ZODIAC 'Pay 2 play'

[DGTi]

Hi everyone. I was just looking at our competition THE ZODIAC. Everything is pay 2 play!! NesEm $19.99..... WHAT :angry: Where is the fun in that. I was interested in what it had 2 offer but having 2 pay for every Emu, no way long live the GP

 

[Bohica]

I think you're confusing freeware, shareware and commercial software. The fact is, the only thing hampering *some* emulation is the GPL'd release of certain parts of the SDK.

NesEm is a commercial product. There's nothing stopping anyone, Ryleh for example, charging for their emus.

If you dig a little deeper you'll find out there are already Zodiac optimized version of emus such as Castaway that are available for nothing.

And at $300+ and only available in the US, I don't really see the Zodiac as competition.

 

[coolgpguy]

The zodiac has so much to offer but its way to expensive <_< and i would consider buying one when it gets a 100$ cheaper and has free emulators.

 

[SephirothIce]

I'd rather pay for emu's if I got quality ones. If you pay for it that means they are making a living off it so it's going to be good shit. Is the zodiac even commercially available yet? I haven't even seen it out yet.

 

[bmd3287]

I agree with Coolgpguy and DGTi.

 

[declaration]

Its only about £190 for a Zodiac 1. Thats not even that much more than a FLU GP32. The Zodiac has great potential. I wouldnt mind paying $20 or so for a good emulator....... I mean- $20 for LittleJohn would have been a bargain, no??

 

[jot2b]

If you pay for it that means they are making a living off it so it's going to be good shit.

Are you serious?

 

[GurtyGurt]

I wouldn't consider it ethical to pay for an emulator. The author doesn't deserve the money, the original manufacturer of the emulated machine does. He or she is stealing their concept, and I won't pay for that.

 

[Xyo]

thats very true, thats also illegal to make money with an emulator unless licenced like BLEEM!

 

[moora101]

licensed like Bleem?!? Hehe.. well, Sony managed to shut down Bleem so I don't think they were licensed...

I don't think there should be a problem with "shareware" emulators, that is if it's a small amount (a couple of pounds) and it goes directly to the author. That way you're giving a little something to the author, but I agree that it's ethically wrong for another company to make money out of someone elses work.

 

[Twimfy]

Actually Sony didn't win against Bleem, Bleem closed down simply because they couldn't shift enough units of anything.

 

[The Moose]

I wouldn't consider it ethical to pay for an emulator. The author doesn't deserve the money, the original manufacturer of the emulated machine does. He or she is stealing their concept, and I won't pay for that.

I agree totally. It was not your idea, your marketing, your money spent tpo create the emu (in most cases) so its really not yours to profit from. Anyway, Zodiac will go out like the JVC X-eye. or maybe that huge sega genesis-stereo combo, or the N64 DD. Systems that no one practically knew about, nonetheless good, but nonetheless, expensive. (Sorry, im talking like a jackass, im hungry!)

 

[Ranma13]

I wouldn't consider it ethical to pay for an emulator. The author doesn't deserve the money, the original manufacturer of the emulated machine does. He or she is stealing their concept, and I won't pay for that.

Why not? Someone with enough programming experience has written code that can sufficiently emulate a foreign piece of hardware. Companies in the world hire people like that and give them a high salary and you don't even respect that? If we go by your reasoning, then you shouldn't use Athlon chips because they emulate Intel chips, and you still own a Voodoo card because nVidia and ATi are merely emulating the features of a Voodoo card.

 

[gp32animefreak]

Currently jadam is porting snes9x and its gonna have the speed of the current one out in one try.....then in a few weeks fullspeed then fullspeed and sound.
There will eventually be free nes emu's... but that 20$ one was at the wrong place at the right time( as soon as a free one comes out there gone). Sure right now gp32 is the best for emus but in a couple of months that sadly might change. Already skeezix has made the castaway emu for zodiac faster than the gp32 one in one try(but i think he just altered the code to the zodiac making it faster). It wontbe long im purchasing another gp32 before the gp32 scene starts goin down(and its already begun).

 

[jcbnetwork]

I wouldn't consider it ethical to pay for an emulator. The author doesn't deserve the money, the original manufacturer of the emulated machine does. He or she is stealing their concept, and I won't pay for that.

I guess you own every single cartridge for every single ROM you have then. As it wouldn't be ethical for you to be playing with some programmer's hard work for FREE.

Besides, there is nothing unethical about programming an emulator unless you use stolen company secrets to develop your program. An emulator by itself does nothing. Now ROMs are a different story, most if not all emulator authors do not distribute ROMs or link to ROMs so the unethical person would be the one that goes ahead and downloads ROMs for games which he does not own, in that case, i guess most of us would be unethnical.

But come on, you wouldnt pay $20 dollars to someone who spent hours coding and optimizing a piece of code that would bring you countless hours of enjoyment?

 

[SephirothIce]

The way you guys put it nintendo should be getting the 20 bucks, instead of the person who programmed it... I could understand if we were paying for roms. Anyway go buy a gba guys where everything is fair.

 

[jcbnetwork]

Programming an emulator obviously takes talent & time. Why shouldnt a programmer be allowed to make some profit from his hard work?

 

[Degenerate]

Programming an emulator obviously takes talent & time. Why shouldnt a programmer be allowed to make some profit from his hard work?

You're right, in fact, the author of NO$ (Nocash) the GB emulator charges for the color version of his emulator, which I think is fair enough. The program is polished enough to deserve the money, he's obviously worked hard on it, and people just took it for granted, so now he charges a small fee for personal use.

 

[Klown]

Already the war of GP32 vs Zodiac has begun on these forums. *sigh*

 

[GurtyGurt]

I wouldn't consider it ethical to pay for an emulator. The author doesn't deserve the money, the original manufacturer of the emulated machine does. He or she is stealing their concept, and I won't pay for that.

I guess you own every single cartridge for every single ROM you have then. As it wouldn't be ethical for you to be playing with some programmer's hard work for FREE.

That's a very narrow minded reply...but I was waiting for that one. Actually, I probably do, at least for what's on the GP32. I haven't actually checked because I own a shitload of carts and I double up a lot of them, but if I see it, I buy it. PC is another matter and I don't deny that. But the fact is, they're stealing someone elses concept...which I suppose is only a crime depending on how you look at it (ie legally, and morally if that entity actually cares - like stealing a cigarette butte from a house would be illegal, if you wanna dramaticize it). But not only that, but they have the nerve to charge money for something they're stealing? That money is not rightfully theirs. It's the original manufacturers. I buy backup consoles every now and then...I have two or more of almost everything.

But I really didn't spend time thinking about what I said before. I -would- pay for an emulator if it had extra features which the original console did not, and the price was right for those features. Cheats, save states, rom/image patching, taking screenshots, speed alteration, alternate unofficial bios, internet gameplay. That sort of thing. But, why would I pay for an emulator when it's ultimately nothing physical? I'd rather buy the real machine, even if I had no games on it. I'm not saying the author doesn't deserve a reward, but that's either for extra features or just if people feel like it IMO. If they're making an emulator with no love for the system or the program, and just want money, well perhaps we'd be better off without them, y'know? Write a real program...even if it's a clone of something.

In the case of the nocash emulator, that's a really nasty issue actually. The emulator was originally free, then I think it was priced for color, which you can interpret however you like...but I think after that, it went into limited for general public, and you could buy a developmental licence. I don't see any reason why it is immoral to charge as a development tool...after all, it did have a LOT of debugging info.