, make a Switch one, or just make a N64 classic console for a good price and stop hunting down sites when people obviously use them because they can't get it other ways.
Now those lazy freeloaders who can pay for stuff is another thing, but Ninty has been making weird decisions lately and comapring to eg. Japan's VC on the 3ds we don't have much at all.
Now those lazy freeloaders who can pay for stuff is another thing, but Ninty has been making weird decisions lately and comapring to eg. Japan's VC on the 3ds we don't have much at all.
Considering countless people put their creativity, time and resources into the creation of the games I don't think it's wrong for Nintendo to sue someone who's basically stolen those peoples work. Most artists today would be angry if you used their art in your sig and didn't pay them for it. It's their intellectual property. Video games are just a different form of art. I wouldn't want someone to be able to come in, take my town that I've worked so hard on so and "emulate" it so that others could play around with it. I can imagine the people who created these beloved games would feel the same way.
I don’t believe in supporting them or playing them at all, even if they add “variation” or “stuff we cannot usually get”. They can be a menace to the original company, and therefore I believe it’s right that they are getting sued.
I don't understand how anyone can be against Nintendo on this. This is point blank piracy and highly illegal. Nintendo has every right to do this and I say good on them for doing it. It's their property and they have the right to protect it and use it how they see fit.
Because they are witch hunting literally everything and everyone rather than focusing on their own company and what/how they release things?
They still own the property, therefore other people can't use it. No matter what you say to try to defend these Rom sites, they're still in the wrong. There's literally no way around it lmao
As much as I don't really like this happening Nintendo does have the right to sue LoveRoms... but even then it won't stop other sites getting their hands on new emulators and roms for people to play with.
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Then how about they stop being so exclusive to certain regions just because so badly need $$$?
SolarInferno
Senior Member
I don't think it's going too far at all. Protecting your intellectual property is a serious matter. Whether it's "offering diversity" or not, Nintendo are a business at the end of the day - they're not there to make you, your granny or anybody else happy, they're there to make their shareholders money, and pay their wages. Personally I'm of the opinion that if what you're looking for isn't legally available, you can't have it - if you can pay a high price to have access to it, then it's still available - there's plenty of things that would be very expensive to get a hold of that I could have pirated if I'd have decided to take the morally low road, instead since I couldn't afford them I decided to forgo them. Nobody is actually entitled to be able to play anything, Nintendo however is entitled to protect its intellectual property.
Bread Kennedys
Oyasumi.
The fact that Nintendo basically got rid of Virtual Console and the future of SNES-Wii game redistribution on Nintendo consoles is very uncertain shows me that Nintendo isn't serious about letting people re-experience their older games. In that case, emulation should be allowed if they aren't making any profit off those games themselves. Even then, there are advantages to emulating games on a computer vs. playing them on a console. Not to mention, good luck trying to play games like Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn without an emulator. I know I'm not rich, so I can't afford the prices people on Ebay and Amazon are asking for. Nintendo also has never released those games on Virtual Console or remade them. They have a legal right to do this, but it's still pretty crappy.
Maybe they should focus less on suing people for things they can't be bothered to sell themselves and more on actually offering an alternative legitimate way for people to actually get hold of these games in the first place.
Sounds so crazy it just might work!
Just think, all the time, money and effort they've spent over the years getting things shut down...They could have just spent that on releasing something like Mother 3 or AM2R, something a lot of people probably go to a site like that for, in turn both profiting from it and gaining good will from fans.
They've definitely got he right to protect their IP's, but if they're just taking options away without providing legitimate ones in return then people are just going to view them as arseholes taking their ball and going home.
If anything, if ROMs are bad, we should be looking to get rid of the entire preowned market with places like eBay and Amazon because there's a metric 'f' ton of people actually making profit from developers work via second hand games, and those devs/pubs don't see a cent of it. Seems like a massive double standard to demonise one but praise the other when both have the exact same outcome for the creators, the 'lesser' evil being the one to actually profit from it.
Sounds so crazy it just might work!
Just think, all the time, money and effort they've spent over the years getting things shut down...They could have just spent that on releasing something like Mother 3 or AM2R, something a lot of people probably go to a site like that for, in turn both profiting from it and gaining good will from fans.
They've definitely got he right to protect their IP's, but if they're just taking options away without providing legitimate ones in return then people are just going to view them as arseholes taking their ball and going home.
If anything, if ROMs are bad, we should be looking to get rid of the entire preowned market with places like eBay and Amazon because there's a metric 'f' ton of people actually making profit from developers work via second hand games, and those devs/pubs don't see a cent of it. Seems like a massive double standard to demonise one but praise the other when both have the exact same outcome for the creators, the 'lesser' evil being the one to actually profit from it.
I think Nintendo should look at the ROM sites and what is being taken from that and introduce it to the eshop. That way people have a means to obtain the old software and Nintendo profits.
