Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners

ClassicGMR

EDIT: None of the sites mentioned by name have roms anymore. Just FYI for admins. Delete topic if necessary.

EmuParadise announced they are shutting down their downloads. All the pages are there but nothing is available.

"It's not worth it for us to risk potentially disastrous consequences. I cannot in good conscience risk the futures of our team members who have contributed to the site through the years. We run EmuParadise for the love of retro games and for you to be able to revisit those good times. Unfortunately, it's not possible right now to do so in a way that makes everyone happy and keeps us out of trouble"
Read more at https://www.emuparadise.me/emuparadise-changing.php#AuMmtrHkRruwvjCD.99

With the Big N suing LoveRoms and LoveRetro sites are starting to see this is getting serious. Cool dropped any and all Nintendo a while back.

Luckily for myself I've not had to visit a site like that in 8 years or so.

What do you all think?

thelostsoul

@classicgmr As with piracy was and will be, th y can't stop it. Look at the movie scene and older Windows versions. The emulator and rom scene became too much and big. Eventuelly some games from companies like Nintendo will be harder to find, but not impossible. Many people already have fullsets and those who don't have them will get em as fast as possible while its easy to. I don't worry much. But I fear it could have an negative impact overall, because people and site managers get worried.

lilbud

One sites gone, two more will pop up.

Piracy of old games will never stop, people will always find a way to get stuff.

And Nintendo has the guts to take down romsites like this. These sites are some of the only places to get old games because modern companies don't give enough of a shit to make these games available.

Unless all these companies were to get together and make every game ever made available legally, romsites can and should continue.

It really doesn't matter to the companies, they aren't making money on these old games anymore. You really think a Nintendo executive is going to lose sleep over some bumbleshit downloading a copy of The Firemen?

Or what about retro game stores? The only people who see the money are those selling the game.

I get trying to protect your IP and all. But when you are essentially deleting history, removing the only reasonable way to get some of these games, is it really worth it?

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

thelostsoul

Thats not entirely true. Nintendo DO sell old games still. Even for games they don't, having the games free will not encourage Nintendo to sell more games. Even if Nintendo is not selling those games, they are their own IPs. So, I can understand and accept it. I ecen wonder why it took so long.

lilbud

@thelostsoul

Thats not entirely true. Nintendo DO sell old games still.

Yes, they do sell their old games. But they only sell a laughably low percentage of the games they have released. Around 14% of SNES games have ever been rereleased for sale by Nintendo.

Even for games they don't, having the games free will not encourage Nintendo to sell more games.

Having the game for free might actually encourage them to sell more old games. When the game is available and people get it in anyway they can, Nintendo will see this and realize they should start doing more of this. If they don't see the demand for these old games, they won't attempt to sell them.

Even if Nintendo is not selling those games, they are their own IPs.

Yes, I can see that point. They have to protect their own IPs and whatever. But taking down sites that are usually the only reasonable way to acquire these games is BS. Sometimes, the community does a better job of preservation than the companies.

So, I can understand and accept it. I even wonder why it took so long.

Because they didn't deem it a threat until now? While we can only guess at why it took this long. I think it is because they have something planned for game preservation and want to take down any other means of getting these games so they can strong arm people into buying these games again or paying for a Netflix-like service where they can play games to their hearts content. Of course, they could also be doing this as a screw you to people, (but we will never definitely know.)

enderandrew

@lilbud said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

One sites gone, two more will pop up.

Nintendo successfully removed first party Nintendo roms from most sites last year with DMCA claims. No new sites popped up to fill the void.

In the past week or so, we lost 3 of the biggest ROM sites at once.

I haven't seen anything to suggest that people are rushing to create new ones to fill the void because the threat of lawsuits seems more real now.

Preservation is going to be harder.

lilbud

@enderandrew I don't necessarily mean people would create brand new romsites. I meant that other sites would suddenly get an influx of people who are looking for a new site.

BuZz

I don't believe that the primary goal of many of these sites is preservation. I suspect making money is the priority. They are all covered in advertising. I don't care at all about these sites being taken down.

BobHarris

@buzz You can see it like that..I like to think there is genuine passion involved in hosting a website like Emuparadise. This was one of the few sites that had a clean layout, without any popups, or malware/virus crap thrown at you.
Sure it's not exactly legal, but the legal alternatives are sadly never as good. (Same for tvshows/movies.)
It was my go to website so I'm sad to see it go.

BuZz

@bobharris Emuparadise is also full of adverts - design and layout is horrible (imho).

enderandrew

@buzz said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

@bobharris Emuparadise is also full of adverts - design and layout is horrible (imho).

I'm curious how much bandwidth cost them versus how much they made on adverts. I'd assume most people savvy enough to go there for emulators were probably using ad blockers anyway.

BuZz

@enderandrew Bandwidth is quite cheap these days. Despite people using adblockers, I'm sure it was well worth running the site for them. The rom sites mostly have individual files, so you would have to view multiple pages to get to a download (and many roms are small). I suspect they do ok out of it, but it doesn't really matter how much they make - it's not their IP.

On the ROM download pages, Emuparadise have three different sections of the page with adverts. I would be happy for all these sites to be shut down. There were projects doing ROM preservation long before these sites made it so easy to download the roms.

mediamogul

@enderandrew said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

Preservation is going to be harder.

Video game preservation is in no danger here. The only thing that's changing is the removal of the ROM websites. Anyone who cares about long-term health of this hobby should see this as a good thing, as even the best of these sites do more harm than good with their exposure and reputation as a whole.

Lurker

@enderandrew said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

@lilbud said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

One sites gone, two more will pop up.

...
I haven't seen anything to suggest that people are rushing to create new ones to fill the void because the threat of lawsuits seems more real now.

Preservation is going to be harder.

I have to add, I would refrain from using @lilbud's qwip (true or not) because in my head I keep responding with " Wait? does that make us Hydra? Or at least working with Hydra?"

But a more on topic opinion. I feel that once Nintendo put out the classic nes and classic supernes they went gunning for anyone who might dare divert revenue they could sponge up. So while that pressure is there the void of sites will remain for awhile, but overtime the great eye of Sarum... I mean Nintendo will move away and sites will slowly creep back into place. You just might find yourself having to dig a bit deeper into the web to find them.

Lastly I agree; Preservation is going to be harder, but I am hopeful that their are groups who will rise to that challenge. I'm just glad that I was introduced to this world before it got just that much harder.

lilbud

@lurker said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

I feel that once Nintendo put out the classic nes and classic supernes they went gunning for anyone who might dare divert revenue they could sponge up.

Nintendo put out the classic mini consoles purely for money.

They were gunning for the type of people who would only buy the system because they like one game on it and dropped $60 - 70 on it.

thelostsoul

@lurker said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

Lastly I agree; Preservation is going to be harder, but I am hopeful that their are groups who will rise to that challenge.

Preservation isn't harder, spreading will be harder. The emulators and games will be save somewhere, multiple times.

qrayg

@lilbud said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

One sites gone, two more will pop up.

Hydra, is that you?

lilbud

@qrayg That's how I think Nintendo chooses to see romsites and those who download roms.

obsidianspider

@lilbud said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

Nintendo put out the classic mini consoles purely for money.

That's why they do anything. They're a company. They don't make games just for the heck of it.

RedBatman

https://hothardware.com/news/emuparadise-rom-site-shuts-down-following-nintendo-legal-actions