Emulation Talk

[IMJ]

Brief article about the current state of emu at Game Rant which discusses the hobby and it's current state.

Game Rant discusses emulation. Nothing too dynamic, but some interesting conclusions at the end....

[Ed Oscuro]

What's interesting about this? It's just rehashing stuff almost all of us know, and it's getting a fair bit wrong too. For example:

The trend goes as far back as the arcade machine loaded with six games, through the SNES collection of Super Mario Bros. games. More recently, large publishers such as Capcom have collected and re-released aging titles (the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for example), and other companies have followed suit as well (Sega will be releasing a Sonic Classics Collection on the Nintendo DS in 2010).

There's something wrong with almost every sentence in this bunch. What arcade machine are they talking about? The Neo Geo, the Mega Tech? Can't be. There's been compilation arcade cabinets for years (there's a prototype of a Williams one in MAME from the early 90s, but even so there's been others before emulation), and they were always made to make money, not to prevent emulation. Re-releases of old games aren't post-emulation either, if you look at the game compilations on the SNES and Super Famicom.

Meanwhile, the current state of emulation culture might actually be a grassroots movement towards eventually making these programs widely available for free for posterity – arguably a goal of the entire internet concept.

I for one am shocked, SHOCKED.

Somebody needed to be told this was the goal?

[kaedesdisciple]

I want my two minutes and mouse click back.

[XYXZYZ]

This article didn't make much sense. First of all, he's talking about emulation but in the middle of the article there are screenshots of MUGEN? Who the hell has ever referred to ROM hacks as "manips"?

Meanwhile, the current state of emulation culture might actually be a grassroots movement towards eventually making these programs widely available for free for posterity – arguably a goal of the entire internet concept.

A grassroots movement? To eventually make emulators available? For free? What the hell was it before this grassroots movement started?

[BetaWolf47]

Sounds to me like he's presenting common knowledge as research... much like my current post.

[IMJ]

I thought it’s a great entry point for people who didn’t know about emulation or those who were initially curious about it. Strikes me more as a lit review to generate some conversation as opposed to something incredibly research oriented. I think that there are a world of Wii owners out there who have no idea about this stuff, and the info in the article would serve as a gateway for them.

-shrugs-

It's the kind of article that lands hits from curious researches for years, and eventually sends curious people to places like Racketboy and Digipress.

[JSoup]

Who the hell has ever referred to ROM hacks as "manips"?

There are a few people, actually. Back when I first got internet and was learning about emulation, I found sites that distinguished between ROM hacks and manips. I don't even remember what the stated differences were, but I'm guessing it was more e-lawyering, in the same vein as 'you must delete this within 24 hours'.

[tomaitheous]

There are a few people, actually. Back when I first got internet and was learning about emulation, I found sites that distinguished between ROM hacks and manips. I don't even remember what the stated differences were, but I'm guessing it was more e-lawyering, in the same vein as 'you must delete this within 24 hours'.

I was there too, in the very beginning of emulation. I don't remember the term manips either. Looks like it would mean (man)ual ips??? IPS being the patch to you put on a rom (less legality issues), which some people still use that format.

[Rickstilwell1]

I posted my opinion while I was on the site:

I think emulation is good in that it makes it possible for people try out old games before they buy the real ones on online shops such as Ebay or Amazon. You can no longer rent these old games anywhere and mainstream used game stores like Gamestop no longer carry these games.

If you want to make sure you are buying quality titles and going for something you will actually want to enjoy and keep in your collection, emulation can give you a chance to see what is what.

Although emulation doesn’t always work right, it is also a good way to save out of print games from permanent destruction (especially those released on cassette tapes for various old computers). Old cartridges and discs are ceasing to function and emulation is the only way to play games that had only one or very few copies produced.

Another issue that emulation resolves is the ability to store battery backed data permanantly. While the original cartridge batteries die after a few years of extended use or so, the emulator will always be able to keep your save files intact. Almost all of the time, time I will use my real system and game for playing the game, but I make sure to do at least one run-through of each on the emulator as I attempt to achieve perfect playthroughs of the games.

