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I'm all for emulating systems that don't exist anymore. But this commenter's level of naive entitlement is beyond obnoxious. A good rule to live by is to ask "

by jmyeet 5y ago

I'm all for emulating systems that don't exist anymore. But this commenter's level of naive entitlement is beyond obnoxious. A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Maybe you'd be happy about this. Plenty of people wouldn't. Switches are generally available and not that expensive. If you want to play Switch games, buy one. If you don't, don't. And failing that if you want to just steal, then just steal. But what really rubs me the wrong way is when people who have chosen to steal start moralizing their position like they're standing up for some vague rights or principles. At least be honest about it. The hyporcrisy, intellectual dishonesty, bad faith arguments and self-delusion is in many ways worse than the theft.

notyourwork 5y ago
> If you want to play Switch games, buy one. If you don't, don't. +1 I like hacking and tinkering with tech but these should not be socialized solutions for the masses. They are fun hobby projects, if you want the thing go buy it. The money supports the thing and is the reason it exists.
dolni 5y ago
> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" This is an awful rule to live by. There are very few things in the world that _everyone_ would actually do.
- Aethylia 5y ago
  While true, that isn't the point of the rule. The meaning is that _if_ everyone did what you do, what _would_ happen. The practi alities of that are irrelevant. It's really about asking yourself if your actions are sustainable or damaging by scaling them up.
  - dolni 5y ago
    Perhaps, in this instance, we should be asking the more pressing question of what will happen if we allow powerful corporations to suppress knowledge that they don't like.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- jpambrun 5y ago
  This is a well established philosophical concept referred as Kant universality laws. It is a good rule to live by. Makes it obvious that cutting in line is immoral because lines could not exist if everybody did it.
  - maximus-decimus 5y ago
    Then at the same time, is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? Is it immoral for me to have 3 kids because it means exponential growth, overpopulation, famine and destruction of the Earth? If we follow the logic to its end, the only moral choice is for everyone to have not 1, not 3 but exactly 2 kids. I feel like this "law" really fails to account that not everybody on Earth is the same person and won't do the same thing because they either don't want to or can't. Not everybody will want to use an emulator (because they want to play online, have a deckable console, or whatever other reason) or be able to get one (because they don't have a powerful enough pc). And people using emulators might make additional publicity that might bring new consumers to Nintendo products.
    - fastball 5y ago
      Not sure it would necessarily be "wrong" for the human race to cease to exist if everyone in the human race didn't want to procreate. But also remember that this is about human choices, not forced realities. The thought experiment is about what happens if everyone chooses to act in a certain way, not if everyone is a literal copy/paste automaton. To illustrate, even if everyone decided they didn't want kids, assuredly thousands/millions would still have "whoopsie" babies. With regards to choosing to have three kids: overpopulation, famine, and destruction of Earth are not a given. Firstly (and again) because nowhere close to everyone on Earth is actually able to have three kids for a variety of reasons, and secondly because even if you did have exponential population growth you can avoid those things, mostly by colonizing space / building vertically / Dyson Sphere / etc. Unlikely but not a given so therefore hard to argue its necessarily bad.
    - drdeca 5y ago
      I think the idea is "If everyone determined their actions as a function of the combination of their circumstances with their idiosyncratic wants, using the same function", where said function is assumed to be natural and not like, weirdly skewed around one particular person's wants. So, like, if John really dislikes Joe, the rule saying "if you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face" wouldn't be a rule of the appropriate sense. It doesn't make sense that if Steve really disliked Erwin, that he would punch Joe in the face as a result. The rule that John should be considering whether he would approve of, is closer to[1] the rule "If you really dislike someone, punch them in the face." . Presumably John would find this rule less appealing than "If you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face.", because someone might dislike John and therefore punch John in the face, and John would rather not be punched in the face. So, in the case you gave an example of, about "whether to have children", the question would be along the lines of, "If everyone decided whether to have children (as well as how many) using the same criteria that you are using (where these criteria could include their personal tastes, aspirations, etc. as a factor), would you approve of the outcome?" This seems quite compatible with the ways that people differ. Like, it isn't about assuming everyone behaves in the same way, but about assuming everyone responds to their desires and motivations in "the same way", for the right sense of "the same way". [1] I won't say that this is exactly the right rule to consider. idk. Probably not quite.
- freedomben 5y ago
  I think you're taking it to literally. This is a reference to Kant's famous Categorical Imperative, and it's intended as a framework/rule which you can judge the ethicality behind a particular action. IMHO it's really one of the most beautiful and enlightening philosophical ideas out there.
