The Ethics of Emulation
Does a game still exist if no one plays it, or is it just a collection of random bits and bytes in a grey plastic shell, buried in our closets underneath the other forgotten endeavors of our bygone youth? Yes, the cartridge is physically present, but all of the fun it used to afford us, and all of our fond memories, are slowly fading away. Remember that kid you used to be great friends with before he or she moved away or stopped talking to you after elementary school? Maybe you do. But could you tell me what his or her favorite color was, the classes you both attended, or the games you used to play together at recess? Maybe not so much. And if I hadn’t just reminded you, would you ever again have thought about that old friend?
Although it had huge cult following on the internet, the general public's memories of Earthbound (at least in English speaking countries) are starting to grow faint. It has simply been too long since its release in 1995 to be fresh in the average gamer's mind. Just take a look at reactions the actors get on the fan video site “/Earthbound”(http://mestephen.com/earthbound)when they dress up as characters from the game and interact with people at the mall. Unless it has been edited out of the movies posted on the web site, no one ever picks up on the joke; no one ever yells, “Hey, it’s a New Age Retro Hippie!” or “Look! The Hint Man!” Yet, dress someone as a more current video game charter, like Solid Snake, Link or Wario, send them gallivanting through the local mall, and the reaction, I could almost guarantee, would be very different. (“Hey, why are Link and Solid Snake chasing Wario out of the food court?!”) Additionally, many players sell their old games to purchase next-gen systems and software; Earthbound was released three generations ago.
So we are left with a conundrum: Besides its small but insanely devoted fan base, what’s preventing Earthbound from vanishing into obscurity? And while the game is uncommonly good at retaining its old followers, with no way for most people to play it in this brave new world of X-box 360s and PS3s, how can Earthbound spread to new fans? Is this quirky, decade old RPG doomed to be forgotten by all but the most loyal gamers?
There is a way to counteract all of this and keep the sprit of Earthbound alive for years to come, for new AND old fans: emulation. (For the uninitiated, that is, downloading a copy of the game’s ROM code onto your computer and playing it via a program that emulates the functions of a Super Nintendo.) Ask yourself, is the Earthbound experience any less real sitting in front of our computers instead of our television sets, playing a virtual SNES instead of a real one? Besides a few minor emulation bugs and a different method of control, the answer is "not really.” As we play though the game, we see and hear essentially the same things, and, more importantly, we still feel the same emotions. With emulation, if potential new fans hear about Earthbound on their travels through cyberspace, they could be checking it out for themselves that very day. The only thing they’ll be missing is the strategy guide. (Which is a shame; it’s definitely part of the Earthbound experience. But it can still be very enjoyable without it!)
I never have and I never will advocate current generation video game piracy – it’s biting the hand that feeds us – but emulating an 11-year-old game that Nintendo refuses to re-release despite our frantic pleas isn’t going to make one damn bit of difference to their profits. If Earthbound is indeed offered for download on Nintendo’s upcoming Revolution console like they claim it will, rabid fans will buy it the second they learn how. Priced at a few dollars, lost sales due to distribution of the ROM are going to add up to almost nothing. Preserving the game through emulation and new fans continuing to discover what they’ve been missing is a tribute to Earthbound’s creator, Shigesato Itoi, and a testament to the game’s high quality and enduring charm. I’m sure it fills Itoi with joy to know that his game had such an effect on us that we’re still finding ways to play it years after its initial release. This isn’t piracy – it’s love of the game.
Through its continued silence on the matter, Nintendo has just about confirmed that Mother 1+2 isn’t coming out in English, so the only ones we hurt by playing Earthbound ROMs are the greedy people who charge fans ridiculous amounts of money for the game in online auctions. Talk about cutting into Nintendo’s profits! I’ll bet that a new fan discovering Earthbound for the first time on an emulator costs Nintendo a lot less than some yahoo selling the game on eBay for the same price as three GameCubes. Besides, paying more than a week’s salary for it is in direct contrast to the true, free-spirited nature of Earthbound. Placing a “buy it now” price of $249.99 on an ancient video game is something the Runaway Five’s skivy manager would do. And do you really think Itoi wants anyone acting like THAT creep?
