I shouldn't have clicked that link, it was very frustrating. It's like when watching AVGN, any time they bring up emulators it's always in a negative way. "Yeah, this is where people on emulators would cheat and make a save state" etc...
I've got a Switch, I buy all the games that I play, and I am extremely excited for this emulator to come out.
In my Steam library I have several games that are DOSBox wrappers around the original title. They're emulators, and I paid money for them, and they're perfectly legal.
Digital archival is a growing problem, so much of our culture is going to be lost without efforts like these.
On a side note:
When I talk to fellow gamers about my history of modding games, there's generally two groups. The ones who play on PC ask what I added, new levels, skins, etc.... And the ones who play only on consoles typically get upset because they think it means I made cheats for online play.
(For the record it was usually new features in code)
When I was in film school (2004-8), there was a huge concern about what the growth of digital formats would mean for archiving. Film from the 1800s can still be projected (so long as it's in physically-good condition), but tape formats (at least at the time) went obsolete every few years.
DRM and proprietary drivers/blobs/formats are enemy to humanity. This is also why it should be (and in some places is) 100% legal to circumvent such measures, including via reverse engineering.
But it shouldn't be that way! I'd say society should go a step further and grant copyright on works only if the specification of the underlying formats is fully released, just like patents exist(ed?) to grant legal protection in exchange for disclosure.
Anyone who has bought a Virtual Console game from Nintendo: Emulators. Ditto, anyone who has bought the NES/SNES Classic consoles. Those are just an ARM chip, a bit of flash, and a custom Linux with an emulator running ROMs that match the exact contents of files available online.
I've got a Switch, I buy all the games that I play, and I am extremely excited for this emulator to come out.
In my Steam library I have several games that are DOSBox wrappers around the original title. They're emulators, and I paid money for them, and they're perfectly legal.
Digital archival is a growing problem, so much of our culture is going to be lost without efforts like these.
On a side note:
When I talk to fellow gamers about my history of modding games, there's generally two groups. The ones who play on PC ask what I added, new levels, skins, etc.... And the ones who play only on consoles typically get upset because they think it means I made cheats for online play.
(For the record it was usually new features in code)