- namlem 5y ago
  The aggregation principle exists in a number of philosophical frameworks and is generally quite useful. It shouldn't be considered an absolute of course, but it is wrong to dismiss it entirely.
avindroth 5y ago
People think theft is liberation, which is… a problematic notion. “Everybody should have rights to enjoy / read…”
- Mezzie 5y ago
  > “Everybody should have rights to enjoy / read…” Yes. /Librarian
- int_19h 5y ago
  There's nothing problematic about the notion that artificial monopolies are inherently immortal. And copyright is an artificial monopoly on information.
johnny22 5y ago
Emulation is both fair and legal. Stealing the games themselves of course are not.
toastercat 5y ago
> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Maybe you'd be happy about this. Plenty of people wouldn't. Switches are generally available and not that expensive. If you want to play Switch games, buy one. If you don't, don't Sorry, but what is "X"? Emulation? If everyone emulated Nintendo games, we don't really know that Nintendo would cease to exist, but they probably would not cease to exist because plenty of folks who emulate Nintendo games still buy Nintendo products, because they are, you know, Nintendo fans. :) > And failing that if you want to just steal, then just steal. But what really rubs me the wrong way is when people who have chosen to steal start moralizing their position like they're standing up for some vague rights or principles. What really rubs me the wrong way is when commenters on HN paint people who use emulators as thieves, and emulator developers as enablers of theft, and nothing more. The irony here is that you're doing moral posturing yourself in this comment. The commenter you responded to never mentioned piracy. The article in question never mentioned piracy. So if by "X" you meant "piracy", well, nice strawman, otherwise you're equivocating emulation with piracy, which is wrong. EDIT: By the way, a great reason to emulate Switch games is to experience them at higher resolutions and higher framerates. Thought you should know, not everyone does it to save a few bucks.
- Mezzie 5y ago
  > EDIT: By the way, a great reason to emulate Switch games is to experience them at higher resolutions and higher framerates. Thought you should know, not everyone does it to save a few bucks. So if by "X" you meant "piracy", well, nice strawman, otherwise you're equivocating emulation with piracy, which is wrong. Related to this, accessibility, particular for retro games. I'm visually impaired, it's easier for me to emulate GB games because have you played on a GBA screen recently? Likewise, since my MS gives me twitches, the ability to do things like save scum is nice when I'm replaying NES games. I own an NES and a GB along with the games. I'm not stealing anything; I'm preventing my disability from locking me out of my own belongings.
maximus-decimus 5y ago
They would not stop to exist if they just sole the roms themselves.
mkdirp 5y ago
> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" For example: "What would happen if all companies blocked individuals from doing what they want with the hardware they bought?" You get a hacking community and people imprisoned for the unlocked hardware they paid for. Not to mention a whole lot of ewaste that could otherwise work for years. No, that's not a good example. How about this one: "What would happen if all companies opened up their hardware and stopped forcing people to upgrade for no reason?" Eutopia, that's what! Less ewaste. Less consumerism. People can actually use the hardware they paid for the way they want to use it. This argument has been (ab)used since piracy has been a thing. I'm not aware of any company going under directly because of piracy, especially not just because of emulators. If there is one, I'd love to know, but even so, the numbers is negligible. Also, emulation is not the same piracy. While emulation can be used for piracy, it is not the main use case. Corporations like Nintendo are not your friend.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  > I'm not aware of any company going under directly because of piracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Records#Bankruptcy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Records#Bankruptcy
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    You need to read your own links > Factors cited were the heavy debt incurred during its aggressive expansion in the 1990s, growing competition from mass discounters and Internet piracy.[10] Mismanagement, managerial incompetence, and crippling restrictions from the first bankruptcy deal also contributed to Tower's demise.[11] Not just piracy to say the least.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - 0xedd 5y ago
    Piracy's impact on the digital industry is propaganda. No link has ever been established by factual data. It's just corporations' PR. The Government Accountability Office came out in 2010 with a report that said these numbers “cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology.” http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-mov...
Mezzie 5y ago
There is one strong argument for emulating current Nintendo (specifically Nintendo) hardware: Game and console preservation. Nintendo has a long habit of stopping console support and games become harder or impossible to buy; waiting for a Nintendo console to reach end of life before emulating and dumping the games means that some games are going to be missed. Also, emulating currently supported consoles allows for things like archival records of system OSes to study how they changed over time. (Because in 100 years, some graduate student will study how 20th and 21st century video gaming companies handled security updates).
Nursie 5y ago
