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ssnick37

Member
Oct 27, 2017
417
Never see the point in going after these sites. 1 goes down 10 more pop up. The only way you can combat piracy is providing an easier alternative, which Nintendo doesn't seem keen on doing.


Amen.

"Lets waste our time chasing these websites down when we dont even have a Virtual Console solution on our number one platform."
 

Switch

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,021
Wales
User Warned : Drive-by, platform warring.
Nintendo are evil. Why they get so much love on here I'll never know.
 

BernardoOne

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,289
Didn't they already managed to get their roms out of some major sites already?



And if they do that, people will bark saying that the games should be cheaper/free emulators are better/whatever

We already had a good official alternative with the Virtual Console. No matter what Nintendo does, they can't win.

EDIT: In fact, such service is already coming with their online subscription, but well, people were already saying for the start that it was too expensive for an online service and meager NES and SNES roms

20 € per year.

Like, seriously.
Their emulators definitely could be better. Yes, it's perfectly reasonable for people to want official emulators you pay for to at least match what amateurs do on their spare time.

The online subscription is terrible and yes, expensive. I want to buy games individually and own them.
I don't want to fucking rent a random selection of them where I might not be interested in half of them. It's a terrible deal.
It's also telling that you had to make up that it has SNES too. No it doesn't. The subscription won't have any SNES games when it launches. Shit, Nintendo is yet to officially confirm if SNES will even be in at any date.

Also I'd love to know why is Nintendo magically different from everyone else. Steam reduced PC piracy
Spotify reduced music piracy
Netflix reduced movie/TV show piracy.
Why the hell would Nintendo properly handling their retro games not have the same effect?
 

KDR_11k

Banned
Nov 10, 2017
5,235
They're not getting that money, but they could get the sites DMCA'd, at the very least.

DMCA is for knocking infringing content off an unmoderated, otherwise legal and neutral platform without having to get the courts involved. Well, the takedown provisions of the DMCA are, of course since it's a large law there are other sections of it that strengthen their hand when suing a pirate site like that so the owners would face a longer prison term.
 

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,209
London, UK
Legal teams don't do shit without management approval. It takes money to litigate.

And you think a corporation as large as Nintendo doesn't have a big & powerful in-house legal department? Full time paid lawyers looking after Nintendo's legalities?? This is part of their job. It's what they're there to do and why Nintendo will devote as much financing to them as they need.
 

potatohead

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
3,889
Earthbound
I think it is reasonable to target these because I think most people using Roms actually do use sites like coolroms or this loveroms or others

What is harder to kill all torrents of old games but including the value of game Preservation in the argument I would not be ever in wholly support of losing all the effectively pirated material

Some websites like abandonia and other old pc games websites still host both old games even as recently as ps1 or ps2 era time even though some are still purchasable online through e-tail or even are remade available through digital pc stores

Even then the preservation of the original form of the content is extremely important imo for example when certain games lose content or even simple soundtrack content like has happened with crazy taxi or gta SA re releases
 

Deleted member 11934

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,045
And you think a corporation as large as Nintendo doesn't have a big & powerful in-house legal department? Full time paid lawyers looking after Nintendo's legalities?? This is part of their job. It's what they're there to do and why Nintendo will devote as much financing to them as they need.
Sure. But it's also management that has no interest in providing a platform to old games.
 

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,209
London, UK
You're acting as if this is taking or using financial resources that are better used for games. I'm saying that this is the legal departments day to day work. The legal department is always gonna be there and they're always gonna be working on things. This week part of the work is taking down a ROM site.
 

Yurinka

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
1,457
It's funny to see this when Nintendo download ROMs rom these sites to sell them in their virtual consoles instead of dumping themselves their own ROMs.
 

