Emulation ≠ Piracy
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March 21, 2026
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Man, critikal's second channel is awesome
yes i'm joking, but seriously good video. EDIT: actually the twix analogy was asinine, literally the "you wouldn't download a car" meme. But then again, I guess from a legal perspective you're technically right because courts treat downloading games and shoplifting games as essentially the same thing….. even if you have a legal copy. Which is dumb, if the game you download is identical to the one you legally have: it shouldn't matter where you got it from. It's the same freaking game.
Its just easier to Download ROMs though compared to the work involved to archive games. I have done it for my wii and wiiu games but doing for anything past 6th generation is a massive pain to rip cartriges
Here's how I view emulation: theoretically I could use it to gain access to games that I should morally have to pay for… but as long as I keep to games that have been taken out of circulation? That's no longer the case. Which means I'm in the seemingly weird position of being on Nintendo's side with the Yuzu takedown (Switch is the current console and thus emulation of it is theft at the moment) while utterly against a theoretical Dolphin takedown (Wii and Gamecube are neither the current nor the immediately previous console, meaning those games stopped being sold altogether).
"But what if they ported the game later? Then it would be stealing again right?"
Well, let's think for a moment: suppose I download a game that isn't being sold, and only after that it starts being sold again. Would that retroactively make my previous download theft? No, of course not, that's not how crime works! So while they retain the sole right to charge for the game or any games made using its code, I'm still within the moral right to download it in that scenario.
Basically, the crux of my definition is this: if I'm not depriving the original makers of money (because they aren't selling it), not profiting off of them (because I'm not selling it), and am not depriving them of the product (because downloads copy instead of move)… then I'm by definition not stealing. The only way I could be considered to be engaging in "piracy" would be the sort that digs up the buried treasure of dead people… kind of like what the noble profession of archeology does.
Besides, it's incredibly hypocritical of Nintendo to attack emulation when that's the only reason they can still sell Super Mario Bros at all. They lost the original code at one point and had to download it off a ROM site like the rest of us do.
Note: I should emphasize this as a MORAL standpoint, not a LEGAL standpoint. The latter is supposed to match the former, but we all know that it's significantly off base sometimes.
The emulator is the gun (tool) and the bullets (game files) are what make the gun usable. The gun by itself is not illegal, but it doesn't care where you got the bullets from.
Emulation is not necessarily piracy, but let's be real here 99.99% of emulator users are using it for piracy.
Look I have nothing against piracy, but lets not sit here and pretend that is not exactly what emulator users are probably doing lol
I've been pirating digital stuff for a long time and I won't stop EVER
And if Nintendo don't like it, they can go climb a coconut tree
you can use modded wii instead of those. it was easy af
Nintendo ninjas will arrest you for saying emulating is not piracy. Emulation = piracy.
Pirating is stealing, but electronic files can be duplicated therefore are not “stolen” the owner always has a copy of the digital files as well. They are at no deficit, only a deficit of a prospective buyer, which they weren’t going to buy anyway, especially for “out of print” media
Благодаря эмулятором еще можно оптимизировать вес игр. Когда через dolphin emulator можно превратить тяжелую игру с wbfs с весом 4-5gb в архив rvz(lzma2 lvl 8 (9 выдаёт ошибку) с максимальным размером единицы распределения). Или формат chd для psp/ps2/psx/dreamcast игр который весит немного больше .cso но не заставляет игру тупить на телефонах с snapdragon 855
For those who say that emulation should not exist, I ask you: "Which one of you bought winrar?"
Why the hell does nintendo care about piracy of 50 year old games that they dont even profit from
Why can’t they just ban the piracy websites and not the emulators ?
“Piracy is greedy!” – nintendo also nintendo:
Aren’t we helping them by preserving them old consoles. Also emulating isn’t piracy unless the roms are pirated
If they dont sell the game, im gonna download it, and emulate it. Simple as that. These companies dont deserve money so much of the time anyway.
“Emulation ≠ Piracy” SpongeBob SquarePants Season 3 Episode 12A at 7:00
When this was happening I was thinking “Isn’t Yuzu legal???”
European Citizens' Initiative
7:05 That's a stupid comparison. When downloading something from the internet you're not stealing from anyone, if we used the same analogy, it'd be like you go to a store and CLONE a Switch after seeing/touching it. Did you steal something doing that? No, you only duplicated it.
If buying isn't owning, as these companies have told us again and again and again and so many more times, then they can't complain when people either emulate their games or pirate it. And this is coming from a person who has thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars worth of games because I am a believer of just buying, much easier. I've even gone and spent a lot of money buying old games and consoles from other sellers like on ebay and other such sites, which, mind, the devs don't get anything anyway.
I mean, really though, we don't make the rules.
Interesting. You younger people have it bad! But to be honest, you are all to blame!!!😉 Being too greedy!
I would like to personally thank Scott the woz for introducing me to some amazing games that I cannot play because of their price.
Im sorry but if i cant buy the game then i have to download it, if nintendo sold the games im downloading then i will buy it but if i download a game they dont sell in my opinion it should be no harm no foul