> If you want to play Switch games, buy one And when I've done my duty and bought one, and bought the games, am I allowed to tinker then? I see what you're driving at, but there are a great number of advantages to emulation and system hacks even for those of us that buy our games. My PSP, when properly hacked, didn't need disks as I could store all the games I owned on a memory card or two. They loaded faster, used less battery and I didn't have to carry the damn things around. Similarly I had a PS2 with a hard drive so I could have all the games available on a menu system, and with faster load times. Same story on the Wii. The other way around, I would play my Wii games that I had bought on Dolphin, which generally could render them at a higher resolution to target the 1080p tv I had at the time, where the Wii itself was limited to 576p. I routinely emulate the megadrive/genesis on all sorts of platforms including those hacked consoles, so I can play Sonic, which I bought many years ago. I don't think these actions are wrong, nor do I think they hurt Sony, Sega or Nintendo, unless we're getting into the territory of "you denied them money they could have had if you re-bought everything multiple times". Sure, and I could give them 100 bucks a month direct from my paycheck, but I'm not doing that either.
car_analogy 5y ago
> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Like PC game studios ceased to exist?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  They kinda did? We now have lots of console-exclusive games precisely because of PC piracy.
jupp0r 5y ago
Nobody is stealing anything, Nintendo still controls the same assets they had before somebody installed an emulator.
odessacubbage 5y ago
the idea that emulation on a 600 dollar portable computer for sweaty linux tinkerers is an existential threat to nintendo's 300 dollar handheld for children and adult children is laughable.
- Karsteski 5y ago
  I agree with you, but I really dislike that you call adult switch owners adult children. Are only children supposed to be able to play games on a Nintendo console?
- majewsky 5y ago
  You can say the same thing without insulting every involved person.
stuu99 5y ago
jorams 5y ago
> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Maybe you'd be happy about this. Plenty of people wouldn't. You can apply this to literally anything to make it bad. What would happen if everyone only ever emulated pirated Switch games? Nintendo would cease to exist. What would happen if everyone just stopped buying consoles and only played games on PC? Nintendo would cease to exist, Sony and Microsoft would take a massive hit. What would happen if everyone just... stopped playing games at all, ever? The entire video game industry would die. Does that mean I can never decide games are a waste of my time and money? Obviously not. People are different and make different decisions.
ekianjo 5y ago
> In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist The same argument used to say pirated music would kill music. I hope you realize how ridiculous it is.
- jmyeet 5y ago
  > The same argument used to say pirated music would kill music. Yes, because it was true then too. Well, mostly true. There are big differences between music and video games. For example, the vast majority of artists can't support themselves based on the sale of recorded music. Most support themselves through performances. Additionally, there is a lot licensing of music to movies, TV and advertising. But yes if no one paid for music it's quite likely that the industry would cease to be. None of this applies to video games. But I don't care if you pirate music (I did, at least before Spotify made it too convenient not to bother, which is a whole separate lesson). I also don't particularly care if you want to emulate Switch games. What I find distasteful is dressing up this selfishness as somehow being moral or just. You're not a principled crusader standing up for freedom. You're just a guy who doesn't want to pay for something.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    > What I find distasteful is dressing up this selfishness as somehow being moral or just. You don't get to define what is everyone's view of morality. Do you find it moral that copyright holders can keep charging forever for the same goods AND enjoy state protection at the same time? Piracy is what limits this behavior from becoming too extreme. Remove piracy, and you will see the most outrageous corporate behaviors in action in no time. Checks and balances - that's the name of the game.
namlem 5y ago
There's a difference between pirating games and making videos about how to install and use emulators. Btw, emulating games isn't piracy if you have a legit copy. There are valid reasons to do so besides piracy. For example, you can play BotW with mods on emulator, which you can't on Switch.
0xedd 5y ago
You've been brainwashed, friend. There's no reason in the world _I_ should switch up (pun, heh) hardware at the pace of the manufacturer. But, that's what happens when corporations are kept unchecked. _They_ decide that every x years, I need to upgrade or decide what I use it for (violence and harm excluded). Were I able to repair it or use it however I wish, that'd not be the case. Nintendo needs to make a better argument for their hardware if they want people to buy it. Not by dictating laws about hardware usage. Simply put, they're living in the past where different hardware and different firmware mattered. What's next, Microsoft doesn't let me run anything other than Windows on my hardware? Wait ... https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-on-your-pc-1fd5a332-360d-4f46-a1e7-ae6b0c90645c https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-o... https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-microsoft-pluton-processor-the-security-chip-designed-for-the-future-of-windows-pcs/ https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-... Hey look, propaganda! Your favorite <3 Hopefully, this is a wake up call for you to read between the lines. In this case: No, Microsoft did not invent secure cloud computing.