BernardoOne

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,289
So many people in this thread apparently think that lawyers are important for releasing Nintendo's backlog on Switch.
I have yet to see a single person claiming that. People are saying the money would be better used in VC than something that will have exactly zero effect on anything. Which is true.
You're acting as if this is taking or using financial resources that are better used for games. I'm saying that this is the legal departments day to day work. The legal department is always gonna be there and they're always gonna be working on things. This week part of the work is taking down a ROM site.
erm, no. Litigation has additional costs.
 

Deleted member 8791

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,383
I have yet to see a single person claiming that. People are saying the money would be better used in VC than something that will have exactly zero effect on anything. Which is true.
erm, no. Litigation has additional costs.
So do people honestly think what's holding the backlog back from us is lack of funding? Rather than scrapping VC as a brand and still working on how to best monetize the backlog?
 

Ecco45

Member
Mar 19, 2018
172
20 euros a year seems easy, affordable and legitimate

I'm talking a huge catalogue when I said that. Oh and the 20 euros service you are referring to, isn't even available yet.

But just to humour it, a mere selection of 20 NES game on a subscription service is hardly fitting the bill of getting most of their past catalogue on sale.

This service should also be launching with games from SNES>Gamecube, and it doesn't have to be 20 games per system, it can be 5 or so that shuffle every month. You get to choose which classic system's catalogue you want to subscribe to, and for those that don't want to be tied to the subscription they have the option to buy classic games individually.

That's the bare minimum I expect from Nintendo in 2018 when they're launching this service late, and have already had attempts at releasing their past catalogue on the Wii and Wii U.
 

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,209
London, UK
I have yet to see a single person claiming that. People are saying the money would be better used in VC than something that will have exactly zero effect on anything. Which is true.
erm, no. Litigation has additional costs.

And it will all come from the Legal budget which is not related to the gaming budget. Litigation will affect the Operating Profits if the company loses the case.

"Nintendo's operations in Japan and overseas may be subject to litigation, disputes and other legal procedures. These issues may affect Nintendo's operating performance."

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2018/annual1803e.pdf

In this particular case, as the OP says, Nintendo are looking to claim millions in damages. Up to $2 million got each trademark infringement

So if Nintendo wins this case and the illegal website pays out then there's money to be made.
 

Yukinari

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,538
The Danger Zone
Are you saying piracy is Nintendo's fault because they don't have a service that gives their legacy games away for free?

Thats not what that quote means at all. If you have something stopping or impacting the consumer people will most likely pirate.

So if Nintendo is not giving people an easy way to access gamecube games, guess what, people either buy it used or use dolphin. Neither of which nintendo profits from.
 

Glio

Member
Oct 27, 2017
24,621
Spain
I'm talking a huge catalogue when I said that. Oh and the 20 euros service you are referring to, isn't even available yet.

But just to humour it, a mere selection of 20 NES game on a subscription service is hardly fitting the bill of getting most of their past catalogue on sale.

This service should also be launching with games from SNES>Gamecube, and it doesn't have to be 20 games per system, it can be 5 or so that shuffle every month. You get to choose which classic system's catalogue you want to subscribe to, and for those that don't want to be tied to the subscription they have the option to buy classic games individually.

That's the bare minimum I expect from Nintendo in 2018 when they're launching this service late, and have already had attempts at releasing their past catalogue on the Wii and Wii U.
They have already said that they will expand it over time.

The only thing I see here is entitlement
 

ZeroDotFlow

Member
Oct 27, 2017
928
Thats not what that quote means at all. If you have something stopping or impacting the consumer people will most likely pirate.

So if Nintendo is not giving people an easy way to access gamecube games, guess what, people either buy it used or use dolphin. Neither of which nintendo profits from.
Also important to consider is that piracy tends to be the largest in regions where access to physical copies of games is quite literally impossible (or prohibitively expensive) and digital copies are either unavailable or overpriced. It also turns out that in those regions piracy is considered not an issue morality-wise.