But eBay sellers will only be able to swindle Earthbounders for so long before our Super Nintendos finally give out, or the battery in that ULTRA RARE COMPLETE L@@K cartridge finally dies. Unfortunately, this is a situation we all must face. Your old gaming gear might be working fine now, but one day, your SNES isn’t going to turn on, and you beloved Earthbound will no longer save your progress. I know I’ll play my cartridge for as long as the equipment holds up, but I have a sinking feeling that one day, I’ll hit the power button and that title screen just isn’t going to pull up. Then what will I do? Well, let’s just say that I’ll be investing in a larger computer monitor, Earthbound strategy guide in hand.
Given what I've said up until now, you might have figured out that I've been wrestling with the ethics of emulation for years – but one game that didn’t plunge me into ethical turmoil was Earthbound Zero. In this case, emulation brought us a game we would have never had to opportunity to play otherwise. As for its legality: On Nintendo.com’s list of every licensed game ever released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mother, Earthbound, and/or Earthbound Zero are not listed. Thus, according to Nintendo itself, Earthbound (Zero) for the NES does not officially exist. How can we be hurting anyone by playing a game that never commercially materialized, and most likely never will, in the US or European market? In fact, one could argue that this is a case where emulation is actually beneficial to a game company. Earthbound Zero is helping to create new fans while reminding old ones why the fell in love with Nintendo in the first place. This increases Nintendo’s fan base, and they're not losing a dime or expending any effort in the process. I'm just a reporter for a podunk newspaper, so I don't know much about business, but I do know a sweet deal when I see one.
Unfortunately I can’t say the same about emulating the highly-anticipated Mother 3. Given the cult status of the series in America, someone out there WILL be doing a fan translation. But like the old cliché goes, just because one can do something doesn’t necessarily mean they should. Look at it like this: I could probably go out tomorrow afternoon, pick up some skanky girl at the mall, and make out with her behind Sears until security tells us to move along. But I’m not going to, because I have a great girlfriend and I wouldn’t want to do something like that to her. Besides, who knows what consequences I would have to endure afterwards? Perhaps Skanky Mall Girl has a big, angry boyfriend named Crusher, and when he heard what happened, I’d get SMAAAASHed and tossed into the nearest dumpster. Or maybe I’d find out weeks later that Skanky Mall Girl had some sort of crazy disease, and all of my long, flowing, prettyboy hair would start falling out. This, in a nutshell, the kind of the situation we face with a fan translation of Mother 3.
No one short of Nintendo itself can tell us if America and/or Europe are going to get a localized copy of Mother 3, and despite our best efforts, the Big N is keeping its mouth shut tight. Given all the data available at this time, I’m almost sure that we’ll never officially see Mother 3 in English. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to download a fan-translated ROM the day after Mother 3 is available in Japan. Think about it: If by some miracle we DO get a translated Mother 3, besides proving the existence of a benevolent and loving God, what happens to everyone who played through the fan translation six months ago? We, the hardcore fans, will most likely buy it anyway. But what about causal gamers; the ones who otherwise would have bought the game but downloaded it instead, got their fill from the ROM, and quickly moved on to the next big game? Those sales would be lost forever, and Mother 3 would be another commercial flop like Earthbound was. And what if Nintendo punishes us for taking matters into our own hands, and decides to withhold an English release in retaliation? In both cases, Nintendo will wonder to itself why it ever listened to us in the first place. Why try something new when they could just pump out 27 new Mario games and make more money anyway? Then, ten years from now, we could all kiss Mother 4 goodbye.
Then again, we might be needlessly depriving ourselves of a great gaming experience, all with the false hope obtaining and English Mother 3 legally. The horrifying thing is, like finding out you got a sexually transmitted disease from a skanky mall girl you made out with behind Sears a few months ago, we won’t know until it's too late.
As much as it pains me to say this, I’d rather wait a few years to make sure that Mother 3 is defiantly never coming out in English than have its stateside profits cut to shreds by a premature fan translation. Spirited ROM hackers might think they’re doing the Earthbound community a favor by translating the newest chapter of our beloved series right away, but it would be a misguided effort indeed.
Emulation is a many-tempered mistress, offering a confusing mix of nostalgic fun and previously nonexistent ethical dilemmas. The commercial window of opportunity for the stillborn NES Earthbound and the often overlooked SNES Earthbound has long been slammed shut, leaving little reason for us not to play emulated versions of those games. But the through that same window blows the faint breeze of Mother 3. The trick is to keep it open long enough to let in some fresh air without leaving unattended for so long the rain starts trickling in. It’s difficult, but while Japan gets Mother 3, we must be patient. Our chance is on its way. We simply have to wait to see what form it comes in.