wolpoli 5y ago
> "what would happen if everyone did X?" I don't understand when this rule should/should not be used. Clearly, the rule breaks down in certain situations. For example: What if everyone decided to go into tech? That's not really good for society since we need things like doctors, but some people do need to go into tech.
Nullabillity 5y ago
> In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Nintendo's hardware business would cease to exist, and the world would have a little less e-waste in it. How would that be a bad thing?
- majewsky 5y ago
  Nintendo's hardware division is undoubtedly having a positive impact on the industry at large. I would argue that the Steam Deck would not exist without the Switch. There have been other mobile consoles in the same form factor (most obviously the PSP and PS Vita), but by the mid-2010s, smartphones had cannibalized that form factor significantly (even Nintendo's 3DS line had 50% lower lifetime sales than the original DS line in the 2000s). If it weren't for the Switch innovating in this form factor, I doubt that the mobile console form factor would exist at all today (except maybe for those shells where you plop your phone into to get a D-pad for your mobile game). If we want to cut down on e-waste, we should rather lengthen the smartphone replacement cycle. That's a better impact just because of sheer numbers. Lobby for replaceable-battery mandates in smartphones and a minimum duration for security updates of 5 years or even 10 years.
  - Nullabillity 5y ago
    > If it weren't for the Switch innovating in this form factor, I doubt that the mobile console form factor would exist at all today (except maybe for those shells where you plop your phone into to get a D-pad for your mobile game). How is a Switch materially different from a laptop, or a tablet with a controller strapped on to it? > If we want to cut down on e-waste, we should rather lengthen the smartphone replacement cycle. That's a better impact just because of sheer numbers. Lobby for replaceable-battery mandates in smartphones and a minimum duration for security updates of 5 years or even 10 years. Why not both? Disposable devices are bad, needing duplicate devices in the same form factor is bad, DRM is bad (especially when it's locking down how you can use or repair your own hardware). Tackling one doesn't prevent anyone from tackling the rest. We need to fix all of them
- goosedragons 5y ago
  If nobody bought Switches and nobody bought Switch games because they just grabbed a ROM off the net wouldn't their software business also die?
ohgodplsno 5y ago
But that's not what happens. It never happens. No company has ever gone under as a result of everyone moving to piracy. Even during the heights of music piracy (emule, grooveshark, limewire, napster), this industry posted record profits every year. People pirate because they otherwise can't access it, or your product isn't worth the money to them. That's a very nice strawman you're putting in the middle of that field. I can do the same too. What if everyone in the video game industry opened its games to mods and gave out tools? An unbelievable breadth of quality content and a new generation of excellent designers. What if everyone stopped buying video games because we now all own rubles? What if we all became blue? Is piracy selfish? Yeah. I'll be the first one to admit it. I pirate it because I don't want to pay for it, or I can't. Is piracy wrong? No. Data wants to be free, and we collectively thrive when ideas, plays, music, creations of the mind flows freely. And if it causes a company to make a tiny bit less on the billions it makes, I won't be crying for them.
an_ko 5y ago
I think you're getting emulation and piracy a little bit muddled, which to be fair is a common reaction. An emulator is just an API-compatible device. It is legal to make and sell an emulator. It can be used for playing legit and pirated copies of games, just as the original console can. It's a healthy form of competition (like between PC manufacturers), resulting in better performing hardware for the consumer. The comment you're replying to doesn't mention or defend piracy. They're only saying Nintendo's Switch hardware is lacking so people are searching for a better performing alternative, and Nintendo is using anti-competitive legal trickery to suppress alternatives, instead of improving their product.
antifa 5y ago
> ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" I think a better question would be "what if it were possible to buy 90% of Nintendo's historic catalog to play on the switch instead of less than 1%?" I emulate because I already know the retro games I want a) cost $15-30 b) would cost that if available, are never on the eshop anyways so I don't even bother checking and c) I remember when SquareEnix android games accidentally, and carelessly, deleted everyone's saves because they arbitrarily forced offline single player games (NES/SNES final fantasy series) to be online-only cloud saves. We're at the tail end of a decade of being shat on and in some cases Nintendo just refusing to sell us the products we want to buy. The entitlement is not with the users in this case.
danhab99 5y ago
> But what really rubs me the wrong way is when people who have chosen to steal start moralizing their position like they're standing up for some vague rights or principles I feel like these are the same people that haven't learned how to shut up in highschool
mrcheesebreeze 5y ago
this is what irks me the most, piracy is stealing and even its name says it. If you steal then thats your problem, but its wrong morally and is gross to do without reasons.
- crtasm 5y ago
  If you're sailing along then a pirate makes a perfect copy of the cargo in your hold and bids you good day, did they steal anything?

