What are your views on ROMs and wares?

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2005-07-04 10:52pm

me and my friends are arguing about it, I can convince the more rational (at least in my view) of them to concede that pirating new games is wrong, but they maintain they have a right to pirate old games.

What are your views on this?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2005-07-04 11:01pm

That Nintendo and Steam have it right. Much like legal music downloads are quickly catching up with music piracy, if you build a solid, reliable source for legal downloaded stuff.. People will come.

Steam may be crappy technology, but it's a solid idea. I'll be happy to see what replaces it and what replaces that.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-07-04 11:03pm

The only site of this type that I endorse is The Underdogs, because they WILL NOT make available for download a game which is still able to be purchased from an available retailer.

ROMs are just plain illegal.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2005-07-04 11:49pm

I agree.

If the company is question is no longer making money off the games, hey, what's the difference between me downloading it from a well known, several year old, and very public Abandonware site, or buying it second hand at a flea market?

The download is probably safer.

ROMS, if the game system is truely dead (i.e TG-16) that follows under the Abandonware scenario. However, Roms for new game systems like N-64 or later, they machines are still produceds, and you can get brand new ones from stores for like $10.
At the very least, own the flipping game.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see a Yars about some revenge

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-07-04 11:55pm

I generally only support the use of ROMS or "warez" if the software in question is ridiculously difficult or outright impossible to obtain, for whatever reason. Pirating recent games, particularly ones which depend very greatly on solid initial sales (such as Dawn of War), pisses me off. Snagging a copy of the 1993 masterpiece that is Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf is something else entirely.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-05 12:01am

If the games are not sold any more and there is no way for the companies to profit, I feel it is okay to download very old games (such as NES and SNES games). Simply because there are no other way to get these games.

HOWEVER, when Nintendo begins offering them for purchase on the Revolution, there WILL be a way to get the games and I WILL use these services and probably never use another rom again.

So I feel that if the software is unattainable, meaning there is no way to purchase it, then in that situation it is alright to download the ROM, but if the game IS for sale then you are stealing from the company. I will be using the Revolution's pay-to-download service constantly

I get annoyed at people who crack their XBox and run out and rent games and rip them. I know such a guy who has one of those Blockbuster passes, rent as many games as you want for a year, and he rents games for fifteen minutes and rips them and grabs another. This annoys me greatly.

He claims that he was under the impression that for every rental the game companies get a cut of the profit and he's therefore the companies make more money. I didn't think so. Anyone know if this is true?

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2005-07-05 12:20am

That smells of bullshit, personally.

In principle, I agree that ROMs should only be downloaded as a last resort. In practice, I do occasionally use ROMs for screencaps, but I get the actual game if I want to play.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-05 12:42am

I use old ROMs for my laptop in between classes at school.
Nothing higher than SNES though.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-07-05 03:11am

I download games from sites like the underdogs without remorse, If I cant find a game without something like ebay and I would like to play the original monkey island games then I will download it.

I do sometimes download more modern games with bit-torrent half of the time because the cd got scratched (Vtm:B

) or because I simply cannot find it in the country and my next trip abroad is months away.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-07-05 03:37am

If I lose a CD or someone steals it, I'll donwload a pirated version to replace it. If I'm curious about a game, but not enough to buy a copy, I'll download. If it's more than a couple years old and I can't find it cheap, I'll download. If it's a Microsoft or EA product, I'll download.

Much looser rules than most, I know, but I rarely download a game that I would have been willing to buy if it weren't for that option, and I never use a generated CD key online. I've been locked out of playing my legally purchased game online because some asshole with a keygen was getting his jollies, and it's not fun.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-05 03:42am

If I lose a CD to a game I crack it to not look for the CD rather than pirating the game.
For my favorite games I rip them as ISO's and use Daemon tools to keep them always mounted, so I never have to find the CD to play the game and it thinks the CD is always in.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-07-05 04:24am

For my favourite games I just install a no-cd crack to save me time on hunting down cd's, Saves me a few gig's of memory.

Caius · Post by **Caius** » 2005-07-05 10:12am

I'm a gameboy rom freak. I love those things. Come to think of it, those are the only rom's I've ever used, even if Solauren has a nice collection of NES roms.

My view is if it's an old system, go ahead and dl it.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-07-05 10:46am

If you can't find the game in question in stores anymore, and the system it was made for is no longer readily being produced for, then I'll more than likely download. Or if I'm curious about a game I've not played before and want to try before I buy, I'll download it. I'm the type who's not willing to shell out a hefty investment on a game (as I don't make much money), without knowing I won't wind up feeling ripped off later.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-07-05 10:56am

If the maker can't make money from it anymore, the only possible reasons for them to be against ROM/Abandonware downloads are A) Knee-jerk OMG TEH PIRATZOR! reactions from corporate types, or B) fear that their new games aren't good enough to compete with much older titles. In the case of A...uh...their paranoia is their own problem. As for B...if they don't trust themselves to make a decent game, why should I trust them with my money on their products?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-07-05 10:57am

I download only games I own or have owned with the exceptions being Japanse only games fan translate to english. If it were ported over here I'll buy it, but were it only ever aviable in Japan and Japanse, well I don't speak Japanse, if they make and English version aviable I will happly buy it.

