Retro Games Industry Booming Despite Pirate-Options Being Super Available
from the breaking-the-myth dept
We've all heard it before: [industry X] can't compete in the marketplace because the public just wants everything for free. It's a mantra taken up by the film industry, the recording industry, the literary industry, and the video game industry. And, almost always, we've found that the mantra is complete nonsense. Instead, it's been clear that the public is more than willing to purchase that which is scarce and valued. It's just that those scarce and valued things are often times not the content itself.
The retro-gaming industry is instructive in this for two reasons. Piracy is typically much easier for retro games than modern titles. Most of the older consoles have been fully emulated at this point, with ROMs and games readily available for them online. For older PC titles, retro games often have no DRM or have been cracked so long ago that the cracked files are also readily available. In addition, retro titles aren't policed the same way that modern releases are. And, yet, despite all of that, or perhaps because of it, the retro-gaming industry is exploding.
Sites like GOG.com and Steam's client offer old games with smaller pricetags. The major console-makers like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all have their own marketplaces for digital downloads of retro games. Those marketplaces must be doing quite well, considering that the consoles and publishers continue to support them and expand the retro-game catalogs. And, for the actual old products, the interest and prices for retro-game pieces are skyrocketing.
It's always been this way. Collectors of art will always pay for original pieces, or for the items that go along with the actual content. If the public simply wanted everything for free when it came to gaming, anyone could go on the internet and get an emulator and a copy of The Legend of Zelda and have at it. But, of course, there are scarce items that go along with the collectables that can't be downloaded, and so the prices are paid, even as they rise. And it's not peanuts we're talking about here. Estimates for how big the retro-gaming market is come in at something like $200 million per year.
Giulio Graziani says it makes him feel a bit like a drug dealer, even though he's not buying anything illegal. It's part of his job digging up a steady supply of video games from the 1980s and 1990s for his store, VideoGamesNewYork, which specializes in everything from Atari and Gameboy to rare prototype NES cartridges.
Graziani, 50, has been in business since 2003, but says the market only recently began to spike. "Five years ago, I could drive through Texas and stop in little towns and buy everything," he says. "Now they're selling games out there for more than I do!" Even simple pieces, like The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, which cost $12 in 2010, now go for $25. More coveted games, like Nintendo's Earthbound, can fetch hundreds of dollars, even thousands if they're in the original box.
For those who aren't collectors, however, there's still a reason to buy.
Luckily, for a casual retro gamer, there are some cheap solutions to get a quick dose of nostalgia. Nintendo's Virtual Console allows you to download classic titles to play on the Wii U or Nintendo 3DS. The Retron 5 console by Hyperkin sells for $159.99 and supports games for 10 systems, including NES, SNES, Famicom, SENES, Genesis and Game Boy.Add to that GOG and Steam, along with the old-game marketplace Sony and Microsoft offer, and the RtB here should be clear: ease of purchase and the platform. Much like it is understood that iTunes is attractive because of the platform, rather than the music catalog that is also available via piracy, so do gamers appreciate the convenience offered by these marketplaces. Which is why they're growing and selling more and more.
If anything should signal the end of the "everyone wants everything for free" myth, let it be retro-gaming.
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Filed Under: compete with free, free, markets, retro games, sales, video games
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but....
....it worked out great for Captain Bly..........
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But the industry should be concerned. Because of piracy they were out a hundred trillion dollars. After all each infringement is a lost sale and when you add them all up it's trillions.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 17th, 2015 @ 4:26pm
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Oooh! A whole Geignerism of silly new assertions to bat down! First: "gamers" are irrational, quite literally addicts who'll steal to get their fix,
Your first paragraph makes the inherently contradictory assertion that games successful precisely because so many purchased them legally would be equally successful for the producers if everyone had pirated them.
Trading values produced and paid for previously is NOT same as pirating. It's same as used book. No relation or significance for piraty.
That companies find it profitable to milk some more out of old products is sheerly matter of cost (near zero) and current income (any is gravy). NOTHING NEW HERE, EITHER.
Note that at least the one dealer FEELS that he's stealing merely for legally re-selling physical items! That's what normal people feel when downloading and why they don't do it. You pirates are those who have suppressed that normal feeling of stealing other people's stuff.
"items that go along with the collectables that can't be downloaded," -- Meaning NOT softwares. What's your point? You're just conflating physical items with content.
"Much like it is understood that iTunes is attractive because of the platform," -- That's not understood at The Register: "Virtually no one is using Apple Music even though it is utterly free"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/06/two_months_to_cancel_apple_music_subscriptions/
Why isn't "Nintendo's Virtual Console" itself pirated? -- Effective DRM. Anyone still say DRM doesn't work or is too much of a turn-off for gamers?
>>> If anything should signal the end of the "everyone wants everything for free" myth, let it be retro-gaming. ... Er, umm, I can't quite parse your lousy phrasing and foggy thought, but the accusation never was against "everyone", only you pirates who have, do, and will continue to want content without paying for it.
