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The Retro Gaming Revival: Emulation, Nostalgia and Moral Quandaries
23 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of the CodePlay Culture Podcast we discuss rise of retro gaming and emulation in recent years & the nostalgic appeal of classic games and why players seek to relive the past.
The History of Emulation Early days of emulation: from simple ROM dumps to sophisticated software. Key milestones in the development of emulators (e.g., ZSNES, MAME). The role of the internet in spreading emulation software and ROMs.
The Legality of Emulation Explanation of copyright laws related to video games. The legal gray areas: ROMs, BIOS files, and the difference between legal backups vs. pirated copies. High-profile legal cases involving emulation and ROM distribution. Moral Implications
The debate: Is emulation a form of preservation or piracy? Arguments for emulation: Preserving gaming history, accessibility, and reviving forgotten games. Arguments against emulation: Undermining developers' rights, potential harm to the industry. Consideration of the economic impact: Does emulation really hurt sales?
The Role of Game Preservation The importance of preserving video game history and the role of museums, libraries, and archives. How emulation contributes to or conflicts with official preservation efforts. The perspective of game developers and publishers on emulation as a preservation tool. The Modern Retro Gaming Scene How retro gaming has evolved beyond nostalgia into a subculture. The impact of mini consoles, official re-releases, and remasters. The growing market for retro-inspired indie games and how they blend past and present. Personal Responsibility and Ethical Emulation How individuals can ethically approach retro gaming and emulation. Alternatives to piracy: Legal emulation options and purchasing official re-releases
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Transcript
Introduction to Codeplay Culture Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Codeplay Culture podcast, where we discuss tech, gaming, health, and the world around us.
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to Codeplay
Revival of Retro Gaming: Nostalgia & Morality
00:00:13
Speaker
Culture. Today, we're going to talk about the retro gaming revival, emulation, nostalgia, and the moral quandaries around ROMs. So we'll get into a bit of an overview of the rise of retro gaming, especially in recent years, the nostalgic appeal of classic games, why players want to relive the past, talk about a little bit of history from the early days, some of the legal areas, debates around emulation, um and talk about preserving video game history. So what's up, Logan?
00:00:41
Speaker
Sorry, I was on mute. How are you doing? We got really here. Well, that's up everybody. So, yeah, let's ah let's talk about ROMs. I mean, it's been a while since I've played them, but I used to love the old Nintendo and Super Nintendo ones like ZSNES and. You guys probably have more experience with than I do.
00:00:59
Speaker
Have you guys heard of synogen cyogen? Wait, that sounds familiar. Is that some kind of like ah OS? Yes, some kind of OS or ROM emulator thing.
Exploring Modern Emulation: Challenges & Benefits
00:01:13
Speaker
But anyhow, they're able to, I guess, through some layer on top of Swant so in engine or whatever do Zelda breath of the wild at like 4k 60 frames a second as a wrong ah So if you type into YouTube, you know breath of the wild 4k 60 FPS Emulation they're able to take current games and just crank up the you know what the Nintendo switch isn't capable of yeah Yeah, that's great um
00:01:50
Speaker
Chris left the building. Yeah. Chris is dealing with some intermittent internet connectivity issues and he will be popping in and out. But, yeah um, yeah, no, the world we live in. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, um, ROMs. No, I haven't, I've heard of that ROM, but I've never really used it. But, um, thinking back to house, that's like older.
00:02:14
Speaker
That's like back in the day, right? Those kind of ROMs, like they don't have that anymore, do they? Maybe it's like some evolved version or I'm pronouncing something incorrectly. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I do. I do. I play ROMs. There's nothing wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with a ROM, yes. Other than a piracy kind of aspect. But what are you playing right now?
