BaDToaD posted on Apr 22 2005 at 03:34 PM said:bast525 posted on Apr 21 2005 at 10:00 PM said:
Nintendo are just being Nintendo.
Small games developers are a different kettle of fish. Just about every small games developer would be happy for their old games to be available for download. To say otherwise is ignorant. If this was not the case then World of Spectrum and the Amiga Back To the Roots sites along with their thousands of legal downloads would not exist. I'm sure if someone were to start a console site dedicated to preserving roms and getting legal permission they would soon have a library of legally downloadable roms. Or maybe console developers are different to the computer developers? I think not! Maybe such a site exists already?
As I've said before I was briefly involved in developing for the Commodore 64 and I am happy that the few games I was involved with are available for download from the internet.
In fact I found a game I designed and had forgotten about only a few months ago. OK it's a crap game but at least I can play it if I want to and on the GP32
Sorry but I have a hard time believe that 'just about every small games developer would be happy for their old games to be available for download'. Some, sure... some people maybe just stop caring after a certain amount of time. But we're not talking about only the games from those small developers. I seriously doubt that there's more than a handful of guys, out of the who-knows-how-many with hard drives full of roms, that only have games that came from small developers or parties who just don't care. Their hard drives are filled with the Mario's and the Sonic's and the Konami games and the Capcom games, and all the other big name titles from companies that DO care because those games (in their eyes at least) still have a potential to bring them money at some point, or at least, they feel that given their legal rights, their games should not just be freely distributed to anyone with an internet connection. So even if you're right about many small game developers/companies not caring, it still doesn't make a lick of difference if you consider what ROMs most people probably have as part of their 'collections'.
What gets me is how anyone would sit here and try to defend any of this as being right at all... the hypocrisy just deepens and deepens. There is no argument here. Owning roms which you have not purchased or been given the legal right to own is illegal, period, in my country at least. If it's not in your country well then more power to you you lucky dogs, and you shouldn't be in this thread
. It is also morally wrong and is the equivalent of stealing (you took something you SHOULD have paid for but did not). There is no line drawn between older games and newer ones (legally or by the companies who own the rights to said games... okay well at least the MAJOR companies ), except the ones some people like to make up so they can justify what they are doing. I'm no saint, I wont say what I have on my computer, and I'm sorry but I do not draw any imaginary line between an illegally aquired Genesis rom and an illegally aquired GP 32 .smc file, or anything else like that. I would never flame someone for having a GP32 or ANY rom, because that would be hypocritical. People say 'but oh getting pirated GP 32 games will put Gamepark out of business' So??? what about other good game companies out there who are struggling??? What about Sega?? do people stop pirating their games because they are in a tough financial situation right now but we are ALL just such big fans of Sega so don't pirate their software we want to keep them alive!! Few people care, everyone else just downloads their stuff for free. Why should one feel any more loyalty to Gamepark? Face it, their on the brink anyways, production of the GP32 is either slowed or stopped, very little any of us can do can change that. With such a small installed user base, it's a wonder that new commercial games come out at all anymore. Heck I'd buy Blue Angelo if it weren't going for roughly $80!!!! Fact is I can't blame people for wanting to pirate GP games since they are generally considered to be crappy and yet are still high priced crap save the few you can get from JoyGP for cheap. Another fact is, many people pirate because they simply cannot afford to buy the games they want. So in the end the piracy is many times not costing them any sales, because that person probably wouldn't have bought a copy of the game anyways.
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