Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: ripper81358I use Dolphin myself. Having it available on steam is not critical to me. I have Dolphin installed as a flatpak on my end. So any steamdeck user can easily install it that way too.

That's just not how most people will use such a device IMHO.

Usually, I'd agree, but I think any crowd comfortable with tinkering with emulation will be absolutely fine booting into desktop mode to install a flatpak. I'm not much a tinkerer, but Liam's article on adding Decky Loader support is so easy to follow and complete that it's absolutely trivial. I doubt many emulation fans will even care that Dolphin is off Steam.

I would have figured that the main difference of having it available on Steam with no muss and no fuss would be precisely that a whole lot of people who are not "comfortable with tinkering with emulation" would be comfortable just downloading something from Steam.

Just acquiring the emulator isn't the fiddly bit, though. Sourcing roms, mapping inputs to a controller that may not match the original hardware, and configuring graphics settings are. Simply putting an emulator on Steam really doesn't make it "no muss and no fuss" to actually use.

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Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: JordanPlayz158

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: JordanPlayz158

Quoting: Mountain ManYes, let's pretend that the overwhelming majority of people using emulators aren't also playing pirated software.

Let's say that is the case, is that wrong? If so why is it wrong? Pirating games that are no longer officially produced or sold on consoles that are no longer officially produced or sold, is that wrong? The only argument that makes sense for copyright law that I've seen is to protect sales, but what sales are there left to protect?

Whether or not you agree with the law as it stands is irrelevant.

Ah, so to you it is irrelevant if it is morally correct or not (or the actual purpose of the law), but whether it is legal or not. I hope you will reflect on how you gauge what is wrong if the law ever tries to outlaw something like End-to-End Encryption (they have a few times and thankfully failed)

Oh, come off it. We're not fighting some moral crusade here. We're talking about video games. Let's try and keep things in perspective.

So when it comes to enforcing copyright it's serious business and the law is absolute, but when it comes to keeping art alive and accessible it's "just video games" and so not eligible even for consideration. What a convenient double standard.

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Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: robvvApparently, Valve initiated the conversation...

That certainly puts a different spin on the story.

It's not like it absolves Nintendo:

Quoting: Pierre BourdonTo the best of my understanding, this is what happened:

1. Valve legal contacted Nintendo of America to ask "hey, what do you think about Dolphin?"
2. Nintendo replied to Valve "we think it's bad and also that it violates the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions" (note: nothing about violating copyright itself). Also "please take it down".
3. Valve legal takes it down and forwards NoA's reply to the Dolphin Foundation contact address.

What I find more interesting is this additional context regarding the encryption key:

Quoting: Pierre BourdonNow onto Nintendo's legal claims: nobody can tell for sure whether Dolphin is in the right, or whether Nintendo is in the right. Like all legal matters, there is a lot of space for interpretation.

Dolphin does distribute the Wii AES-128 Common Key which is used to encrypt Wii game discs. This isn't required in theory, the tools that dump game discs could just dump decrypted images, in fact that might be easier than dumping encrypted images (the decryption is done transparently by the Wii OS).

Whether that's allowed by exception clauses for interoperability, whether that's allowed by some kind of fair use clause, whether Nintendo's broken DRM actually counts as an effective copyright protection measure, etc. -> only a lawsuit could decide that. Your guess is probably as good or as bad as anyone else's.

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Quoting: JVargasIsn't this what normally happens with consoles?

The entire appeal of the Deck is that it's not just a console, but a full-fledged handheld PC. Dumbing down desirable features that are common on PC but not on console is antithetical to its purpose.

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Quoting: poiuz

Quoting: Smoke39The purpose of copyright isn't to protect some "god-given" right to control "intellectual property," it's to incentivize contributing to society by guaranteeing a good faith opportunity to profit from one's work. It's entirely reasonable to question how well copyright achieves this, and to scrutinize how individual owners use their copyright.

You're right: It's a man given right. But you're not scrutinizing how their using their rights. You're just violating their rights. And they are contributing to society, they spend a lot of money (paying people) to create video games which people want to play.

Quoting: Smoke39Like jarhead was saying, I already have hardware that would be perfectly capable of running their games. If they won't sell me their games without strings attached (buying redundant hardware), then I would argue they aren't really using their copyright in good faith.

Just because you own a car doesn't give you the right to drive it (anyway you want). You still need a permit & must comply with the rules.

It doesn't matter what you're arguing in some forum. You're still just violating their rights. If you disagree, sue them. Maybe you will receive the permission to do so.

Quoting: Smoke39If a bunch of hobbyists are able to meet a demand in their spare time, for free, better than a large, wealthy corporation, then the profit motive has failed, and the system should be re-evaluated. In the mean time, it is ethical to resort to alternative means. No one should be able to lay claim to a market they choose not to pursue.

Neither the demand nor the means justify these actions. We're not talking about basic needs, we're talking about recreational activities. Also, we're not talking about limited goods. There is an endless amount of alternatives which you can use without violating someones rights.

