avatar! wrote:Dragonfish Dog wrote:True, but you know what I have to say about that?
Most, if not all the games I own as ROMs, I at one point purchased official hard copies of lawfully at full price, and in some cases, TWICE (for example, remakes and digital downloadable console re-releases).
I think I oughta have that right to have 'em on my PC as well, DRM-Free; I bought them enough times as it is.
The law disagrees with you, and it's not about to change. Whether you think the law is "just" or not is rather a moot point. Also you said "at one point purchased" so I assume you no longer have them. If you sell a game, why should you be "entitled" to have a copy of it? I don't see that as legitimate. In most cases game companies won't bother since it's too costly to try and stop people from downloading old ROMs, but despite what you think you have "no right" to own them.
OHHH, DUDE, have you awakened my righteous indignation!
You buy physical copy of the damn thing, you have the rights to use it how you see fit. You supported the commercial release of it, THEY HAVE YOUR MONEY (SOMETIMES MORE THAN ONCE), and after the original creator ceases to make money of it, they could care less about it.
Besides, without ROMs and emulators, that's a lot of content that would've otherwise fallen by the wayside, and wouldn't have been preserved otherwise!
(For that matter, owning a physical, old-school console isn't that great, when you consider the potential for malfunctions said devices have, so many years later; sold my NES around to time it seemed like it was starting to malfunction [1995], and sold my SNES BEFORE it ever started malfunctioning; my Genesis, never got much use of that one, so that's why that one got sold off! Wii? Virtual Console, baby! PSX? Have all those games on my PS3 from PSN, LEGALLY. PS2? Never want to play any of those games ever again. Really, I bought the PS3, and just ended up getting a bunch of classic PSX titles, after I discovered that most of modern gaming just SUCKS, Final Fantasy XIII! - maybe I'll start using that as an insult, just calling people "Final Fantasy XIII?" Nah, that's just stupid. Daikatana would probably work, though!)
The only reason that anyone complains about ROMs and emulators and such, is because the large corporations that are already out there don't want you playing good old games for free, they want you buying their shitty new games, and they could care less whether you actually play them, so long as you buy them, and make them profitable!
Simply put, these large corporations feel threatened by free, better content that exists out there, so they convince people like you that it's somehow "Wrong" when essentially, it more or less amounts to picking through trash that someone else threw out, which, people often throw out perfectly good, usable stuff (watch some dumpster-diving videos on YouTube, and you'll see what I mean!)
AND JUST FOR THE RECORD, I PAY FOR current gen games and content (unless it's offered for free to begin with), BECAUSE I want to support the developers that created that content, just in case you wanted to pre-emptively accuse me of something there, too.