And as an aside if people want to play certain romhacks or modifications like say, Link to the Past randomizer, that requires a rom with a specific version that I imagine not a lot of people have access to. This is an area where Sega is ahead of Nintendo since when you buy some of those classic games in the PC collection it actually comes with the rom file easily accessible and editable.
 

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,209
London, UK
Thats not what that quote means at all. If you have something stopping or impacting the consumer people will most likely pirate.

So if Nintendo is not giving people an easy way to access gamecube games, guess what, people either buy it used or use dolphin. Neither of which nintendo profits from.

And as I said in my earlier post, there's always a section of people who want free games, regardless of whatever service Nintendo offers.
 

Glio

Member
Oct 27, 2017
24,621
Spain
Also important to consider is that piracy tends to be the largest in regions where access to physical copies of games is quite literally impossible (or prohibitively expensive) and digital copies are either unavailable or overpriced. It also turns out that in those regions piracy is considered not an issue morality-wise.

And as an aside if people want to play certain romhacks or modifications like say, Link to the Past randomizer, that requires a rom with a specific version that I imagine not a lot of people have access to. This is an area where Sega is ahead of Nintendo since when you buy some of those classic games in the PC collection it actually comes with the rom file easily accessible and editable.
But you will understand that Nintendo will not release its games on PC
 

Zelas

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,020
You know instead of doing the Nintendo Power Podcast they can just use those resources for Virtual Console support.
You're acting as if this is taking or using financial resources that are better used for games. I'm saying that this is the legal departments day to day work. The legal department is always gonna be there and they're always gonna be working on things. This week part of the work is taking down a ROM site.
Or the higher ups who go out of their way to design a console without basic features, in the name of fighting piracy, could do exactly what is being asked by people in this thread. Provide an easy and reasonable alternative that discourages piracy. Which in turn would reduce the burden of litigation costs on their bottom line and make the console a more appealing purchase.

It is someone's job to be concerned about and balance all of these activities. As such the fight against piracy has never been isolated to just a handful of lawyers in a room when it comes to nintendo. We often see higher ups making a huge deal out of piracy in interviews and making strange decisions because of their fear of it. They kneecapped Super Mario Run because they were afraid of piracy.
 

BernardoOne

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,289
And as I said in my earlier post, there's always a section of people who want free games, regardless of whatever service Nintendo offers.
Well, this action isn't going to change that, and in fact will have exactly zero impact in piracy.

Meanwhile proper digital media distribution has proven time and time again to have a significant impact on reducing piracy.
 

jotun?

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,515
Piracy is free games. People want games for free. Regardless of whatever service Nintendo offers for it's legacy games, some people will still be stealing. Because they don't want to pay. And there'll be websites to help those people do this.
For some people, it's because it's free, but that's far from being the only factor.

1. Cheaper than official services
2. More selection available than official services
3. More convenient than official services

On PC, services like Steam and GOG fight piracy by being better than piracy at #2 and #3 while providing reasonable prices through sales and price drops for older games.

Nintendo services lose miserably at all three aspects when it comes to classic games.
1. They're way too expensive. Sure they can't beat free, but they could do a lot better than they are.
2. Weak selection.
3. Horribly inconvenient. Nintendo's online account stuff is always annoying to deal with, but the main problem is that they don't allow things to transfer. All the virtual console games I bought on Wii are essentially gone because I can't transfer them to the Switch and the Wii is in a box somewhere. By contrast, pirated ROMs can stay with you pretty much forever if you just keep moving the files to each new pc. ROMs I downloaded 15+ years ago are still perfectly ready to play.


The biggest blow Nintendo could deal to ROM piracy is to host their own service. Wide selection, low prices (like $1 or $2 for NES games). They can't beat the price or selection of ROM sites, but they CAN win on convenience if they would just try. Instead of tying someone's collection to a single piece of hardware, let people build libraries that will last forever and span multiple platforms. If I could buy a game and have it playable across PC, mobile, Switch, 3DS, and all future Nintendo platforms, that would beat the hell out of pirated ROMs. Especially when you add in the value of knowing that you're getting official versions without the risk of viruses/malware.
 

