Piracy and old consoles

Pirate them and share them with the community!

Download them, why not? Their time to buy them as a cartridge already passed....You should not feel bad for that, I just download all games for emulators I need, but lately not playing on any emulators, but I have a bunch of Game Boy cartridges in my house too. The games my conscience not allows me to pirate are PC games, even most of my Android games are originals from Humble Bundle.

I still buy PS2 and Gameboy games whenever I can find one I lack.

It isn't like I'm short of games to play, so I see no reason to pirate them.

Go ahead, there's no shame in that.

If the game isn't on the official market anymore, you can download it, and it isn't called piracy

It depends on your location. If you're not in US or Asia you can always pirate games BUT sharing them is illegal in some regions (EU for example). Download ROMs (games on consoles) not using P2P (torrent) and everything will be fine. I'm not sure about downloading in US region but it's definitely illegal to share games.

I'd say when a system's games aren't being sold from a manufacturer in any form then you could only be hurting collectors those of whom don't want the ROM's anyhow. So, unless you want to pay sometimes ridiculous ebay prices I say go for it until and if they come out on a virtual format of your choice for sale. I'd not feel bad if I made a game and after it's run and my income from it stopped it became pirated, I'd be glad someone still wanted to play it.

Well. Roms are TECHNICALLY illegal. They are already out there, so whether you download and play them or not won't make a difference. As you won't be buying them, you might as well find a way to play them. Up to you. If it doesn't feel right TO YOU, then don't do it. Wouldn't enjoy it if you're feeling guilty the whole time. If however you view it as practically abandonware... Then have fun!

well pirating old consoles doesnt seem that of a bad thing, the games probably are already out of retails so they wont give the developer any more money, so you wont be stealing any profit, hope that made your conscience better

Not like those developers get more money, lol.

You could just download it from whatever source, try it out and maybe if you like it, buy it someday when you get the chance to. I always prefer to play a game I like on the actual console rather than on an emulator.

the only time you should feel bad about piracy is if you're depriving the publisher/artist/creator of money. if it's no longer available then I don't feel bad. here in Canada downloading isn't frowned upon but sharing is.

People don't understand the terms "piracy" and "pirating"... When you pirate something, it means that you STEAL something that has a negative impact on the seller. For example, if you steal a CD of a game, you are pirating the game, since you steal the CD as well, which had a cost for the seller. When you CRACK a game, there is not negative impact on the seller, it's just something digital... Otherwise, Youtube is illegal by all means.

Piracy is not a bad thing if it's an EA/Activision title, if it is from some indie developer or CD projekt, YOU ARE A MONSTER!

Abandonware page on Wiki

This man told you what you need

if its not available legitimately anywhere and second hand sales(don't affect the owners of the game anyway) are rare or overpriced people generally call it abandonware. its not a legal word and is still stealing the software but it means the feeling that the owners don't generally care/can't be bothered to notice or enforce because they weren't making any money on it anyway. ....but if they decide to rerelease it that goes away. so people generally feel less bad about that. (though with sites like gog its less common for something to have no legitimate way of buying and much that was listed as abandonware is now commercially available again) of the piracy excuses abandonware is one of the better ones, but again not a real thing legally

nintendo does like releasing old titles though(and one of the sillier parts of copyright law is to keep it you have to defend it, thats what gets daycares taken down by disney for letting the kids paint spiderman on the wall)

My view on it is that since there is no way to buy it in a manner that would support the developer of the game, so how you obtain it is your own business. Of course if it does become available on a current system that is another story entirely. Pretty much it's a legal grey area and since many of those devs and publishers may not even be in business any longer there isn't really anyone to enforce the copyright.

So in the end, do as you wish, just be sure to support a re-release if one happens.

Well, you can play GBA games on the NDS as well, but as for the games, i can't really help you. maybe buy them used on ebay or something. But in these cases i'm not really against piracy. Once a game has been sold out, there's virtually no harm to be done in pirating a game.

Will the people whose hard work you pirate suffer any loss? Not financially, unless the game is available in the "new copy" format, wether digital or retail. And absolutely not if more and more people try these out-of-print games and make them popular, since some publishers might notice their still existing popularity and consider funding a sequel or reboot to them.

Before some bigots try and stone me for this, I mean the really out of print games that are only available as used copies for resell.

EDIT - if you want to help your devs whose work you pirated and liked, maybe buy some of their now available products, even if they aren't that good. I think that's a good alternative.

I think publishers shouldn't be able to complain when they stop making a game available and people start pirating it thereafter. Any sales of the real copies after the fact will usually be used copies and will make them no further money, only profit to the people who bought it while it was available (think of the traders who sell games no longer in the Steam store, for instance). I see that as more wrong than 'pirating' a game in order to play it while it is unavailable for purchase. Think about how many people bought FF VII and VIII when it was released on Steam and have been playing them on emulators for so many years, how much physical copies of the PS1 games were going for before they were released on PSN. Is it wrong? No, I do not believe it is.

Sharing is caring :-)

they devs/companies wont get money unless you buy retail, better to buy a new game on a console you don't own from the same creators, than to buy a used game, in terms of support.