In fact, it doesn't even make sense: If you'd simply buy a game from a developer which supports your platform you improve the platform itself. The developer will have the means to support your platform in the future.

Quoting: Smoke39As for the GPL, I have no idea what parallel you're even trying to draw. The entire concept of copyleft is to use copyright against itself to "hack" freedom into a system that would otherwise tend to restrict it, and would be unnecessary if copyright didn't exist in the first place.

You don't own any software in the copyright world. Any software is provided under the terms of licenses. It's hypocrisy to demand compliance with FOSS licenses & ignore everything else.

Quoting: HelmicSeems a bit strange […]

What the heck? You're behaving like a white knight fighting for justice when you're just a kiddy who needs to justify its "piracy". There is absolutely no reason to play these games in the first place. It's better to not play any games and do something useful instead. It's really strange to justify these violations with FOSS.

To summarize: You don't have right to decide what is right & what is wrong. Stop sugarcoating your behavior.

The fundamental mistake underpinning your reasoning is that you're completely ignoring the power dynamics of capitalism. You keep appealing to people's rights under the law, but the law is disproportionately shaped by the owner class. The game is rigged, and you're wagging your finger at people for not following its bogus rules, even as those who rigged it continue to win despite that defiance.

Also copyleft isn't so much an assertion of copyright as it is an assertion against it. It's not inconsistent to support an assertion of freedom at the same time as excusing defiance of restriction.

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Quoting: spacemonkeyWhat I got from reading the replies to legluondunet's post: Apparently, playing roms needs to be justified. So, that kinda proofed his point about it being unethical.

"I think [thing]. If you disagree with [thing], then by saying so, and explaining why, you are proving [thing]."

I am genuinely flabbergasted by the flagrant illogic of this non-argument.

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Quoting: damarrin

Quoting: BladePupper

Quoting: legluondunetNintendo is an innovative company and produces user-friendly games, switch emulators must be costing them a lot of money.

I'm mostly curious as to how nintendo has innovated in the past decade and even since the release of the switch. Also yes bleem was definitely a thing and its legal precedent is still massively important.

The Switch was a huge innovation in itself. The Steam Deck is a complete rip off of that, as are all the Aya and other devices. Add to that that they make the best games and they don't need to be innovating any more in the near future.

I agree BTW they're a backwards and customer hostile company, but it's their IP and they can do anything they want with it.

In what way is the Steam Deck a ripoff of the Switch? It can't be the joycons, because the Deck doesn't have that. It can't be the controls-on-either-side-of-the-screen layout, because that's a long established form factor. It can't be the concept of running "big screen" software on a "small screen" device, because the Nomad already did that for consoles a million years ago, and laptops have been doing that for PC for a long time as well.

Really, handheld gaming has been chasing couch/desk gaming since its inception. It's just that now mobile computing technology has started to catch up. All Nintendo really did was skip the console this gen, and instead enable their handheld to plug into a TV.

Given their dominance in the handheld gaming market, and the fact that they had already gotten out of the console horsepower arms race two generations ago, it was a smart decision, and by all accounts well executed, but I really don't think it was a "huge innovation."

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Quoting: poiuzIf we were talking about GPLed software you'd be whining about how immoral this behavior is. It's the copyright's owner privilige to decide how anything is released. This is true for Free & proprietary software.

If you don't like Nintendo, why are you buying stuff from them & support their "anti-consumer" behavior?

The purpose of copyright isn't to protect some "god-given" right to control "intellectual property," it's to incentivize contributing to society by guaranteeing a good faith opportunity to profit from one's work. It's entirely reasonable to question how well copyright achieves this, and to scrutinize how individual owners use their copyright.

Like jarhead was saying, I already have hardware that would be perfectly capable of running their games. If they won't sell me their games without strings attached (buying redundant hardware), then I would argue they aren't really using their copyright in good faith.

If a bunch of hobbyists are able to meet a demand in their spare time, for free, better than a large, wealthy corporation, then the profit motive has failed, and the system should be re-evaluated. In the mean time, it is ethical to resort to alternative means. No one should be able to lay claim to a market they choose not to pursue.

As for the GPL, I have no idea what parallel you're even trying to draw. The entire concept of copyleft is to use copyright against itself to "hack" freedom into a system that would otherwise tend to restrict it, and would be unnecessary if copyright didn't exist in the first place.

And I don't buy stuff from Nintendo, because I think they're doodie-heads.

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If Nintendo released their games on PC, they'd sell like hotcakes. Their brand is so strong, they probably wouldn't even need to go through Steam. It's an untapped goldmine that Nintendo actively chooses to leave on the table. Why the hell would I feel bad for them when people resort to unofficial means? It's the only option they've been provided!

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Quoting: CyrilI just hope there will be a AUR package...

There already is, named "soh". I've only used the appimage myself, so I don't know where it wants you to put the rom, or where it stores the otr generated from it (you need delete it so it'll generate a fresh one after major updates).

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