On Roms and Emulation

Hello there, ladies and gents. This weekend, I decided to relive a bit of my past, so I found collections of every NES and SNES game in Rom form, as well as the emulators with which to run them. I already had a controller, and after configuring things properly, it's just like when I was a kid, playing 8-bit games that my brother owned.

Now, under normal circumstances, I am a pirate in name only: As in, I prefer pirates to ninja's. Pirating is something I am wholly against, and I'll be writing about that in my next post. Also, for roms and emulators, I have a tendency to feel the same way. However, old-school gaming, IE NES, SNES and the like, I feel falls under a sort of gray area when it comes to pirating.

To be quite honest, if a game comes out, and it's something that I'm going to play, I want to give the developers my money. If they make a quality game, they deserve my cash, and that's a fact, plain and simple. I'm also not going to hide behind the "I can't afford it" route that so many others hide behind. Gaming is not food, shelter, or clothing. Call me elitist if you want, but if you can't afford gaming, then you shouldn't BE gaming. Simple. Gaming is a form of luxury, and since it isn't necessary for.. you know, LIVING, then you shouldn't complain just because you can't afford it.

Now, why are NES and SNES roms MY exception?

1) The developers don't get any money off the games anymore. The exception to THIS is through things like the Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, and the Playstation Network, but if it's a game I have on an emulator, and I liked it enough to keep it, then I have no problem plopping down the money to own the game. Again, if they took the time to make something for my enjoyment, then I will give the developers of those games my money.

2) You can't find the games anywhere anymore. Most stores don't sell them, and the ones that do don't carry games that are good. Roms are pretty much the only way to find those games anymore.

My usage of roms always follows those two rules up there. If the developers don't make money off them anymore (which anything from PS1 backwards holds up to this, since the developers stopped production of those games), and if stores stop selling them. That being said, once a game becomes available again through alternative means, IE VC or PSN, then I buy them. Always.

Yesterday was the release of the demo for Force Unleashed 2, I tried it out and it's pretty fun. Still glitchy though (I fell through the floor of one of the area's), but it should be pretty fun. It seems like they sped up The Apprentice a bit, and I'm sure they gave him new moves, although you only get one in the demo. Although I'm not buying it at launch, I'm looking forward to seeing the full game in action when it gets released in a couple of weeks.

See ya'll on Saturday, yo!