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Re: Oooh! A whole Geignerism of silly new assertions to bat down! First: "gamers" are irrational, quite literally addicts who'll steal to get their fix,
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Re: Re: Oooh! A whole Geignerism of silly new assertions to bat down! First: "gamers" are irrational, quite literally addicts who'll steal to get their fix,
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why bother?
Otherwise, you (and everyone else) get the report button, at least from me. Maybe it will catch on again and take the wind out of this troll's sails.
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Re: Oooh! A whole Geignerism of silly new assertions to bat down! First: "gamers" are irrational, quite literally addicts who'll steal to get their fix,
No one WANTS to pirate that CRAP. AND I still have my Wii disks, AND I still have my Nintendo 64. NO NEED to buy games I ALREADY HAVE.
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Ha ha ha... boB... so much fail in such a short amount of time.
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You are comic relief though. I picture you running in double speed around the Google parking lot waiving your cane while men in white coats follow you around. LOL.
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Re:
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Re: Oooh! A whole Geignerism of silly new assertions to bat down! First: "gamers" are irrational, quite literally addicts who'll steal to get their fix,
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Re: Oooh! A whole Geignerism of silly new assertions to bat down! First: "gamers" are irrational, quite literally addicts who'll steal to get their fix,
Well, no it's not. You're tied into a contract where if you don't cancel after a set time it starts costing you money. It's also hardly unique. Most people interested in such a service will already have been using Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, Napster or any of their other competitors. I haven't used Apple Music myself, but that's primarily because I've been subscribing to a Spotify premium account for several years and I'm happy with their service, not because of the strawman fantasies you've constructed.
But, what your obsessed little mind apparently forgot, is it's also not iTunes. You responded to a comment about iTunes with something about Apple Music. They have different names because they're not the same service. Durrr.
"Why isn't "Nintendo's Virtual Console" itself pirated?"
It is. Oh, it won't be called that if you search for it, because the VC service is basically just a bunch of emulators and ROMs optimised to run on the Wii. Those things already existed on PC long before Nintendo got into the market and with very few exceptions all the content will be available elsewhere.
Another failure from the drooling idiot too busy tilting at windmills to understand reality.
"only you pirates who have, do, and will continue to want content without paying for it."
What's amusing about your usual lying screed here is that not only is it as fictional as always, but literally the last title I bought was Rare Replay. So, not only are you as much of a lying prick as always, you're completely on the opposite side of reality with regard to the exact subject at hand in my case.
Does it pain you to know how constantly wrong you are? Or are you so pathetic that lying on the internet is your only source of entertainment?
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Re: Oooh! A whole Geignerism of silly new assertions to bat down! First: "gamers" are irrational, quite literally addicts who'll steal to get their fix,
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Not all retro games are legally availbile
The problem is that I feel most of the big console and PC game makers have total control of hundreds of thousands of retro title copyrights and pick and choose when to port them to a modern platform when they feel like getting around to it and/or enough fans complain.
What needs to happen is that the entire VG producers need to get off their sorry butts and make their games, retro or not readily available on as many platforms as possible. I guess that's reaching on my part but really....
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Many of those old products were promoted by piracy
A prime example of this is Japanese Anime. It used to be next to impossible to get it legally in the US is an acceptable form. (Like accurate subtitles instead of craptacular dubs, if at all.) Anime fandom spread through bootleg tapes and fan subs until the market was recognized by the distributors.
The same could be said for Doctor Who fandom. When the new series appeared the US markets did not want to carry it because it was "too British". (Yes, they actually said that!) It was not until they saw just how many people watched the bootleg copies from the UK that they changed their minds.
Piracy built the markets that they now try to claim.
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Re: Many of those old products were promoted by piracy
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Re: Re: Many of those old products were promoted by piracy
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Re: Many of those old products were promoted by piracy
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Re: Many of those old products were promoted by piracy
It should be noted that the copies of Doctor Who aired in the US are edited to allow more commercials. The recent UK series Humans suffered the same fate. Each US airing was at least three minutes shorter than the UK version. To add insult to injury, the copies available from the US version of iTunes were the cut US broadcast copies, not the uncut UK copies. Gee, I didn't know that stuff on iTunes had to fit into rigid timeslots just like traditional TV channels...
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Re: Many of those old products were promoted by piracy
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Rétro games
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many people prefer to play games on xbox,ps3, ps4 on a large tv.
Theres always sales on steam gog etc
so its hardly worth pirating games now .
Pirating games on consoles is much harder than on pc,
so most people dont bother .
10 Years ago most asian anime were not released in the west,
so they only way to watch them was thru fansub copys,
now theres legal streaming sites,crunchyroll etc
You can download games on xbox 1, ps4 but in many cases the app store games are more expensive than buying a preowned copy in the local game store .
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Ego soothing
Their constant babbling about "pirates" sending them to the poorhouse has been disproved so many times that the real cause of the calumnies heaped on the population, can only be based on emotional problems.