by jmyeet 5y ago

notyourwork 5y ago

> If you want to play Switch games, buy one. If you don't, don't. +1 I like hacking and tinkering with tech but these should not be socialized solutions for the masses. They are fun hobby projects, if you want the thing go buy it. The money supports the thing and is the reason it exists.

dolni 5y ago

> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" This is an awful rule to live by. There are very few things in the world that _everyone_ would actually do.

Aethylia 5y ago
While true, that isn't the point of the rule. The meaning is that _if_ everyone did what you do, what _would_ happen. The practi alities of that are irrelevant. It's really about asking yourself if your actions are sustainable or damaging by scaling them up.
- dolni 5y ago
  Perhaps, in this instance, we should be asking the more pressing question of what will happen if we allow powerful corporations to suppress knowledge that they don't like.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jpambrun 5y ago
This is a well established philosophical concept referred as Kant universality laws. It is a good rule to live by. Makes it obvious that cutting in line is immoral because lines could not exist if everybody did it.
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  Then at the same time, is it immoral for me to have no kids because it means the extinction of the human race? Is it immoral for me to have 3 kids because it means exponential growth, overpopulation, famine and destruction of the Earth? If we follow the logic to its end, the only moral choice is for everyone to have not 1, not 3 but exactly 2 kids. I feel like this "law" really fails to account that not everybody on Earth is the same person and won't do the same thing because they either don't want to or can't. Not everybody will want to use an emulator (because they want to play online, have a deckable console, or whatever other reason) or be able to get one (because they don't have a powerful enough pc). And people using emulators might make additional publicity that might bring new consumers to Nintendo products.
  - fastball 5y ago
    Not sure it would necessarily be "wrong" for the human race to cease to exist if everyone in the human race didn't want to procreate. But also remember that this is about human choices, not forced realities. The thought experiment is about what happens if everyone chooses to act in a certain way, not if everyone is a literal copy/paste automaton. To illustrate, even if everyone decided they didn't want kids, assuredly thousands/millions would still have "whoopsie" babies. With regards to choosing to have three kids: overpopulation, famine, and destruction of Earth are not a given. Firstly (and again) because nowhere close to everyone on Earth is actually able to have three kids for a variety of reasons, and secondly because even if you did have exponential population growth you can avoid those things, mostly by colonizing space / building vertically / Dyson Sphere / etc. Unlikely but not a given so therefore hard to argue its necessarily bad.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    I think the idea is "If everyone determined their actions as a function of the combination of their circumstances with their idiosyncratic wants, using the same function", where said function is assumed to be natural and not like, weirdly skewed around one particular person's wants. So, like, if John really dislikes Joe, the rule saying "if you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face" wouldn't be a rule of the appropriate sense. It doesn't make sense that if Steve really disliked Erwin, that he would punch Joe in the face as a result. The rule that John should be considering whether he would approve of, is closer to[1] the rule "If you really dislike someone, punch them in the face." . Presumably John would find this rule less appealing than "If you really dislike someone, punch Joe in the face.", because someone might dislike John and therefore punch John in the face, and John would rather not be punched in the face. So, in the case you gave an example of, about "whether to have children", the question would be along the lines of, "If everyone decided whether to have children (as well as how many) using the same criteria that you are using (where these criteria could include their personal tastes, aspirations, etc. as a factor), would you approve of the outcome?" This seems quite compatible with the ways that people differ. Like, it isn't about assuming everyone behaves in the same way, but about assuming everyone responds to their desires and motivations in "the same way", for the right sense of "the same way". [1] I won't say that this is exactly the right rule to consider. idk. Probably not quite.
freedomben 5y ago
I think you're taking it to literally. This is a reference to Kant's famous Categorical Imperative, and it's intended as a framework/rule which you can judge the ethicality behind a particular action. IMHO it's really one of the most beautiful and enlightening philosophical ideas out there.
namlem 5y ago
The aggregation principle exists in a number of philosophical frameworks and is generally quite useful. It shouldn't be considered an absolute of course, but it is wrong to dismiss it entirely.

avindroth 5y ago

People think theft is liberation, which is… a problematic notion. “Everybody should have rights to enjoy / read…”

