N-Philes

Nintendo and Classic Games - FINALLY Getting It Right

Posted December 17th 2009 by Sullivan Smith.

Anyone who knows me also knows just how much I love classic video games. It's sort of like watching an old movie. Playing Super Mario Bros. can remind you of a time and place the same way watching Back to the Future or Star Wars or Casablanca can. It's a nostalgia thing, for sure, but it's also because the gameplay of a lot of these games still hold up really well.

I personally have a large collection of classic games and the systems they run on. For most people, however, these older games haven't been available to them. This is why emulators have been so prevalent on the Internet, why the Wii's Virtual Console is such a breath of fresh air and why it fixes a seriously ridiculous series of legal statements on Nintendo's website. But first things first.

Emulation

A little technical jargon here for you. An emulator, if you aren't already aware, is a computer program designed to act the same way as a video game console – in essence "emulating" it. These, in of themselves, aren't illegal provided you aren't making any money off of them. Of course, the emulator only acts as the "console" if you will and we all know a console ain't jack without games. That's where "Roms" come in.

If an emulator "emulates" a console, Roms do the same for games. This is where the legal status gets tricky. By owning or distributing a Rom, you are in essence holding on to someone else's copywritten material. It's the same as having a digital copy of a book or a movie – it's just a question as to whether or not you have the rights to the material. Some people think that if you have originally purchased a game, you're entitled to a "back-up copy" for safe keeping. Nintendo seems to think otherwise.

From Nintendo's website:

"There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a ‘second copy' rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet."

Now, this is a perfectly reasonable stance to take regarding games that are widely for sale at stores across the country, whether sold as new or as previously-used copies (GameCube and Wii titles and, to a lesser extent, N64 games). This didn't, however, take into account the hundreds of games released for the NES and SNES that, unless you're going to an antique store, you're not going to find them. Still, Nintendo wasn't going to budge – emulation is illegal and we won't stand for it.

In some instances, it wasn't hard to see Nintendo's point. In fact, one of the less ridiculous things in their page of legalese is:

"Distribution of [software] developed to play illegally copied Nintendo software hurts Nintendo's goodwill, the millions of dollars invested in research & development and marketing by Nintendo and its licensees."

Essentially, Nintendo and their licensees spent a lot of money designing and marketing these games and they deserve to get as much cash out of them as possible. That is a totally reasonable stance to take. However, until a few years ago (until some of these classic games were released for both the GameBoy Advance and the Virtual Console) these older games simply weren't available.

That's when we get to what is quite possibly the stupidest thing written on what has been a page of pretty reasonable statements:

"...In addition, the assumption that the games involved are vintage or nostalgia games is incorrect. Nintendo is famous for bringing back to life its popular characters for its newer systems, for example, Mario and Donkey Kong have enjoyed their adventures on all Nintendo platforms, going from coin-op machines to our latest hardware platforms...."

What?!

Yes, it's all well and good that Nintendo brings back Mario and Link and Donkey Kong and Samus Aran and all of our other childhood friends in new games and we all appreciate it, Nintendo, thank you very much and keep up the good work. But to say these older games have no vintage or nostalgia value is absolutely asinine. Does this justify illegal Rom downloading? No. Is it still a stupid thing to say? Absolutely.

Of course, this is all moot at this point. Luckily, Nintendo has made all of these games and more available on their Virtual Console. They're reasonably priced and play on a system that is also not terribly expensive. Nowadays, the only people who are downloading Roms are pretty much the people who simply don't want to pony up for a few bucks to download a game.

And yet, this statement still remains on their webpage. Getting Nintendo to get on the damned internet with their console in the first place was about as painless as pulling teeth with a vice grip. Getting them to actually make these games available for purchase seems like a miracle.

The point is that while Nintendo appreciates the significance and history of their characters, they don't appreciate it when it comes to the older games they appeared in. If they did, we wouldn't have to beat down their door to get these games released in the first place.

I only bring this up now, after the fact that we now have the VC available to us, because Nintendo is still releasing great games – games that we'll all be remembering 10-15, maybe even 20 years from now. Maybe it's a game that we want to play again once those 20 years have passed. If we don't have a copy of that game anymore... will we be able to get it?

Nintendo's legal stance is outlined here: http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp

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