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What Does Emulation Stand For?

January 31, 1999
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Author: Reaper

This is in response to the article written by Shamanix. Even though I don't agree with the author, this is not meant as a flame. Actually I'm glad that he took the time to think about what he was going to say before he expressed his point of view. If you have not read it I encourage you to read it. He expresses the view of a person who saw the emulation scene grow to what it is today and fondly remembers the old times, "the height of emulation", as he calls it. In my view the height of emulation is yet to come, but it all depends on what we do. Currently the emulation scene is being destroyed from within and from without. We have arrived at a crossroad in which we must deside what we stand for. But, who are we anyway? Who is part of the emulation community? Is every one of those people who visits an emulation site for the first time to download Ultrahle because he read that he could play N64 games for free a part of the emulation community? I would argue that he is not. Who is part of this community then? I believe that before we deside what we stand for we must know who we are? This is only my humble opinion about these questions.

A member of the emulation community is someone who truly cares about games, old and new. It's a person who cares so much about games that he does not want them to die in oscurity. It's a person that learns programming to create a program that can play those games of old so that those younger people who never knew they existed can find them again and enjoy them more than many new ones. This person does not create the emulator to make money, his profit is the challenge of the task and the admiration of the true members of the community.

A member of the emulation community is a person who spends his money in an old arcade board and dumps the information so that somebody can create an emulator for it. It's a person that creates a webpage whose goal is the growth of this community, by informing, training new emulator artists in the craft, and supply us with the emmulators that we love to play. It's also a person that without resorting to insults takes his time to express his views in an intelligent manner. In short is every person that supports the community in one way or another. If you don't give something to this community you are just along for the ride.

This is who we are Shamanix. The warez sites are something different. The ISDA may put us all together but we know better. We are not the losers who don't care if a site goes down as long as they get the rom they want. We are not the lamers who harrass the emulation authors just because we don't have a life. We are gamers more than anything. We probably have owned most of the systems that came out and a great ammount of games. We don't condone piracy because we know that piracy destroys the source of emulation.

The ISDA does not understand who we are and labels us as criminals. They shut emulation sites down "in the interest of their clients". They don't see that we are the ones who make new systems successful and keep them going when not even the company who created them supports them. I was one of the first to buy a playstation at $300 and I still buy games for my Saturn ( X-men vs Street Fighter and Vampire Saviour ROCKS!!!). By alienating us you are alienating your best customers. If you are not smart enough to embrace us, let us be. We care about games and we care about this community. We want to preserve those games that the games companies have forgotten as well as the ones they just have created. This brings us to the current situation. Are the new emulators good or bad? I cannot answer for the whole community on this I can only answer for myself. But first let me ask you a question. Is the internet good or bad? What does this have to do with anything you may ask. Well, at this moment moment somebody in the world is learning how to program a game from a website while another downloads a pirated game. In this moment somebody is raising money for orphaned children through the internet while a pedophile is uploading pictures for more of his kind. The emulators are amazing pieces of technology that show how far in terms of sophistication the community has grown. They can be used to play our Playstation games with a superior visual quality that not even our consoles can match. If every pc owner downloaded these emulators and bought games for it the sales would double and Sony would not be mad at all. The N64 emulator could be there for me to play when my N64 console goes to console heaven where my Atari 2600 and my NES are. But, I'm also not naive. An N64 emulator can also be a tool for piracy and could very well bring down that particular console. This would be indeed a shame. However I cannot find fault with the Playstation emulators. The CD-Rom formats protect it from this problem. I know that there is also the problem of CD-RW but that was there before the emulator came out and will be there even if the emulator was magically gone.

I do believe that the N64 emulator came ahead of its time to the community. But only because or the cartridge format of the N64. If Nintendo had put a CD-Drive on that sucker we would not be having this issue. It's an incredible piece of technology and it would be a shame if the authors desided to leave the community for good. Shamanix critisized the authors for their statements regarding the emulators. Shamanix argues that you cannot rightfully say that an emulator was not intended for piracy, because if you release an emulator it will be used for piracy. In some ways I already talked about this also remember my question about the internet and think about it. But I'll bring up other point about the motivation of emulator authors. Why do you think the UltraHLE created the emulator? It's a lot of hard work that they won't profit in any financial way. Why do it then? Well this is my theory. They started working because they love games and wanted to create an emulator that everybody thought it was imposible to create at this point. The ultimate emulation challenge: the Nintendo 64. When their talent brought them to a point in which they were proud of their acomplishment they showed it around to some members of the community who were so dazzled at the technology that they did not consider the rammifications of this emulator. These webmasters encouraged them and gave them what every emulator author want: the admiration of his peers. Think about that for a moment. If Sardu did not want to be known and admired as a programmer why would he release Callus or genecyst? At this point that that was what the community was going to give to them. They did not stop to think of all the consequences though. This does not mean that they are not valuable members of this community they only made an incredible emulator an a couple of mistakes.

These are issues that the community as a whole must deside. The ISDA cannot shut us down because emulators by themselves are not illegal. Don't let them convince you otherwise. Lamers may annoy us but never destroy us. Currently the emulation community is more dynamic than ever with more projects being undertaking and more media coverage than ever. The path that the community takes depends on the views and actions of his true members. Particulary the opinions of the emulator artists and the maintainers of the main emulation sites. My opinion in the end does not matter more than the opinion of the rest of the community. But you must speak up and let yourself be heard. Not by flaming and insulting but with opinions that are well thought out so that we can take you seriously and we can see that you are a member of the community no another lamer among us.

Very humbly Reaper.

P.S. If you care about what I've said reply something of value to this post. This is not meant to be the official stance of the community, it's only food for thought , the starting point of a discussion which I hope is meaningful and valuable.

P.S. to Shamanix: Nice essay, good to see somebody who cares for this community. Any reply is more than welcomed.

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