For games that did not have save batteries you can still save your progress using savestates.

Emulation is also one of the only logical ways to play arcade games at home. There are many arcade games that have still never been ported to consoles. Most people do not have room to collect large arcade cabinets. Emulation solves this issue as well, as the number of available arcades in someone’s town declines or the collection of cabinets within an arcade decreases in size.

While there are many pros and cons to emulation, I feel the best way to use it is not to rip off game companies, but to test things out before you buy them and use them as incentives to go out and buy the real games or their current re-releases.

[Ed Oscuro]

Glad to know my late-morning grouchiness wasn't completely off the mark. :P

First of all, he's talking about emulation but in the middle of the article there are screenshots of MUGEN?

I guess this is meant as an example of the sort of things you can do with emulation. If the article was arranged better this would be clear.

I was there too, in the very beginning of emulation. I don't remember the term manips either. Looks like it would mean (man)ual ips??? IPS being the patch to you put on a rom (less legality issues), which some people still use that format.

I'm pretty sure it's a shortened version of "manipulation" or something similar. Like everybody else in the thread, the term doesn't ring many bells with me.

I thought it’s a great entry point for people who didn’t know about emulation or those who were initially curious about it.
[...]
It's the kind of article that lands hits from curious researches for years, and eventually sends curious people to places like Racketboy and Digipress.

Or perhaps the idea was to grab some people off DP.

Audience. Who's it being written for? Then the author needs to take another look at the way it's constructed, because it could be clearer. Sometime during that process, looking at some of the basic facts would also be nice.

Bluntly, I would rather that articles like this not take a part of the attention share of better-written articles. If the defense is basically "it'll give Digital Press more readers," I point you to this recent debacle. There were some decent suggestions in this thread; I would hope they consider some of them (if they see this thread). If the author doesn't think that it's worth striving to be excellent in their writing, I suggest they make space for people who are contributing intelligently to the topic.

[IMJ]

I posted my opinion while I was on the site:

I think emulation is good in that it makes it possible for people try out old games before they buy the real ones on online shops such as Ebay or Amazon. You can no longer rent these old games anywhere and mainstream used game stores like Gamestop no longer carry these games.

If you want to make sure you are buying quality titles and going for something you will actually want to enjoy and keep in your collection, emulation can give you a chance to see what is what.

Although emulation doesn’t always work right, it is also a good way to save out of print games from permanent destruction (especially those released on cassette tapes for various old computers). Old cartridges and discs are ceasing to function and emulation is the only way to play games that had only one or very few copies produced.

Another issue that emulation resolves is the ability to store battery backed data permanantly. While the original cartridge batteries die after a few years of extended use or so, the emulator will always be able to keep your save files intact. Almost all of the time, time I will use my real system and game for playing the game, but I make sure to do at least one run-through of each on the emulator as I attempt to achieve perfect playthroughs of the games.

For games that did not have save batteries you can still save your progress using savestates.

Emulation is also one of the only logical ways to play arcade games at home. There are many arcade games that have still never been ported to consoles. Most people do not have room to collect large arcade cabinets. Emulation solves this issue as well, as the number of available arcades in someone’s town declines or the collection of cabinets within an arcade decreases in size.

While there are many pros and cons to emulation, I feel the best way to use it is not to rip off game companies, but to test things out before you buy them and use them as incentives to go out and buy the real games or their current re-releases.

Awesome comments here, man!

[Greg2600]

I want my two minutes and mouse click back.

Me too! I have no problem with emulation of old systems/games. I am willing to bet 90% of the "classic" games (90's and earlier) are not being sold in any form. 99% weren't prior to XBOX Live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console.

As for nostalgia, I remember discovering emulation just about 12 years ago, late 1997. We had a hideous dialup network connection at the time, so download games took forever. I used to download them at my college's computer lab, and save them to an Iomega Zip disk. Then bring those home and use the zip disks to play them off.

Once in a blue moon I'll use the N64 or PS1 emu's to get the better graphics. Mostly, like Rick said, I use them to evaluate old games I may want to collect.