Why Video Game Emulation is a lot more Important than alot of People Realise

Emulation has been a hot-button issue in the gaming space of late, and more than a little bit of a gray area. Whether you want to relive old classics that literally aren't available to purchase through any non-second hand means, or enhance your life with the convenience of a dozen different systems worth of games in one box, everyone has an opinion and everyone will try to tell you how to live your life. There are also the types of people who will emulate current-generation systems and play, like Super Mario Odyssey, for free on their PC. Now that's just straight up piracy, and these people make the rest of us genuine folk look bad. We aren't looking for trouble, we just want to play some obscure, weird, foreign PS1 title in peace.

The Case for Emulation - Why it Matters

Asking why emulation is important is like asking why history is important. The past is worth preserving. History can teach us many things, and, in a more personal way, imagine living in a world where you know nothing of people who came before you; just some weird absence of a past. You know that people must have been alive before you were both but who they were and what they did, or even how long ago they lived, is a mystery. 

Just as history is important because it allows us to experience the past, emulation is important because it allows us to play games according to our desire to play them, not just according to what games are available on whatever consoles we own. It seems preposterous to limit oneself to only watching movies, reading books, or listening to music made in the last ten years, but this is largely the case in the video game industry; a new system is released and game companies expect us to just move on and forget about our old favorites. It’s a fair point to make that, historically, consoles have largely been beasts of custom hardware and software, and it would be unreasonable to expect console manufactures to support more and more games as newer systems are released. I agree, that would be unreasonable, but it’s no reason to stand in the way of private citizens emulating their favorite games from yesteryear. 

Games are as valid an art-form as music or movies or literature. Yes, most mainstream games are made for the sake of corporate profit, but how does that detract from people’s enjoyment of them? More importantly, this has been true of all popular forms of art for decades and decades. Most mainstream music and film is created with profit as a main goal. Why hold games to a different standard?

Oh, and the issue of emulation and old hardware/software isn’t limited to the console space. Before you scoff at console users, know that PC games aren’t safe, either - operating systems move on and old software is left behind, just like in the console world. One cant expect software makers to support more and more software as time goes on, after all. Emulators like (DOSbox) bridge that gap and allow old games to run on modern machines in a simulated environment. 

Ethics of Emulation

You’ll hear many different arguments against emulation, but a lot of these just revolve around the idea that emulation is piracy and that the companies responsible for the game should see money for their work.

I’ll agree that games are worth paying for and that game studios should see a return for their hard work, but this just isn’t possible with games that went out of print a decade ago or more. Even if you were to get your hands on a copy of an early PS2-era game, that copy would be a second-hand used copy, bought from someone on eBay or some other such reseller. Games companies do not get any of the money from a second-hand purchase - all of the money goes to the seller. It’s not piracy, it’s just another way to get a copy of the game. Emulation is just an extension of the used games market - except that no-one gets paid. In any case, studios only get paid for purchases of brand new games, so emulated or not, they’re getting $0 if you didn’t specifically buy that game brand new.

Sometimes it isn’t even possible to find a working copy of a game, or even a working console. This doesn’t seem like a big deal now, because modern games are still relatively new, and a working PS1 or Nintendo 64 isn’t too hard to come across. Those consoles are slowly dying, though. No matter what you do or how well its treated, no electronic device lasts forever. As hardware moves on, older games will become unplayable outside of emulation. Even those who would prefer to play a game on the original hardware simply will not be able to. So what then? Are people expected to simply forget about things that give them joy and happiness, just because a company can’t make money from them? 

I say; no. Forget that. If a company doesn’t want to spend money developing a method by which to play their older games, then that’s their business, but it’s no reason to not enjoy yourself playing them by other means. If there is no reasonable way to pay for the game even if you wanted to, production ended years or decades ago, and the company offers no official way of playing the game, then there is no reason not to emulate. 

In the End

If a game is available digitally and playable on modern systems, then buy and play it there. If there is no other option than emulation, then emulate. No-one will stop you and none will be harmed. Enjoy gaming history and don’t deprive yourself for the sake of a company that likely doesn’t even care that you’re doing it, and generally doesn’t care about you as a person.