Deleted member 8791

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,383
Yes people wanting the OPTION to buy games individually are very entitled yes sir.

Good lord the fanboyism of arguing against reasonable options is really something.
imo the option should exist but I think we can all agree it's not happening. Nintendo have already shown it doesn't want to let people buy a backlog game and have access to it for future consoles. Subscription goes around this nicely.

It's shitty but thankfully suits what I want so guess I'm in luck.
 

Thrill_house

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,677
They need to get their shit together as far as vc and having access to their old games. You won't let people transfer games THEY ALREADY PURCHASED and in some cases multiple times to their new consoles without a bullshit fee. If its easier to pirate, people are going to go that route. I personally bought a Nes and snes classic, threw all my games on it and will never buy any of their vc games because I have no faith they will figure out a timely solution in regards to that. Sit around waiting and you'll be a god damn grand parent before they get their shit workways
 

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,209
London, UK
Well, this action isn't going to change that, and in fact will have exactly zero impact in piracy.

Meanwhile proper digital media distribution has proven time and time again to have a significant impact on reducing piracy.

Okay, so should Nintendo just ignore LoveROMs operating out of Arizona? Making money from their pop-up ads and illegally hosting Nintendo ROMs ??

Should Nintendo let all these sites carry on? Regardless of what services Nintendo actually offer??

You sound like you're defending LoveROMS.
 

RashBandicoot

Member
Nov 3, 2017
124
As much as I don't agree with piracy Nintendo needs to see these sites as competitors. Why do people go there? Because it's easy and accessible. Yes, it's also free but the alternative is to get a Wii U or SNES classic to play retro games on the big screen (a lot of them are incomplete or expensive). Not to mention my Switch doesn't even have virtual console support.

I'm not hating Nintendo here, but I will say that if they provided a more easy and legit way to access roms (with a decent price structure or subscription model) then these sites would struggle to remain relevant.
 

BernardoOne

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,289
Okay, so should Nintendo just ignore LoveROMs operating out of Arizona? Making money from their pop-up ads and illegally hosting Nintendo ROMs ??

Should Nintendo let all these sites carry on? Regardless of what services Nintendo actually offer??

You sound like you're defending LoveROMS.
You'd need some really terrible reading comprehension skills to think that tbh.
No, someone thinking this is a waste of money that won't have any impact whatsoever in piracy isn't defending LoveRoms
 

AerialAir

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,060
Portugal
Never see the point in going after these sites. 1 goes down 10 more pop up. The only way you can combat piracy is providing an easier alternative, which Nintendo doesn't seem keen on doing.
This. I can understand them not wanting ROMs for the recently released platforms to be distributed, like the 3DS, the Switch and even the WiiU, that can have severe implications on their ability to sell not only software, but also hardware. Retro games, however, just shouldn't be kept wall-gardened when you can't even buy the hardware any more. If it wasn't for emulators, I wouldn't be able to play Retro Nintendo games when I was a teenager without money, and I wouldn't be paying for their current releases because I wouldn't want the new things they make.
 

TLZ

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,332
Don't be ridiculous. Legal teams are there for litigious reasons. They're not the same people who program the games.
You don't get my point. No need to go after these sites. They serve as good free advertisement for them. Leave them alone. When they get their crap straight, then go after them all they want. Then people will have only one place to get these games they crave, Nintendo.
 

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,209
London, UK
You don't get my point. No need to go after these sites. They serve as good free advertisement for them. Leave them alone. When they get their crap straight, then go after them all they want. Then people will have only one place to get these games they crave, Nintendo.