That said should the entire ROM collect become aviable for the Revolution(Both Sega and Nintendo) then I will happly fork over however much for the whole thing.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-07-05 03:13pm

I download Roms on ocassion. More to try the game out then anything. The only two new games I've outright pirated I actualy used to test the game to see if I liked it and ended up buying both games.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2005-07-05 03:46pm

If it can't be aquired by legal means, then by all means. Download it. If you want to play the game, but no demo is available, then by all means. Download it, but actually buy the game if you like it. I used to download alot of old NES and SNES roms back in the day. Matter of fact, the only ROM that wasn't ancient that I downloaded was StarFox64, and that was just to actually finish the game since I don't actually have the console (didn't have room for one...and still don't). When I was done, I deleted it and never looked back.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2005-07-05 05:07pm

The only ROMs I download are:

Games I own or have owned that broke
Games not available in the US
Games no longer available at all (NES and SNES)

If it's a recent game, I'll buy or rent. I only download things that the company isn't selling, on the principle that it doesn't cut into their profits if they're not selling it. If it comes out on the market and I liked it, I'll buy it (Master of Orion 2 is the prime example of that).

felineki · Post by **felineki** » 2005-07-05 07:08pm

I use NES and SNES roms, seeing as how those systems are both old enough to be hard to buy, and in the case of the NES, sometimes not even operational. I also use arcade game roms, because actual arcade boards are both extremely difficult to come by and ridiculously expensive.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2005-07-05 09:47pm

thanks, it's just that I'm one voice among many and I started to think I was alone in the belief that if it can be obtained legally, you should pursue that legal obtainment so far as in your power lies.

In the town where I, and subsequently 99% of the board denizens, live there is a very strong old games market, so their refusal to buy games is simply laziness and cheapness, at least in my opinion.

Then we have the people who think "Aww, it's just me, who's gonna know?"

They're a completely different matter altogether.

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2005-07-05 10:08pm

I'm with the crowd that states that if you can't get it through conventional means, the format is out of date and difficult to find in working order, and/or the company that produced it is no longer making any sort of direct profit from that particular profit, than it's OK to do it.

Truth be told, while I do a good amount of emulating, nearly every rom that I play is one that is on the NES, SNES, and Gameboy, and is also a Japanese-only release. Stuff like Shin Megami Tensei, Rudra no Hihou, the Go Go Ackman series (mainly because I saw it on IMockery.com) the Romancing SaGa series, Front Mission II: Gun Hazard, and Star Ocean are my staple, along with a whole bunch of other fan-translated games that I can't quite recall at the moment.

How else am I supposed to be able to enjoy these great titles than through emulation? The games are no longer in production, those that are floating aroud are either rare ir terribly expensive due to their status as collector's items as opposed to actual games, and even if I could find a copy, there's no real way I'd be able to get the full experience from the games since I can't understand anything in it.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2005-07-05 10:46pm

Caius wrote:I'm a gameboy rom freak. I love those things. Come to think of it, those are the only rom's I've ever used, even if Solauren has a nice collection of NES roms.

My view is if it's an old system, go ahead and dl it.

Um, I have a Rom of every Nintendo Entertainment System game ever made.

'Collection'. Please

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2005-07-06 12:58am

To be frank, I have a low opinion of selling old content in a rapidly changing industry like that of computer and video games. Many people agree that copyright law is screwed up in some way, though I notice that there is less agreement as to precisely what is wrong . I'm more into the idea of somewhat short copyrights (at least compared to current law), and some substantial variation depending on what is copyrighted. As a result (coupled, of course, with the same casual disregard for the letter of the law as the rest of you seem to have), I have no problem with downloading older games. Essentially in my mind, if I didn't buy it then, and wouldn't now, then I'm not really making economic waves. At worst, I'm failing to consume other entertainment, but then again, if I'm willing to pay for it, I'd probably prefer to play it over something I wouldn't pay for. But beyond all the talk of justification, I'm a cheap, lazy, uncaring jackass anyway.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-07-06 01:45am

I've pirated games before. Again, usually from rubbish companies or ones I wanted to try out. If I like the game a lot, enough to play it through more than once, it's warranted a buy. Otherwise, games just don't last long enough to justify blowing 40 bucks into 'em for the most part. I save that money for DVD boxsets.