Mezzie 5y ago
> “Everybody should have rights to enjoy / read…” Yes. /Librarian
int_19h 5y ago
There's nothing problematic about the notion that artificial monopolies are inherently immortal. And copyright is an artificial monopoly on information.

johnny22 5y ago

Emulation is both fair and legal. Stealing the games themselves of course are not.

toastercat 5y ago

> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Maybe you'd be happy about this. Plenty of people wouldn't. Switches are generally available and not that expensive. If you want to play Switch games, buy one. If you don't, don't Sorry, but what is "X"? Emulation? If everyone emulated Nintendo games, we don't really know that Nintendo would cease to exist, but they probably would not cease to exist because plenty of folks who emulate Nintendo games still buy Nintendo products, because they are, you know, Nintendo fans. :) > And failing that if you want to just steal, then just steal. But what really rubs me the wrong way is when people who have chosen to steal start moralizing their position like they're standing up for some vague rights or principles. What really rubs me the wrong way is when commenters on HN paint people who use emulators as thieves, and emulator developers as enablers of theft, and nothing more. The irony here is that you're doing moral posturing yourself in this comment. The commenter you responded to never mentioned piracy. The article in question never mentioned piracy. So if by "X" you meant "piracy", well, nice strawman, otherwise you're equivocating emulation with piracy, which is wrong. EDIT: By the way, a great reason to emulate Switch games is to experience them at higher resolutions and higher framerates. Thought you should know, not everyone does it to save a few bucks.

Mezzie 5y ago
> EDIT: By the way, a great reason to emulate Switch games is to experience them at higher resolutions and higher framerates. Thought you should know, not everyone does it to save a few bucks. So if by "X" you meant "piracy", well, nice strawman, otherwise you're equivocating emulation with piracy, which is wrong. Related to this, accessibility, particular for retro games. I'm visually impaired, it's easier for me to emulate GB games because have you played on a GBA screen recently? Likewise, since my MS gives me twitches, the ability to do things like save scum is nice when I'm replaying NES games. I own an NES and a GB along with the games. I'm not stealing anything; I'm preventing my disability from locking me out of my own belongings.

maximus-decimus 5y ago

They would not stop to exist if they just sole the roms themselves.

mkdirp 5y ago

> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" For example: "What would happen if all companies blocked individuals from doing what they want with the hardware they bought?" You get a hacking community and people imprisoned for the unlocked hardware they paid for. Not to mention a whole lot of ewaste that could otherwise work for years. No, that's not a good example. How about this one: "What would happen if all companies opened up their hardware and stopped forcing people to upgrade for no reason?" Eutopia, that's what! Less ewaste. Less consumerism. People can actually use the hardware they paid for the way they want to use it. This argument has been (ab)used since piracy has been a thing. I'm not aware of any company going under directly because of piracy, especially not just because of emulators. If there is one, I'd love to know, but even so, the numbers is negligible. Also, emulation is not the same piracy. While emulation can be used for piracy, it is not the main use case. Corporations like Nintendo are not your friend.

SkyMarshal 5y ago
> I'm not aware of any company going under directly because of piracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Records#Bankruptcy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Records#Bankruptcy
- ekianjo 5y ago
  You need to read your own links > Factors cited were the heavy debt incurred during its aggressive expansion in the 1990s, growing competition from mass discounters and Internet piracy.[10] Mismanagement, managerial incompetence, and crippling restrictions from the first bankruptcy deal also contributed to Tower's demise.[11] Not just piracy to say the least.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- 0xedd 5y ago
  Piracy's impact on the digital industry is propaganda. No link has ever been established by factual data. It's just corporations' PR. The Government Accountability Office came out in 2010 with a report that said these numbers “cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology.” http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-mov...

Mezzie 5y ago

There is one strong argument for emulating current Nintendo (specifically Nintendo) hardware: Game and console preservation. Nintendo has a long habit of stopping console support and games become harder or impossible to buy; waiting for a Nintendo console to reach end of life before emulating and dumping the games means that some games are going to be missed. Also, emulating currently supported consoles allows for things like archival records of system OSes to study how they changed over time. (Because in 100 years, some graduate student will study how 20th and 21st century video gaming companies handled security updates).