00:02:41
Speaker
I play like me and my son we play we have Xbox like original Xbox the Xbox and tank, right? Yeah, and on that Xbox I have a CD that has all the ROMs It's like a main ultra CD and it has pretty much every Actually, you put the CD inside the Xbox. Yeah, it's actually called Retro Legends. It has about 6,000 ROMs on it. And you could pick the system you want, kind of like Retroarch, right? Yeah. Is Retroarch the one where you like you have all the systems, you pick them, and yeah that's kind of cool. It's cool. It's cool. So Retroarch is an evolution of what I'm using, which is a very old concept.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, like it's like you remember before Plex. It was called XBMC. Yeah, Xbox Media Center. um It could have been. um I think that's what that stands for, right? I think that's what it stands for. I can't remember it. Yeah, and then it became Plex, right? Which is a way for you can play your DLNA files over a network. Right. Yeah.
00:03:50
Speaker
um The same thing kind of happened for, I guess, what what did you call it? Something arc. ah Retro arc. Retro arc is like a generic OS to you like visualize your ROM library or am I wrong? No, you're absolutely not wrong. OK, that's exactly what's what it's used for. I like that idea. And if I run remember correctly, it.
00:04:17
Speaker
It is we've done nicely done. We have to stop with these puns. Yeah, yeah exactly. No one is going to punish us. Oh, yeah. My favorite rapper is big pun, you know, which is also anyways, I'm going to probably going to have a pun for lunch. I meant I meant a bun. um'm I'm getting hungry talking about all this retro stuff. But OK, going back, let's let's take a step back. Let's regress.
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah. If we can for the moment. And what was the last ROM you actually downloaded and played? If any. Majora's Mask. Oh, nice. On the N64 emulator? Which one? Honestly, I can't even remember. I just remember you could save the state. Oh, that's my favorite. Which trumps like going and saving from whatever Mughal you have to save with. Can you imagine every time you had to save your Word document, you had to like find a Mughal? That's terrible. No, save states are great, man. They're a godsend. Yeah.
00:05:21
Speaker
But yeah, the last one I played, I think it was Ninja Gaiden. Yeah. um Yeah, it was Ninja Gaiden. Did you say Ninja Gaiden? Or did you say Ninja Gaiden? Which one is it? Gaiden or Gaiden? I'm not sure. It's one or the other. motta It's an impossible game. You almost have to be a ninja. Yeah.
00:05:45
Speaker
yeah then life Can you get that like on Xbox right or it was on the yes it was on it was on and NES on the Xbox Yeah, right. Have you played the Xbox Ninja Gaiden? No Is it good? it Is it the same kind of? I can't get past the first boss, which is in line with the any NES version. Right. um It's like, you know how Dark Souls or From Software, Soulsborne games are notoriously infamously hard? Yeah. Well, I beat a lot of them except Sekiro or Sekiro. But Ninja Gaiden or Gaiden or
00:06:26
Speaker
I'm glad, even whatever scientist from Simpsons. Yeah, man, I can't beat. I can't get past that first boss. It's like, makes me feel like I suck at gaming, you know, but then I realized, no, no, there's just a hack. You can watch YouTube. It's like to some, yeah, there's always a way, man. It's not fair and that they make the game that way. Anyways, it should be made in a way where you can comfortably play it.
00:06:50
Speaker
and enjoy it and not be stressed out, yeah right? So do you have for like ROMs, do you have like a retro cabinet that has like a joystick that's? My wish, my wish, I can build one, man. Honestly, that is probably my end game. When I reach my final level, I want that aspect. That's all I want. Yeah, so retro cabinet. You like get to the end and whatever creator it says to you,
00:07:19
Speaker
Hey, so you think you did everything you wanted? and and And you're like, shoot, I didn't build that cabinet. It's like back to earth. That's exactly it, man. I got to come back and build that cabinet with the multiple screens and the dual controls, double control sticks, you know, for two players, maybe four, and we maybe the Ninja Turtles cabinet with the four player yeah arcade
Digital Media Ownership: Rights & Limitations
00:07:39
Speaker
sticks. That would be awesome. But no, it just it's for me, it's on PC, PC and Xbox, and which is on my television, of course.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah, man, that's the extent of it. And I was playing Super Mario 2 recently, which is pretty fun, man. It's a pretty fun game. Is it a dream?