Does a game still exist if no one plays it, or is it just a collection of random bits and bytes in a grey plastic shell, buried in our closets underneath the other forgotten endeavors of our bygone youth? Yes, the cartridge is physically present, but all of the fun it used to afford us, and all of our fond memories, are slowly fading away. Remember that kid you used to be great friends with before he or she moved away or stopped talking to you after elementary school? Maybe you do. But could you tell me what his or her favorite color was, the classes you both attended, or the games you used to play together at recess? Maybe not so much. And if I hadn’t just reminded you, would you ever again have thought about that old friend?
Although it had huge cult following on the internet, the general public's memories of Earthbound (at least in English speaking countries) are starting to grow faint. It has simply been too long since its release in 1995 to be fresh in the average gamer's mind. Just take a look at reactions the actors get on the fan video site “/Earthbound”(http://mestephen.com/earthbound)when they dress up as characters from the game and interact with people at the mall. Unless it has been edited out of the movies posted on the web site, no one ever picks up on the joke; no one ever yells, “Hey, it’s a New Age Retro Hippie!” or “Look! The Hint Man!” Yet, dress someone as a more current video game charter, like Solid Snake, Link or Wario, send them gallivanting through the local mall, and the reaction, I could almost guarantee, would be very different. (“Hey, why are Link and Solid Snake chasing Wario out of the food court?!”) Additionally, many players sell their old games to purchase next-gen systems and software; Earthbound was released three generations ago.
So we are left with a conundrum: Besides its small but insanely devoted fan base, what’s preventing Earthbound from vanishing into obscurity? And while the game is uncommonly good at retaining its old followers, with no way for most people to play it in this brave new world of X-box 360s and PS3s, how can Earthbound spread to new fans? Is this quirky, decade old RPG doomed to be forgotten by all but the most loyal gamers?
There is a way to counteract all of this and keep the sprit of Earthbound alive for years to come, for new AND old fans: emulation. (For the uninitiated, that is, downloading a copy of the game’s ROM code onto your computer and playing it via a program that emulates the functions of a Super Nintendo.) Ask yourself, is the Earthbound experience any less real sitting in front of our computers instead of our television sets, playing a virtual SNES instead of a real one? Besides a few minor emulation bugs and a different method of control, the answer is "not really.” As we play though the game, we see and hear essentially the same things, and, more importantly, we still feel the same emotions. With emulation, if potential new fans hear about Earthbound on their travels through cyberspace, they could be checking it out for themselves that very day. The only thing they’ll be missing is the strategy guide. (Which is a shame; it’s definitely part of the Earthbound experience. But it can still be very enjoyable without it!)
I never have and I never will advocate current generation video game piracy – it’s biting the hand that feeds us – but emulating an 11-year-old game that Nintendo refuses to re-release despite our frantic pleas isn’t going to make one damn bit of difference to their profits. If Earthbound is indeed offered for download on Nintendo’s upcoming Revolution console like they claim it will, rabid fans will buy it the second they learn how. Priced at a few dollars, lost sales due to distribution of the ROM are going to add up to almost nothing. Preserving the game through emulation and new fans continuing to discover what they’ve been missing is a tribute to Earthbound’s creator, Shigesato Itoi, and a testament to the game’s high quality and enduring charm. I’m sure it fills Itoi with joy to know that his game had such an effect on us that we’re still finding ways to play it years after its initial release. This isn’t piracy – it’s love of the game.
Through its continued silence on the matter, Nintendo has just about confirmed that Mother 1+2 isn’t coming out in English, so the only ones we hurt by playing Earthbound ROMs are the greedy people who charge fans ridiculous amounts of money for the game in online auctions. Talk about cutting into Nintendo’s profits! I’ll bet that a new fan discovering Earthbound for the first time on an emulator costs Nintendo a lot less than some yahoo selling the game on eBay for the same price as three GameCubes. Besides, paying more than a week’s salary for it is in direct contrast to the true, free-spirited nature of Earthbound. Placing a “buy it now” price of $249.99 on an ancient video game is something the Runaway Five’s skivy manager would do. And do you really think Itoi wants anyone acting like THAT creep?