Okay. Well then this may just be that. Remember when Nintendo took down the Metroid AM2R game in August 2016? Only for them to release Samus Returns in September 2017?
 

casiopao

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
5,044
You don't get my point. No need to go after these sites. They serve as good free advertisement for them. Leave them alone. When they get their crap straight, then go after them all they want. Then people will have only one place to get these games they crave, Nintendo.

Lol. Free piracy sites now serve as free ads? Considering how much DS and Wii suffer from piracy, i can believe that NIntendo would be okay without that so called "free advertisement" lol.
 

bionic77

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,898
Lol. Whats with this comment?O_O Now shutting piracy sites is evil lol.O_O
Yeah I don't get it.

Who is ever happy to see someone else profiting off of your work?

I do agree that there needs to be a better system for old games for people who want to play them. But I can't think of anything myself.
 

fiendcode

Member
Oct 26, 2017
24,947
It's been hinted that the Roms on virtual console and the classic console series are Roms that Nintendo didn't rip themselves, but pirated online instead. Pretty hypocritical if true.
AFAIK this was only ever said for the Wii VC version of SMB1 specifically by looking at headers. We know Nintendo also dumps their own games too as they've released undumped retro games before.

No, a shitty online subscription as the only way of getting retro games is definitely shitty , stupid and worse than VC has ever been. It's not really cheaper either considering you are only renting the games. You're not going to get the "same quantity" either. Games will be drip fed very, very slowly.
The Switch Online service is launching with more retro games than any of the previous 3 Virtual Consoles did. We'll have to see what the frequency of updates to the library are but every Virtual Console also had it's own drip feed.
 

casiopao

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
5,044
To get something for free people will bring out a whole bags worth of excuses.
Yeah I don't get it.

Who is ever happy to see someone else profiting off of your work?

I do agree that there needs to be a better system for old games for people who want to play them. But I can't think of anything myself.

I mean. Sure all of us agree that Nintendo should do better in providing their legacy title for us fans there. But suddenly the jump of logic where piracy is suddenly okay is just crazy for me.
 

Deleted member 8674

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,240
No, a shitty online subscription as the only way of getting retro games is definitely shitty , stupid and worse than VC has ever been. It's not really cheaper either considering you are only renting the games. You're not going to get the "same quantity" either. Games will be drip fed very, very slowly.

To be honest buying LttP for the million time is not really fun.
 

Big_Erk

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,362
Chief's Kingdom
I doubt the lawyers doing this for Nintendo aren't involved with putting this content on Switch, and thus shouldn't result in any delay. I have a very hard time seeing this spinned in a bad way for Nintendo but people are obviously doing their best!
ShallowEmbellishedArmadillo-max-1mb.gif


Yeah, I'm trying to understand the folks in here that think Nintendo is committing some crime against humanity by shutting down a site that everyone agrees is sharing their property illegally.

Nintendo are evil. Why they get so much love on here I'll never know.

LOL. This is what you home in on for calling Nintendo evil?
 

mindatlarge

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,926
PA, USA
I didn't realize Nintendo went after websites so aggressively that host retro ROMs. Good for them, I mean, it is their property after all.
 

Pargon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,089
That's absurd even as a concept.
There are many games which are essentially lost to time due to the companies involved no longer existing, cases where multiple companies believe that they may own the rights indirectly through another acquisition but can't actually be bothered to check, or licensing rights having expired.
There needs to be some way for those works to enter the public domain in a reasonable amount of time.

There's a larger discussion to be had about general copyright terms too.
NES games, and probably SNES games at this point too, should arguably be in the public domain at this point. Considering how absurd copyright terms are now thanks to Disney, they're never going to enter the public domain in our lifetime.
Patents have a similar problem of their terms being excessively long for this day and age.
Are you saying piracy is Nintendo's fault because they don't have a service that gives their legacy games away for free?
He's saying that the solution to piracy is to build a service that people want to pay for.
Nintendo's Virtual Console efforts have been poor, prices are outrageous, that library does not carry over from one platform to another, and they haven't even released anything for the Switch.