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a dream. Yeah. It's a dream world. It's not even real. Doki Doki Panic. It's not even real, no. What's Doki Doki Panic? Is that like some kind of code for like The Underground? The Underground Code. No, that's what that's like the Super Mario Brothers 2 game. They replaced, it was a different game and they replaced all the skins.
00:08:18
Speaker
of this game with Super Mario Brother skins. And essentially a different it was a different game and it became Super Mario Brothers, too. But it was Doki Doki Panic. That was its original original title for the original game. I remember just you start the game falling. Mm hmm. And then Peach is the best regardless. But the fact that she can float glide or slide is like satisfying. Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
And for some reason, physics don't matter because the, the flighting, the dress is frozen in place as it glides almost like a pixel art, but I guess that's what it was. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, man. For sure. so Are we, um,
00:09:06
Speaker
I guess we're going to move on with this. this spread Yeah, we're going to continue and hopefully Chris so will be resurrected. Chris will probably join us at some point. He'll be, yeah, he probably has an extra life somewhere that he's going to use or a green mushroom. he's cooking up right now. I don't know. I just realized we have to between you and I find that, um, green mushroom and give him a one up and we'll probably add in some kind of sound effect to the pod. You know, when he, if we does resurrect, but if he doesn't, we'll just put in the video placeholder, you know, Chris will be back after these commercial messages, yeah but, um, yeah, maybe we can,
00:09:47
Speaker
talk about a little bit what inspired the topic for the emulation. Um, because I've been thinking about dipping my toe back into the ROM library based on that OS, that generic OS and doing that kind of stuff. But have you been playing more often than prior?
00:10:07
Speaker
Uh, yes, I have. Yeah. Yeah. Because like I ah cleaned out my garage and have a television in there. Yes. And my Xbox is plugged into that. So there I go, man. Easy to pick up. You know, it's not like a game where you have to invest or games where you invest too much time, right? It's play it, turn it off. It's not a grind, right? Yeah. Like you're an infamous cable cutter, right? Where you went you went super hardcore back to like discs.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Because if it's like online, and if it's like connected, excuse me. And if you don't have to get up to action the next media, we're pretty much just plugged into the machine as they milk us, right? In terms of like free will, like they're just sapping our attention in exchange for entertainment. Yeah. And and sublimination you know and it's it's terrible with the microtransactions and all the connectivity in games and you have to be connected. You have to get the latest this and they have to feed you whatever. but
00:11:14
Speaker
No, I love the fact that there's a disconnect there between your product and the company you purchase it from the disconnects right there. All I want is my warranty when I buy something and that's it. Leave me alone. It's now mine. yes Because if it's on the cloud, it's typically not.
00:11:30
Speaker
yours, right right right? Like the disk essentially, some of the disks I believe just hold nothing and a license. yeah So when they spin up, it's like really downloads from the cloud or whatever. I forget if this is just this something like it's partially true of what I'm saying, but like the disk is the representation of the license that you purchased it. Now, if you lose access to your online persona or whatever, like you don't own that software.
00:11:58
Speaker
right because it's on some server that you have to ask for it back. Like it's, if you purchase something, like like society should get something in return, right? That's tangible, physical. Well, you should be able to resell it. If it's yours and you purchase it, you should be able to resell it. And you cannot do that with online media right now. Not that I'm aware of. I don't know how it works. Like maybe Steam. Well, can you in Steam? I don't think you can.
00:12:27
Speaker
I know in Epic, at least in Fortnite, you can gift things. like And then if you have a creator code, you can get a discount and gift things. So you have to apply for anyhow. that That's different. Nobody owns the game, right? Exactly. Did you hear about the EU with the app store? um Hold debacle on like Twitter. And then there was something like,
00:12:52
Speaker
Do you hear about the drama on Twitter with I think Epic, Fortnite, and Apple? And it could be like just remembering things incorrectly, but I don't think I am. Did you hear about this? I have not, no. It was something about how if you monopolize some, you know, and for anyone listening, if I misstated anything, you know, fact check it and please leave a comment below. I will edit with the show notes and whatnot, but it was something to do with,
00:13:20
Speaker
If you monetize the marketplace, app stores, right? um Then you you're ah you always have to give a cut to Apple, right? and Or cut to Google, whatever. So you can't offload or download you know apps from generically or iPhone easily, right? As you can ABKs with,
00:13:45
Speaker
Android. right So if you go to Epic's main website, you can download the Epic kind of app store app now, which is side loaded onto an iPhone. But it is side loaded only in Europe right now, because it's actually a different app store.
