paying for emulators

would you pay for very good emulators?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

I say no. Because then nothing would be free anymore. And everyone would be wanting to be paid to do a hobby. This would ruin, the whole emulation scene on GP32. If I wanted to pay for games I would get a GBA.
 
If it was an emulator that I really wanted, like GBA or fast SNES, or Amiga then yes, but not much.
 
hell's ya i would.
30 or 40 bucks at most, probably...

only cause development on this scene of things I want to see done are crawwwwwling lately. and it sucks (to pay) cause i already paid for my GP32, but it would be well worth the money to see the emu's I want (snes, genesis, mame, better gpengine, better 2600) that are coming very slowly and possibly not at all (but, let me add, these are all coming at a WONDERFUL rate for their currently free status - don't get me wrong).

this means I'd pay that much for a COMPLETE product, not something half-assed though. i mean high compatibility, and just about as close to perfect as possible.

lesser quality would obviously be worth a lot less money to me.
 
Well by what I mean is a full program, like a real produced emu. With free updates and stuff. Not for thing like GB/C and smaller/easier projects. I mean GBA or SNES. Now I mean really fast, just like sticking the exact copy of Visual boy advance or Zsnes onto the Gp32.
 
You need another entry in your poll, "have you already paid for an emulator?"

I sent Skeezix $10 for his very hard work on Xcade and Castaway. I also offered the Frodo and GP2600 authors money, but they declined.

Should full speed SNES or Genesis emulation appear, I'd pay for that as well.
 
If I had to... not that I don't appreciate the work that's gone into the things, and if there was such a thing as an over the counter purchase online, I definitely would (unless they were pricey). But I don't have a credit card to its a LOT of hassle to buy stuff online. So I don't bother.

Hence yes, I would pay, but I wouldn't like doing it coz I'd have to do it through a parent, who would inevtiably start keeping track mentally of what I'd spent and be disapproving.
Plus unless updates were included in the payment, I'd prolly find myself putting it off as long as possible.


That said, one of the main attractions to the GP32 is that you don't need to pay much after you've bought it - so starting to charge for emulators might be a good way to support the developers, but it would also turn away new users...

I put down "maybe" if anyone's wondering...
 
I would pay, for sure. It brought the full speed N64 emulator to the Xbox and I'm really happy with it! They used paypal, and I would pay again. Not everything has to be for free.
 
If it was based on someone else's emulator- No I wouldn't, they would be getting paid (mainly) for someone elses hard work. If it was original, sure I would, if it was fairly fast.
 
Only if it was a perfect emulator with loads of options. Even then it would have to be a perfect megadrive or snes emulator for me to pay for it.
 
Personally, I don't think it's anyones right to charge money for emulation of a system they didn't invent - portable or not. I wouldn't just use the emulators without permission either. I just don't think it's ethical. I've always been opposed to this since the old days when all the emulators cost money (C64S cost about 70, iNES was 35, VSMC cost money but everyone pretty much just laughed at it). The research into how a machine works may be hard, but it's still stealing, and that money rightly belongs to Nintendo or whatever.

However, if the emulator had significant improvements over the original machine - eg features like a speedup button, save states, cheat functions...things that for the original machine you'd have to pay for the added functionality, if it is even available - THEN maybe I would consider it justified. For a bare bones emulator, regardless of compatibility, no way. And I ain't paying $10 or whatnot just for a GUI either.
 
Yes i would pay, i have already invested money in the ROMS that i use in other EMUS and so it would be a small price to pay to use them on my GP32 rather than on my PC or actual games system.

Remember unless the publisher has given the ROM the green light to be free then you need the original PC-engine,SNES rom, C64 rom etc to usea rom copy in an emulator.


Companies make a loss on the console/hardware they sell; they make it back on software, so as long as we buy the ROMS then how can they lose out?
 
Paying for straight ports of emulators would be ridiculous, as a relatively small amount of work has gone into it compared to the original coding. Most people i talk to design programs and emulators as a hooby and find it enjoyable, so it seems kinda like paying me to eat pizza or play football :p
 
I dunno.. there's the maker of a certain PC engine emulator for PC who charges for it (magic engine) so I guess this could work at a reasonable price IF the emulator is written from scratch (ports would be almost taking money from the creator)

But I say screw it, and let people keep the scene alive and not fall into a grotesque GBA-ish capitalism fest.
 
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