It's more the former with how devs use emulators. We also use emulators if we want play games without all the subscription or scalper bullshit, or if we want to play them with unofficial translation patches.

I'd say both. The power of free shit can't be denied, but it's also a good protection from bogus $10000 condition-nearly new, only run over with a bulldozer scalpers and amateur devs massacring old games with "remasters".

both are good things. I am only willing to pay for physical release anything else is a scam

>>1694 Emulators are essential for games no longer being sold or unable to be (licensing, legal battles, etc.) I will buy a game if it is available and functional. For example, the Castlevania DS collection is a much better option than emulation the seperate games imo

>Do they truly help protect video games not by themselves. what helps "protect" video games are rom sharing websites, and groups like no-intro and redump. it's fair to say that most games released since like 1980 aren't playable anymore, if you aren't willing to spend a lot of money and effort on hardware. it's not something that is realistic for most people, compared to buying a new release through steam or GOG. >are they an excuse to pirate games? even if that was true, which i'm sure it is for some people, why is that a problem? if you want to support a particular developer, you can just buy their newer games, or send them money. if you don't want to support them, or are unable to, then you won't, simple as that. at that point, whether you pirate their game or not doesn't matter. >>1696 >or if we want to play them with unofficial translation patches. this is also a good point. many great games never left japan for example, and buying them all the way from japan is super costly. some games might even be region locked, which is a whole different problem. and of course, not everyone speaks japanese, or even english in the case of english translations.

>>1704 > it's fair to say that most games released since like 1980 aren't playable anymore, if you aren't willing to spend a lot of money and effort on hardware Why? Ain't there at least few emulators for pretty much every retroplatform?

>>1694 Consider an example: Xenoblade Chronicle X re-release happened only because emulating its Wii version gradually created a demand as people had been getting informed of XCX as a cool thing that's a bit unfinished and is a Wii exclusive. Same for countless other games that got out of stock or got delisted with only maybe scalpers reselling them at unfair prices. Especially for platforms that got deprecated and, again, monopolized as a product to be sold by scalpers. Piracy is archivation. Piracy is also free PR for a product, and signals for a market there's demand with the price seen to be a bit too much. That's why you shouldn't pirate kusoge and completely ignore any crappy or corpodemon software. I'm tired of dealing with any malware personally, so I usually just stuck to supporting devs I like or using free software. I was never in the mood to neurotically manage my internet reputation to get into private tracker circles.

>>1706 Wii U*

They are beneficial to me, that's all that matters.

>>1705 sorry, i probably worded it wrong lol. i was talking about playing games on original hardware specifically. yes, there are at least a few emulators for everything, which is exactly my point: emulating is much easier and less costly than playing on original hardware. the convenience is just undeniable, and in either case, no money will ever go to the developers, because they aren't releasing the games anymore.