Regarding the second hand buying thingy, I never considered it but I guess when you sell a second hand game the person who buys it stops the sale of a fresh retail copy being made. That's so weird now that I think about it... kinda reminds me of when Microsoft were going to lock discs to specific user hardware so you couldn't trade games in and then Sony had that whole game sharing campaign.
amazonevan19
DLELELEWOOOOP
The difference between selling/giving a used game vs. roms is that a used game can be sold or given to someone else, and experienced by that other person ONCE. Nintendo or any game creator cannot reasonably expect to receive a profit from the resale of a used game because they already received revenue when the game was originally sold. An auto manufacturer for the same reason cannot get money from a resale of a car.
Roms are literally ripping a game off the cartridge or disc and making it so ANYONE (not just the owner of a game) can download it for 100% free. This is obviously a huge issue if the game is new, still being sold after some time, or is in general a big moneymaker for Nintendo.
But what about games that you can't get by any other means except resale? This is the key question. I haven't personally done extensive research on what the law says on this matter but I don't believe the law makes a stipulation for games that are, in essence, unobtainable, or obtainable only through extreme measures/high prices. The law makes it very clear that if you pirate anyone's IP, that is illegal. And roms are legally, factually, unequivocally, undeniably piracy - taking someone else's work that at one point was commercially sold for THEIR profit, and distributing it to anyone on the internet so they can enjoy it for free.
Legally, in principle, yes, Nintendo must protect their IP, EVEN IF they have absolutely no plans to ever sell the game ever again. If they just let this kind of piracy slide, then they have a much tougher time in court fighting against other instances of piracy.
The issue isn't even whether Nintendo can or would make any money from some of the old games they don't sell any more. The issue is whether roms compromise the integrity of their IP. And they undeniably do.
Yes, Nintendo SHOULD make a wise business decision and rerelease a ****ton of their old games or get games like Mother 3 worldwide. But they have no obligation to anyone to do so. They only have an obligation to themselves to protect their IP and to shareholders to make money and protect their reputation/company brand.
(All of this comes from someone who has played several retro games via roms simply due to ease of access and expense of "real" editions)
- - - Post Merge - - -
So the solutions to the problem are
- Nintendo gets off their lazy asses and gives consumers what we want, ie access to the old, inaccessible retro games (best, most ideal solution)
- Laws get updated to reflect the changing times and permit ROM distribution (more tenuous and unlikely solution but could still be good.) Maybe make the distributor of the ROM pay a royalty to the original company for each ROM download, and the distributor can elect to pass that cost on to consumers through a subscription model of some sort...I'm sure this would be fought tooth and nail by every game company though, and idk how that would work for games of bankrupt companies or franchises where someone still owns the rights but is doing nothing with the IP (Banjo-Kazooie, for instance)
Roms are literally ripping a game off the cartridge or disc and making it so ANYONE (not just the owner of a game) can download it for 100% free. This is obviously a huge issue if the game is new, still being sold after some time, or is in general a big moneymaker for Nintendo.
But what about games that you can't get by any other means except resale? This is the key question. I haven't personally done extensive research on what the law says on this matter but I don't believe the law makes a stipulation for games that are, in essence, unobtainable, or obtainable only through extreme measures/high prices. The law makes it very clear that if you pirate anyone's IP, that is illegal. And roms are legally, factually, unequivocally, undeniably piracy - taking someone else's work that at one point was commercially sold for THEIR profit, and distributing it to anyone on the internet so they can enjoy it for free.
Legally, in principle, yes, Nintendo must protect their IP, EVEN IF they have absolutely no plans to ever sell the game ever again. If they just let this kind of piracy slide, then they have a much tougher time in court fighting against other instances of piracy.
The issue isn't even whether Nintendo can or would make any money from some of the old games they don't sell any more. The issue is whether roms compromise the integrity of their IP. And they undeniably do.
Yes, Nintendo SHOULD make a wise business decision and rerelease a ****ton of their old games or get games like Mother 3 worldwide. But they have no obligation to anyone to do so. They only have an obligation to themselves to protect their IP and to shareholders to make money and protect their reputation/company brand.
(All of this comes from someone who has played several retro games via roms simply due to ease of access and expense of "real" editions)
- - - Post Merge - - -
So the solutions to the problem are
- Nintendo gets off their lazy asses and gives consumers what we want, ie access to the old, inaccessible retro games (best, most ideal solution)
- Laws get updated to reflect the changing times and permit ROM distribution (more tenuous and unlikely solution but could still be good.) Maybe make the distributor of the ROM pay a royalty to the original company for each ROM download, and the distributor can elect to pass that cost on to consumers through a subscription model of some sort...I'm sure this would be fought tooth and nail by every game company though, and idk how that would work for games of bankrupt companies or franchises where someone still owns the rights but is doing nothing with the IP (Banjo-Kazooie, for instance)
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