Nursie 5y ago

> If you want to play Switch games, buy one And when I've done my duty and bought one, and bought the games, am I allowed to tinker then? I see what you're driving at, but there are a great number of advantages to emulation and system hacks even for those of us that buy our games. My PSP, when properly hacked, didn't need disks as I could store all the games I owned on a memory card or two. They loaded faster, used less battery and I didn't have to carry the damn things around. Similarly I had a PS2 with a hard drive so I could have all the games available on a menu system, and with faster load times. Same story on the Wii. The other way around, I would play my Wii games that I had bought on Dolphin, which generally could render them at a higher resolution to target the 1080p tv I had at the time, where the Wii itself was limited to 576p. I routinely emulate the megadrive/genesis on all sorts of platforms including those hacked consoles, so I can play Sonic, which I bought many years ago. I don't think these actions are wrong, nor do I think they hurt Sony, Sega or Nintendo, unless we're getting into the territory of "you denied them money they could have had if you re-bought everything multiple times". Sure, and I could give them 100 bucks a month direct from my paycheck, but I'm not doing that either.

car_analogy 5y ago

> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Like PC game studios ceased to exist?

deleted 5y ago
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fxtentacle 5y ago
They kinda did? We now have lots of console-exclusive games precisely because of PC piracy.

jupp0r 5y ago

Nobody is stealing anything, Nintendo still controls the same assets they had before somebody installed an emulator.

odessacubbage 5y ago

the idea that emulation on a 600 dollar portable computer for sweaty linux tinkerers is an existential threat to nintendo's 300 dollar handheld for children and adult children is laughable.

Karsteski 5y ago
I agree with you, but I really dislike that you call adult switch owners adult children. Are only children supposed to be able to play games on a Nintendo console?
majewsky 5y ago
You can say the same thing without insulting every involved person.

stuu99 5y ago

jorams 5y ago

> A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Maybe you'd be happy about this. Plenty of people wouldn't. You can apply this to literally anything to make it bad. What would happen if everyone only ever emulated pirated Switch games? Nintendo would cease to exist. What would happen if everyone just stopped buying consoles and only played games on PC? Nintendo would cease to exist, Sony and Microsoft would take a massive hit. What would happen if everyone just... stopped playing games at all, ever? The entire video game industry would die. Does that mean I can never decide games are a waste of my time and money? Obviously not. People are different and make different decisions.

ekianjo 5y ago

> In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist The same argument used to say pirated music would kill music. I hope you realize how ridiculous it is.

jmyeet 5y ago
> The same argument used to say pirated music would kill music. Yes, because it was true then too. Well, mostly true. There are big differences between music and video games. For example, the vast majority of artists can't support themselves based on the sale of recorded music. Most support themselves through performances. Additionally, there is a lot licensing of music to movies, TV and advertising. But yes if no one paid for music it's quite likely that the industry would cease to be. None of this applies to video games. But I don't care if you pirate music (I did, at least before Spotify made it too convenient not to bother, which is a whole separate lesson). I also don't particularly care if you want to emulate Switch games. What I find distasteful is dressing up this selfishness as somehow being moral or just. You're not a principled crusader standing up for freedom. You're just a guy who doesn't want to pay for something.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > What I find distasteful is dressing up this selfishness as somehow being moral or just. You don't get to define what is everyone's view of morality. Do you find it moral that copyright holders can keep charging forever for the same goods AND enjoy state protection at the same time? Piracy is what limits this behavior from becoming too extreme. Remove piracy, and you will see the most outrageous corporate behaviors in action in no time. Checks and balances - that's the name of the game.

namlem 5y ago

There's a difference between pirating games and making videos about how to install and use emulators. Btw, emulating games isn't piracy if you have a legit copy. There are valid reasons to do so besides piracy. For example, you can play BotW with mods on emulator, which you can't on Switch.

0xedd 5y ago

You've been brainwashed, friend. There's no reason in the world _I_ should switch up (pun, heh) hardware at the pace of the manufacturer. But, that's what happens when corporations are kept unchecked. _They_ decide that every x years, I need to upgrade or decide what I use it for (violence and harm excluded). Were I able to repair it or use it however I wish, that'd not be the case. Nintendo needs to make a better argument for their hardware if they want people to buy it. Not by dictating laws about hardware usage. Simply put, they're living in the past where different hardware and different firmware mattered. What's next, Microsoft doesn't let me run anything other than Windows on my hardware? Wait ... https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-on-your-pc-1fd5a332-360d-4f46-a1e7-ae6b0c90645c https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-o... https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-microsoft-pluton-processor-the-security-chip-designed-for-the-future-of-windows-pcs/ https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-... Hey look, propaganda! Your favorite <3 Hopefully, this is a wake up call for you to read between the lines. In this case: No, Microsoft did not invent secure cloud computing.

wolpoli 5y ago

> "what would happen if everyone did X?" I don't understand when this rule should/should not be used. Clearly, the rule breaks down in certain situations. For example: What if everyone decided to go into tech? That's not really good for society since we need things like doctors, but some people do need to go into tech.