00:14:07
Speaker
because you know how they the EU consortium forced Apple to like, hey man, you guys can't like monopolize and then not have standards. Throw away your lightning port and you need USB-C. That was a big one. It's the same with app stores. Like they're trying to, you know, be fair and reduce monopolies. And I'm not sure the whole intent behind it, but yeah. So it's weird. You can get another, it's like getting um the Google Play Store on Android and also the Amazon app store on it, two different app stores, which is typically unheard of, I think when it comes to Apple. Yeah, but it's kind of fascinating with the, that kind of stuff. So getting back to who owns it, hopefully Apple less when it comes to digital stuff. And when they take 30% or whatever astronomical thing, that's not like, um you know, hopefully there's more,
00:15:06
Speaker
And probably next would be Epic. I know it's like the pot calling the kettle black when it's the Apple and Epic, but Epic, when you get their game engine, it's like 30% for all the sales, but it's, it's good. Cause up to like half a million or something. So like, if you get half a million dollars of revenue, you have to pay 30%, something like that. So like, yeah man, if you're making that much money, you're okay to pay the.
00:15:29
Speaker
you know with the huge percentage for the engine and all that. I don't know, man, 30% to 63% to the government. like what do you What are you left with? What are you left with? Yeah, you're talking about like it better if it's half a million, it better be like, go gangbusters to 10 million, right? There's nothing in between that is like financially ah you know sustainable based on your headcount of your developers, all that stuff, right? That's why probably a lot of game studios like close. If it doesn't hit and go viral,
00:15:59
Speaker
Everyone's out of the job, right? Yeah. yeah So piggybacking on your point with the financial aspect of it, right? um Yeah. Yeah. they they They saw that there was a market for retro gaming at some point ah over the last decade and and they pushed it all into their their own app stores, their own you know, paid platforms, right? Like Nintendo did it. Yeah, with Nintendo Online. and Yeah, like Sony's doing it now with their, um you know, extra with all the PS3 games and the older ones. So they're seeing there's a market for it and they're trying to capital it capitalize on it, which is fine. Well, they're wrong with it. But as long as we are allowed to have our emulators and ROMs, right? When they start attacking or coming after that, word we're gonna be in and trouble, right? The thing is they can't do anything.
00:16:53
Speaker
because if I own it, i I guess according to the laws, if I own the media, I can have a backup of the media, which is a ROM, right? Yeah. It's like you ever get a 4K disc or a Blu-ray, and by the way,
00:17:09
Speaker
4K Discs. Blu-ray completely trump streaming Netflix at 4K. Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. Like night and day. Didn't realize this, but definitely worth buying 4K Discs if you love the movie and you want the definitive edition.
Digital vs Physical: Sales Trends & Implications
00:17:24
Speaker
Like ready player one.
00:17:26
Speaker
Oh my gosh, it's like mind blowing beautiful in Dolby Atmos compared to whatever streaming platform. But when you buy the 4K and Blu-ray, sometimes you get a digital version of the that you can download and keep. That's kind of like the same thing as like an Xbox PlayStation game that you like, own it for life. Here's the MP4 kind of thing, right? Yeah, for sure, man. And that is the best case scenario, right? But now when, you know, what is it? The online sales or or online sales of video games have tipped 50% right um the ps on the PlayStation network. I think the stat was over 50%. We talked about this on one of our our previous podcasts.
