Why are there no unlicensed games today?

[Griking]

Because that is a right that was never granted before. The law as written gives more protections to the company that sells the console than the person that buys it. To me, it would be like if you went and bought a car, and after you did you wanted to get a new stereo for it, but the car company said that you couldn't. Why is the company that sold you an item always able to control the item? If I buy something, shouldn't I have the right to do with it what I want? Taking it further, different companies always buy and reverse engineer the competitor's goods. Like cars, Toyota will buy the new Honda to take it apart and see what they did and if they should alter any of their plans with this new knowledge. It legally allows them to better their own product, as long as you aren't interfering with patents. That ability is gone now in media, and I don't like it.

The other side of it, again, without writing a novel, is that it pretty much makes it so that nothing goes into public domain ever anymore. The long story short is that this was all more or less started because Mickey's first cartoons were going to go public domain, and Disney stood to lose a lot of money if they did. So, they lobbied to have the law expanded and continued.

It means that preserving games from companies that went out of business in the 70s is a totally illegal affair. It means that books or movies or whatever that have been forgotten about and perhaps shouldn't have been cannot be picked up by someone and sold years later. It greatly stifles the free flow of information, something that America was founded in many ways because of.

At the end of the day, I agree that Disney should retain it's rights to Mickey Mouse. But, the law could have been written where a company needs to make something using the property in some way within the last 10 years or it goes into public domain. Get a new copyright, retain your rights from as far back as you want. You can do this by releasing a new version of it on DVD, writing a book with the character, or whatever. Voila, Mickey is safe, and things that *should* actually become public domain do. Far more fair.

As for gaming, I just feel that once you own something, you own it and it is unfair for a company to tell you what you can or cannot do with the item that you purchased. The moment I purchase it, it is mine to play with, destroy, reverse engineer, or do whatever I want with.

I completely agree with you about not liking what they did with patent law but I only partially agree with what you said about being able to do anything you want with something once you've purchased it. I have no issues with people who want to mod their 360s. I also don't have a problem with Microsoft locking all modded consoles off of Xbox Live. It's their playground and they have the right to control who plays there.

Console manufacturers make their money bu selling games and usually take a pretty decent loss on the hardware for the few few years. Turning consoles into open platforms where anyone can make a game and sell it would cost the manufacturers tons of money and as a result you'd probably see the console costing a lot more money.

[SparTonberry]

Wouldn't Action Replay count?
I don't have any from last gen, but I read they got around the lockout by buying garbage (broken) licensed discs, cutting off the security ring and pasting them on the AR discs.
As for SNES, I think Super Noah's Ark 3D was the only US release. I have seen a few Japanese porn games. One using a passthrough (like Super Noah's Ark, requiring a licensed game to be attached) while another I've seen looks like it was made repro-style. (except that it looks whoever made them didn't even remove the donor's label before sticking the porn-game label on it)

[slapdash]

For the Gamecube, there was Maxplay Classic Games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaK2zPGBDzo

And for Playstation 2. I believe there was an unlicensed educational game for the PS2 as well, but darned if I can recall the name. Not sure that one was a US release though.

[goatdan]

I completely agree with you about not liking what they did with patent law but I only partially agree with what you said about being able to do anything you want with something once you've purchased it. I have no issues with people who want to mod their 360s. I also don't have a problem with Microsoft locking all modded consoles off of Xbox Live. It's their playground and they have the right to control who plays there.

Console manufacturers make their money bu selling games and usually take a pretty decent loss on the hardware for the few few years. Turning consoles into open platforms where anyone can make a game and sell it would cost the manufacturers tons of money and as a result you'd probably see the console costing a lot more money.

Wait now, you're confusing a few issues above...

The first thing is that I agree with you that you should be able to do whatever you want with your 360, but that doesn't mean that Microsoft has to provide you with whatever you want. If you mod your 360, that's your choice. If Microsoft disconnects you from Xbox Live because of it, no harm, no foul. That's their choice, and I have zero issues with that. You did not buy all of Xbox Live when you bought your 360. And, even if you pay for Xbox Live, you're paying for a membership.

I can be a member of a health club, but if I try to light the club on fire, I would hope that they wouldn't feel like they had to let me keep being a member.

Also, I'm not advocating open platforms. Although that model seems to work, as shown by Apple, if a company wishes to make it so that people can't make third party games for it, then do two things:

1) Put into place something with security that makes it difficult for a third party to make a game for your console. Heck, even changing your firmware to block things is fine.
2) Work with the companies that are making games so that it wouldn't be financially smart for one of them to break off and try to make a third party game. Why do you need a third party game if you get cheap licensing and Microsoft helps promote your game legally?

The reason that third party game development has happened in the past is either because there was a lack of good security measures on the console (2600), or because the company was being unfair with their licensing measures (Genesis). The other reason is because a company wanted to write software that wasn't the type of software that the hardware manufacturer wanted to directly support, and I'm okay with that too -- but, if you buy the third party porn game, then you risk it being locked out.

[Icarus Moonsight]

The best kind of law. The one with the most money wins.

Sigh.

Why bother grading or quantifying it? That's how existing law works with very little variation. No money, no justice.