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Old Games and Issues
I loved Decent I, but Decent II came out and it would not run on any existing hardware (unless one had a state of the art machine, bought within a month of the game release). This pretty much took me out of gaming, except for Flight Simulator, and when I finally got the hardware to run FS10, Win 8.1 claimed it was NOT COMPATIBLE!
I found a hack for Decent 1 to work on recent Windows machines (XP), but it required a Decent 1 disk, which I had. Then a new version of Windows came out, and it no longer worked.
I will vote positively for Warzone 2100 https://wz2100.net, it worked through all upgrades, though I had issues using the trackball (mouse) in Linux. I would have to shut down bottom edge functions in order to scroll down in the game, a PIA I was not willing (though knew how to) deal with.
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Re: Old Games and Issues
D2X-XL is a source port that will play both games on modern systems;
http://www.descent2.de/d2x.html
There's also DXX-Rebirth
http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/
Yes, I know; "If it's not the original EXE file, then it's just some cheap imitation that is nothing like the REAL game!!!"
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Re: Old Games and Issues
You can get a version now that is guaranteed to work on newer machines, and GoG tend to be pretty good about supporting newer Windows versions as they come out. They also have regular sales if you don't like paying $9.99 for 2 games you apparently also own. I might be annoying to pay again for games you bought once, but I tend to look at this as paying GoG to do the testing and compatibility work for me rather than me having to mess around with DOSBox configurations and such things.
http://www.gog.com/game/descent_1_descent_2
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Re:
Why chance it with something different when they can toss out WarcombatSimulator 24(Now with even more vulgar barely teens in multiplayer!) or YetAnotherSportsGame '16(like the previous year, but with a few minor graphical tweaks!) and watch it fly off the shelves, bought by idiots with more money than sense?
This is one of the biggest advantages of the indie boom, smaller budgets means less risk if the project tanks, so developers are more willing to take risks on new stuff.
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That said, I've noticed that there seems to be a world-wide ban on dumping the ROMs of any games that have come out for retro consoles in the last decade or so. Checking the Atari websites shows that a steady stream of games has been released for the Atari 2600 and even some for the 5200, 7800 and Colecovision. Sadly it seems that virtually none of these games have been dumped. Personally I find it a little hypocritical that they wanted all the classic games dumped for "preservation", but refuse to allow any new games to be "preserved".
As for computer games, DOSBox does a pretty good job of running games meant for MS-DOS. It doesn't run everything, but you're now more likely to get an old DOS game working on a modern system, than you are a game designed for Windows 9x.
I think it's ironic that while there are several different virtual machine programs, which all tout the ability to run modern operating systems, support for running Windows 95 or 98 in a way that would be beneficial to actually running old games is seriously lacking.
Why has nobody created a decent Win9x VM?
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Re:
Why would you want that when you've got https://www.winehq.org/
Hm, I just realise, this does not work on Windows, you need a Unix (Linux, MacOS, BSD) to use it..
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Re: Re:
Because it doesn't work in Windows and it doesn't run everything. There are a bunch of copy protection methods it can't handle.
I could be wrong, but it's my understanding that the only reason Windows 95/98 aren't properly supported in most virtual machines is that they haven't written proper graphics and sound drivers to allow Windows to interface with the emulated graphics and sound cards.
Virtual Machines emulate an entire virtual computer, including graphics and sound cards. However to take advantage of those cards, you need drivers which are compatible with the version of the OS that you're running and for some reason, the VM makers have decided not to create Win9x drivers.
If they have, or if I'm misunderstanding the issue of running games in a Win9x virtual machine, please let me know.
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DRM works
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Re: DRM works
Secondly, not only is "nobody can even match the hardwire (sic) of it" a pretty dumb thing to say, it also makes an assumption that people aren't using pirates games on a PS3 console. Whether your PC can emulate a PS3 effectively is irrelevant if you're using a cheap modded console to begin with, and it's absolutely going to be cheaper than buying PC hardware anyway.
I suppose that, at a stretch, you can argue the fact that since digitally purchased games are tied to your account and modded consoles can be banned from online services, that this somehow counts as DRM (though it's not really). But, the fact that Sony have offered useful online services that encourage people to use the service legally (for example, the online multiplayer functions that were free during the PS3 era, and the PS Plus service that allows dirt cheap access to major titles) has more to do with that than any DRM.
But, hey, I suppose you have to be deluded or basing opinions on lies to be able to defend DRM in any way. Thanks for proving that.
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Re: DRM works
I remember a time when people say GameCube wasn't pirate-able. Then now Dolphin is a thing.
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Re: DRM works
PS3 is the easiest console to pirate on once you have the custom firmware sorted out.
Unlike Xbox 360 which can only be hardmodded and its complicated transfer process, on the PS3 you literally copy and pirated games to an USB drive and paste them onto your PS3's HDD.
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Re: DRM works
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Well, except for the fact that retro gaming has been a reasonably successful industry for the entire time that rubbish has been spouted.
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Let's not forget that in the eyes of publishers, the problem is that, due to the first sale doctrine, THEY'RE NOT getting any of those "hundreds of dollars, even thousands".
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Good Old Games is the best!
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Retron 5 and translations
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