00:18:06
Speaker
ye And it's now over a threshold where they're seeing way more financial gain doing a digital game instead of a physical. And that means we're in we're in trouble over the next coming years. We're in trouble, man. I mean, that is if you're a gamer. If if you're not a gamer, who cares?
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. It's like, then you got limited run stuff where you can sometimes get the physical.
00:18:40
Speaker
And then I always try to support limited run because I'm like, yeah, man, I want the physical, even though if I beat it before, and even if it's like not the actual flavor of the game that I really wanted, the digital one is actually high resolution or whatever variant of that, you know, up resolutioned version of the game is. I don't care if I'm buying the incorrect game as long as I support physical for a game that I love. Absolutely. I have to agree with you on that on that point. um And also the emulation or the backup of ROMs has another benefit.
00:19:20
Speaker
And that is archiving things, right? Games won't be lost to history, right? We're archiving these on the internet, and they'll be there until the end, right? Which is interesting. Yeah, and if the AI lets us review what we uploaded to the internet, then we're cool. So don't say mean things to Amazon Echo and all that. Yeah. Yeah, man.
00:19:49
Speaker
That's um that's it in a nutshell, man. The I think my thing is going to grow. I think this market is going to grow exponentially, um especially with newer games being backed up and being able to be played through an emulator like PS one games now PS two games. Right. So it's definitely it's not going to stop. It's only going to grow.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah, like I just wish there was a software hardware AI that would remove the black bars on the left and the right and make four by three games HD 16 by nine without any degradation and quality like you out stretching. Yes, without stretching squall and cloud on PS one to be like squowed, you know, like like inappropriately squished.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely,
Emulation's Impact: Economy & Ethics
00:20:50
Speaker
man. um
00:20:53
Speaker
but else What else are we going to talk about? Let's see. Let me check my my notes here. Yeah. So honestly, the one thing I will say about Dreamcast, wait a minute, it's Dreamcast? A little bit, but it is, like who am I talking to there?
00:21:10
Speaker
um is They have a weird thing. I think it's called like the Dolphin Emulator or something like that. But you have to play the specific emulated GameCube.
00:21:27
Speaker
Xbox and Dreamcast games on this Dolphin emulator thing on an Xbox Series S or an Xbox One S, not the X, not the whatever. There's some reason, but then you load it and you go into File Manager and now you got that whole um beautiful ROM interface. and We're talking about like Dreamcast and GameCube games that have been like up resolution to HD through some kind of AI thing or community-driven development, yeah playable on the Xbox natively with the controller. like You can have access to all of your Dreamcast games, I think, and like some of them are HD remakes through this path. Have you seen this?
00:22:17
Speaker
no Yeah, I think you would search on YouTube, um Xbox ah One S Dolphin Dreamcast GameCube HD, yeah and then you'll find it. It's very specific, but if you like GameCube and Dreamcast and you want HD versions of a lot of your favorite games, then it's worth checking out. I have bits and pieces of the memory, but it looks incredible. Nice. No, that's good, man. I'll have a look for sure.
00:22:48
Speaker
um What do you think of the, what do you think of the goodness? I can't even speak today. I'm running low on on coffee. It's time to refresh my, my supply. What do you think? Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. What do you think about the economic implications of ROMs? Do you think it hurts sales, underlying sales, or is it something where No, it doesn't hurt sales at all. What's your what's your take on that? I think it does at first it hurts sales, but it doesn't hurt sales at all if you have a economy acceptable of
00:23:29
Speaker
um you know pivoting on a dime or going with the flow changes. If you see a fork in the road like and you go straight, meaning that there's a path in the grass metaphorically and actually, you notice all these people are cutting through this field, big green field, and now you have this big straight like muddy area because people cut right through. Now as a government, you could just say, hey, ah no, we'll put up some fences so you can't actually take the shortest path there.
00:23:59
Speaker
yeah um It's a whole thing with like Canada and legalizing marijuana, right? If the government can make money off of it and go with the flow, sure, they should do that with other drugs too. Shouldn't you know criminalize people that have like issues, like maybe work on people that are hurting people with weapons and other reasons, right?