Nullabillity 5y ago

> In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Nintendo's hardware business would cease to exist, and the world would have a little less e-waste in it. How would that be a bad thing?

majewsky 5y ago
Nintendo's hardware division is undoubtedly having a positive impact on the industry at large. I would argue that the Steam Deck would not exist without the Switch. There have been other mobile consoles in the same form factor (most obviously the PSP and PS Vita), but by the mid-2010s, smartphones had cannibalized that form factor significantly (even Nintendo's 3DS line had 50% lower lifetime sales than the original DS line in the 2000s). If it weren't for the Switch innovating in this form factor, I doubt that the mobile console form factor would exist at all today (except maybe for those shells where you plop your phone into to get a D-pad for your mobile game). If we want to cut down on e-waste, we should rather lengthen the smartphone replacement cycle. That's a better impact just because of sheer numbers. Lobby for replaceable-battery mandates in smartphones and a minimum duration for security updates of 5 years or even 10 years.
- Nullabillity 5y ago
  > If it weren't for the Switch innovating in this form factor, I doubt that the mobile console form factor would exist at all today (except maybe for those shells where you plop your phone into to get a D-pad for your mobile game). How is a Switch materially different from a laptop, or a tablet with a controller strapped on to it? > If we want to cut down on e-waste, we should rather lengthen the smartphone replacement cycle. That's a better impact just because of sheer numbers. Lobby for replaceable-battery mandates in smartphones and a minimum duration for security updates of 5 years or even 10 years. Why not both? Disposable devices are bad, needing duplicate devices in the same form factor is bad, DRM is bad (especially when it's locking down how you can use or repair your own hardware). Tackling one doesn't prevent anyone from tackling the rest. We need to fix all of them
goosedragons 5y ago
If nobody bought Switches and nobody bought Switch games because they just grabbed a ROM off the net wouldn't their software business also die?

ohgodplsno 5y ago

But that's not what happens. It never happens. No company has ever gone under as a result of everyone moving to piracy. Even during the heights of music piracy (emule, grooveshark, limewire, napster), this industry posted record profits every year. People pirate because they otherwise can't access it, or your product isn't worth the money to them. That's a very nice strawman you're putting in the middle of that field. I can do the same too. What if everyone in the video game industry opened its games to mods and gave out tools? An unbelievable breadth of quality content and a new generation of excellent designers. What if everyone stopped buying video games because we now all own rubles? What if we all became blue? Is piracy selfish? Yeah. I'll be the first one to admit it. I pirate it because I don't want to pay for it, or I can't. Is piracy wrong? No. Data wants to be free, and we collectively thrive when ideas, plays, music, creations of the mind flows freely. And if it causes a company to make a tiny bit less on the billions it makes, I won't be crying for them.

an_ko 5y ago

I think you're getting emulation and piracy a little bit muddled, which to be fair is a common reaction. An emulator is just an API-compatible device. It is legal to make and sell an emulator. It can be used for playing legit and pirated copies of games, just as the original console can. It's a healthy form of competition (like between PC manufacturers), resulting in better performing hardware for the consumer. The comment you're replying to doesn't mention or defend piracy. They're only saying Nintendo's Switch hardware is lacking so people are searching for a better performing alternative, and Nintendo is using anti-competitive legal trickery to suppress alternatives, instead of improving their product.

antifa 5y ago

> ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" I think a better question would be "what if it were possible to buy 90% of Nintendo's historic catalog to play on the switch instead of less than 1%?" I emulate because I already know the retro games I want a) cost $15-30 b) would cost that if available, are never on the eshop anyways so I don't even bother checking and c) I remember when SquareEnix android games accidentally, and carelessly, deleted everyone's saves because they arbitrarily forced offline single player games (NES/SNES final fantasy series) to be online-only cloud saves. We're at the tail end of a decade of being shat on and in some cases Nintendo just refusing to sell us the products we want to buy. The entitlement is not with the users in this case.

danhab99 5y ago

> But what really rubs me the wrong way is when people who have chosen to steal start moralizing their position like they're standing up for some vague rights or principles I feel like these are the same people that haven't learned how to shut up in highschool

mrcheesebreeze 5y ago

this is what irks me the most, piracy is stealing and even its name says it. If you steal then thats your problem, but its wrong morally and is gross to do without reasons.

crtasm 5y ago
If you're sailing along then a pirate makes a perfect copy of the cargo in your hold and bids you good day, did they steal anything?