But eBay sellers will only be able to swindle Earthbounders for so long before our Super Nintendos finally give out, or the battery in that ULTRA RARE COMPLETE L@@K cartridge finally dies. Unfortunately, this is a situation we all must face. Your old gaming gear might be working fine now, but one day, your SNES isn’t going to turn on, and you beloved Earthbound will no longer save your progress. I know I’ll play my cartridge for as long as the equipment holds up, but I have a sinking feeling that one day, I’ll hit the power button and that title screen just isn’t going to pull up. Then what will I do? Well, let’s just say that I’ll be investing in a larger computer monitor, Earthbound strategy guide in hand.
Given what I've said up until now, you might have figured out that I've been wrestling with the ethics of emulation for years – but one game that didn’t plunge me into ethical turmoil was Earthbound Zero. In this case, emulation brought us a game we would have never had to opportunity to play otherwise. As for its legality: On Nintendo.com’s list of every licensed game ever released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mother, Earthbound, and/or Earthbound Zero are not listed. Thus, according to Nintendo itself, Earthbound (Zero) for the NES does not officially exist. How can we be hurting anyone by playing a game that never commercially materialized, and most likely never will, in the US or European market? In fact, one could argue that this is a case where emulation is actually beneficial to a game company. Earthbound Zero is helping to create new fans while reminding old ones why the fell in love with Nintendo in the first place. This increases Nintendo’s fan base, and they're not losing a dime or expending any effort in the process. I'm just a reporter for a podunk newspaper, so I don't know much about business, but I do know a sweet deal when I see one.
Unfortunately I can’t say the same about emulating the highly-anticipated Mother 3. Given the cult status of the series in America, someone out there WILL be doing a fan translation. But like the old cliché goes, just because one can do something doesn’t necessarily mean they should. Look at it like this: I could probably go out tomorrow afternoon, pick up some skanky girl at the mall, and make out with her behind Sears until security tells us to move along. But I’m not going to, because I have a great girlfriend and I wouldn’t want to do something like that to her. Besides, who knows what consequences I would have to endure afterwards? Perhaps Skanky Mall Girl has a big, angry boyfriend named Crusher, and when he heard what happened, I’d get SMAAAASHed and tossed into the nearest dumpster. Or maybe I’d find out weeks later that Skanky Mall Girl had some sort of crazy disease, and all of my long, flowing, prettyboy hair would start falling out. This, in a nutshell, the kind of the situation we face with a fan translation of Mother 3.
No one short of Nintendo itself can tell us if America and/or Europe are going to get a localized copy of Mother 3, and despite our best efforts, the Big N is keeping its mouth shut tight. Given all the data available at this time, I’m almost sure that we’ll never officially see Mother 3 in English. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to download a fan-translated ROM the day after Mother 3 is available in Japan. Think about it: If by some miracle we DO get a translated Mother 3, besides proving the existence of a benevolent and loving God, what happens to everyone who played through the fan translation six months ago? We, the hardcore fans, will most likely buy it anyway. But what about causal gamers; the ones who otherwise would have bought the game but downloaded it instead, got their fill from the ROM, and quickly moved on to the next big game? Those sales would be lost forever, and Mother 3 would be another commercial flop like Earthbound was. And what if Nintendo punishes us for taking matters into our own hands, and decides to withhold an English release in retaliation? In both cases, Nintendo will wonder to itself why it ever listened to us in the first place. Why try something new when they could just pump out 27 new Mario games and make more money anyway? Then, ten years from now, we could all kiss Mother 4 goodbye.
Then again, we might be needlessly depriving ourselves of a great gaming experience, all with the false hope obtaining and English Mother 3 legally. The horrifying thing is, like finding out you got a sexually transmitted disease from a skanky mall girl you made out with behind Sears a few months ago, we won’t know until it's too late.
As much as it pains me to say this, I’d rather wait a few years to make sure that Mother 3 is defiantly never coming out in English than have its stateside profits cut to shreds by a premature fan translation. Spirited ROM hackers might think they’re doing the Earthbound community a favor by translating the newest chapter of our beloved series right away, but it would be a misguided effort indeed.
Emulation is a many-tempered mistress, offering a confusing mix of nostalgic fun and previously nonexistent ethical dilemmas. The commercial window of opportunity for the stillborn NES Earthbound and the often overlooked SNES Earthbound has long been slammed shut, leaving little reason for us not to play emulated versions of those games. But the through that same window blows the faint breeze of Mother 3. The trick is to keep it open long enough to let in some fresh air without leaving unattended for so long the rain starts trickling in. It’s difficult, but while Japan gets Mother 3, we must be patient. Our chance is on its way. We simply have to wait to see what form it comes in.