00:24:17
Speaker
Same with ROMs and emulation. If it works for us, Nintendo and all these other people did the right thing eventually, and they capitalized on it. But it took them a bit. It was looked at for years as stop stealing stuff, right? Almost like the wares or games with the Z of the 2000s, right? Yeah. What do you think? Honestly, man, I think it's... um messed up that they're even that anybody's even suggesting that it's a loss of of revenue for one.
00:24:55
Speaker
one more i mean One super important thing is that they already sold the game. They made their money. right Now they're just trying to get to squeeze more juice out of that dry ass lemon. I shouldn't be saying. Or juice out of that dry lemon. That's not fair, right? You bite you buy a car from a dealership, you sell it to somebody five years later, imagine them knocking on door and saying, no, no, no, we want a piece of what you sell. You already bought the car. You paid full price for it. yeah They have no place to tell you or to say that it's lost revenue. That is and is a complete nonsense. That's just greed.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, you know how the last of us, it's like, you know what, the last of us, you won't see the last of us. And they released it like five times. Maybe it's four or three. But like how many times and I bought them all like a not a sucker, but I did find a reason each time. OK, I can see why I want the HD version of the game I love. And, you know, I didn't like the second just like you said you didn't. Right. But the first one was Epic, um and then re-bought it on PS5 because they really released the PS4. Maybe that one I could have left out. Then they did an actual remaster on PS5, definitive edition, and I bought that one and sold the others. But like buying the same game like four times in a series of like seven years, the exact same game, nothing's changed other than a like a patch for $59. You're paying the same price over and over again.
00:26:31
Speaker
um maybe one of those two is like criminal, yeah right? It's like, no, I have it. Why can't I play it on this console? right No, I played on the old one that's not supported. What? Yeah, no, for sure. And and it's it's that greed, right? They made their sale. It's that greed, right? Cause I remember years ago, um, it Who was it? I can't remember who it was. There were game companies that took EB games to court because people were buying used games because they didn't get a piece of that cash. They wanted a piece of that cash. Talk about- Do you have people that originally sold the used game to them? No, the game companies were taking EB games to court because they wanted a piece of the resell reseller or resale market, right? Yes.
00:27:24
Speaker
and That is terrible, right? yeah you like I'm kind of not OK with it, but I think that if it was set up from the beginning as like some kind of margin goes back to the game company, but not the way it went down. right Like if EB Games bought those games, right because i I remember this one. It was like hurting the game industry. I'm air quoting because I'm uninformed, actually. Maybe it was hurting the game industry, right in all fairness.
00:27:54
Speaker
but If they could have set structured something from the beginning that when they resell one, like 5% goes back to the gaming manufacturer and 5% goes to charity or something, that would have been better, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like a charity of a game maker's choice or something, I don't know, which actually can't do that because conflict of interest. It'll just be a charity that they own. Needless to say, they lost that court case. and rightfully so because they shouldn't see a penny of that once they make that sale. It's it's unfair to the customers. Yes, because they own it and now they double own it, meaning that it's been transferred twice. right right if It doesn't even make sense. like Why would you sue EB Games for getting money back when a portion of the sale was not going back to the original person that sold the game to EB Games?
Conclusion & Future Discussions
00:28:44
Speaker
Like if I sold the last of us right and then like no don't skip me That better have been a class action lawsuit to get money and maybe it would have went better because it's like but we're for the people Yeah, and us i'm like they just went company greed style, right? Yeah, absolutely All right. Well, guess what? I think we're going to call this. Yeah. It's been, it's been good. And I know we haven't potted in a while and Chris dropped, but, um, yes. So you know after a commercial message and, um, a trip from our you know main sponsors or whatever the jargon is before commercial, I'm sure Chris will be back in full capacity after he gets a fiber internet upgrade. Hmm.
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah, and thank you everybody for joining us on this um trip down memory lane. Although short, we will definitely revisit this topic when Chris returns and talk about it in a lot more detail and length. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye.