- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Nintendo has been actively taking down YouTube videos that feature its games being emulated or modded, which has sparked significant discussion and concern within the gaming community.
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If someone has bought a Switch game legally, then it’s legal to dump that game to a PC and play it on a Switch emulator, right?
Sure you could say that very few people dump their own games, but those that do are doing everything legally I think?
Nah. From Nintendo’s position, you don’t “own” the game. They do. All you bought is a license to play the game on a Nintendo approved console. By ripping the game from the switch dump, you are violating the license you bought by copying their software without permission.
From a practical perspective, fuckem. Your paid money to play the game and if you decide to play it on something else you own, go nuts.
IIRC this is what is currently protected in American law, but the problem is that in the time between now and the Sony/Bleem lawsuit Congress passed the DMCA, which has a provision making it illegal to bypass copyright protection. When emulating any modern console, you are naturally required to bypass the copyright protection on the game, which Nintendo would argue makes it illegal to do.
Maybe you could get around this with some kind of emulation scheme that requires the console to be plugged into your PC, like the emulator uses the console’s official hardware for the copyright check and then just takes over rendering the game.
it’s legal to dump that game to a PC and play it on a Switch emulator, right?
Depends on where you live. Copyright law varies significantly from country to country.
In the USA, section 117 of the copyright act lets you create a copy for archival/backup purposes only. What I’m unsure about (and don’t know if there’s any relevant caselaw) is whether bypassing copy protection to create the copy violates the DMCA.
The equivalent Australian copyright law explicitly states that you can use the backup copy instead of the original one. The US law doesn’t (all it says is that you can make an archival copy, not how you can use the archival copy), so it’s a grey area.
Both laws are for “computer software”, but you could easily argue that a video game is computer software.
I don’t see any way you could argue a video game isn’t computer software. It literally just is.
Nintendo could try make up something like “it’s not computer software since the Switch is a console, not a computer” or something like that. Not a great argument, but they have good lawyers and could probably convince a court that it’s true.
But the game is running on a computer with the emulator which still strongly lends to it being software
I think I somewhat recall during the peak Wii U disaster era, during shareholder meetings Nintendo would call the games for the system “Software”. So, that’d definitely backfire on them I’m sure
Pretty sure they would consider this “format shifting”, which is not a valid exception to bypassing copy protection
With all these news recently, you could think Nintendo wants to be hated. It’s truly shameful how the company has fallen since Iwata is gone.
to be honest, 80% of their customers probably don’t even know what an emulator is and don’t follow news about nintendo
All they have is their IP, they must protect it at all costs. Nintendo doesn’t even let Shingeru Myamoto wipe is own ass out of fear he will get hurt.
Nintendo has gone after youtubers and content creators for 15+ years. They are infamous for it.
They still did this stuff under Iwata. It’s actually more of a Japanese thing than a Nintendo thing. Although the quality of stuff was better under Iwata
Recently?! Nintendo famously hates their fans for years now.
On the plus side, it makes me feel extra good when I load their games onto my hacked Switch! Echoes of Wisdom was fun, but felt really short. I would have felt cheated if I’d spent $60 on it.
I mean, its predecessor was a basic-ass remake of a ten hour, thirty year old Game Boy game that also cost $60.
True, but it felt longer, even if it wasn’t. It also wasn’t worth $60, though.
I love that game, but I fucking hate the remake’s artstyle. Its completely put me off from trying Echoes even though the premise and gameplay of that one seem right up my alley.
I don’t mind the art style, other than the ugly-ass blur filter applied to the bottom of the screen. Fortunately, you can remove it if you’re playing it emulated or on a hacked Switch.
Wait until they go after livestreams
Livestreams are Fair Use in the US because of the gamers reaction and commentary.
The same applies to recorded content.
nintendo should put more effort into making switch online not suck instead of going after gamers playing nintendo games
Idk I really like playing my backups upscaled with high fps with a not shitty controller. I wont buy any more though unless it’s in Steam and not with a petty DRM.
*monkey’s paw curls* now it costs even more.
I have a hard time defending the YouTubers on this one. I mean, Nintendo has been pretty good about allowing older games to be played on its modern consoles. See VGC, the NES/SNES/N64 pass, and the multiple re-releases put out for the Switch. At some point just pony up the money or play the older games on a physical older console.
Defending the youtubers for… doing something completely legit
Where the hell am I supposed to get a N64?
Plenty on eBay
What’s the point of that? Nintendo isn’t getting any money from that sale so from their perspective it’s literally no different from emulation.
If there is no legitimate means for you to purchase an original product from the company and give them your money then why the hell do they care if you’re emulating something they weren’t going to get money either way
I mean at this point my attitude on Nintendo stuff is fuck em, I’ll play their games without paying (if I even feel like playing any of their games) because they deserve it.
What did they do to you?
Not to one person, but to gamers as a whole.
See: Kaizo Mario directly inspiring Mario Maker.
See: LttP Randomizer, along with literally any other randomizer.
See: speedrunning streams literally making the market that Nintendo then sold the Nintendo World Championships cart into.
Nintendo absolutely benefits from this. They just want to crack the whip and take over. Fuck them.
Also, still can’t buy Mother 3. Double fuck them. Tons of titles play better on emulation. I shouldn’t have to justify it.
It’s not the same thing? Emulation of older consoles improve and mod the experience. Upscaling, custom textured, etc
So you’re saying I should never buy anything from Nintendo?
Cool cool cool, cool, cool.
Russ (Retro Game Corps) was so confident with his CEMU video he didn’t think he’d be a target despite everyone in the comments saying otherwise.
How about if I sing the Mario song for my fans… turns on the fans … we’re the Mario Brothers…
I wouldn’t be surprised if this backfires a bit. The reason most publishers/IP holders don’t go after videos on youtube and twitch is because it’s basically free advertisement for your game.
If this behavior leads to people holding back on making nintendo based content, it could fuck them over in the long run. If you were a streamer or youtuber, would you feel particularly comfortable making videos and streaming nintendo games?
I know I wouldn’t. There is no guarantee that nintendo actually puts effort into determining whether you are using an emulator or not. And even for the people who do use emulators, they may not be looking to continue making nintendo content.
Nintendo is going after a lot of their biggest fans. It’s so obviously stupid, but they just keep doing it.
They’ve been doing this for a long time, and it definitely has a depressive effect. Even a big gaming youtubers like Videogamedunkey has commented on how every single time he does a video about a Nintendo game it gets demonetized, and while he can afford to take the financial hit every now and then there are plenty of mid-tier creators who can’t.
This can’t be a new thing. This was one of the conditions Nintendo announced when they dropped their stupid “register with us to be allowed to do lets plays” thing.
Oh, and it’s not just Nintendo. All of the big publishers believe they own your videos that use their games. I’ve been involved in discussions with people personally who were trying to figure out how to demand licensing fees from YouTubers.
This is goingnto get worse before it gets better. This has been a traffic jam caused by everyone waiting for somebody to go first. Nintendo is just the one who has volunteered to be the first mover.
Replace “children” with “economist” or “lawyer” in this:
With major releases like Tears of the Kingdom on the horizon…
Internet Explorer?
Accidentally leaked the Switch 2 version
The other horizon, the one behind you
It just keeps getting worse. I’m done with Nintendo
We won’t have much choices left it seems
Sony: Greedy fucks who don’t know their customers anymore Microsoft: Kills off great studios then complains they have no games
We won’t have much choices left it seems
https://www.steamdeck.com/ is a good one.
I’m not sure if it is. Steam takes a lot of money for their service, which is a problem.
And you can only play steam games, which is fair if you compare it to other consoles like the switch, xbox or PS5, but it’s still sad.
You can play any games you want, though? Throw an emulator on there and play all your old games. Install non-steam games, add them to Steam using its very easy to use “Add a non-Steam game” button, and play as normal.
Heck, if you don’t like Linux you can just install Windows on the thing.
Steam takes a lot of money and then turns around and invests it into the gaming community.
They also use that money to pay their employees more than the industry average and to make their owner a billionaire that owns a yacht collection. They could 100% afford to take a smaller cut with only Gabe “feeling the impact”.
I saw a review where it was said that you can only play steam games, but I just looked it up and apparently you can play all the other games as well by simply adding them or launching other launchers…
Steam invest’s into the gaming community? Do you have any source for that so that I can read about that?
They’re pretty much the entire reason gaming on Linux is as active as it is today.
Well I asked for a source
Don’t get me wrong, I just want to read about it to make up my mind.
Yeah, I have a Steam Deck, and it’s literally just a PC in the form factor of a Switch. It has a BIOS menu, you can install Windows on it (but you really shouldn’t), you can install a different flavor of Linux (I recommend Bazzite) – you can even install and play pirated Windows games through Proton, more or less fine, though you have to work for it a bit more.
They developed Proton so that they could get Windows games working on the Deck, and the reason they didn’t make the Deck run Windows is they wanted greater control over the OS than Windows affords. Proton has benefited all gamers on Linux. More recently, they’ve officially partnered with Arch as of a few days ago (which is what SteamOS is built on): https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/the-arch-linux-team-is-now-working-directly-with-valve-steamos-and-arch-should-both-benefit-greatly
and just to gush a bit more: the Deck is the only thing I can remember pre-ordering in the last 10 years and being genuinely happy that I did.
And add to that the story behind DXVK, which was the turning point around 2018 for Linux gaming. Valve hired the guy who created it, so they could develop it professionally instead of as a hobbyist. With it remaining open source and free.
Yes, they do it because it helped them achieve what they wanted. But they don’t lock it down and they work with a lot of OSS which is then upstreamed.
My Steam Deck has a 512GiB SD card full of pirated games using lutris and sega genesis and nintendo ds roms on it. it is more comfortable to just buy stuff and play, which i do with titles that are worth it (thats the internal memory for), but you are not limited in any way (except that it has to work on linux)
My Steam Deck has a 512GiB SD card full of legally backed up games
FTFY 😁
Steam takes a lot of money for their service, which is a problem.
They take the same amount of money as other console makers and the store cut is completely unrelated to what Nintendo’s lawyers do which is the actual topic here.
This isn’t a good argument, right? Just because they’re not the only ones doesn’t mean it’s fair. And you can simply compare it to GOG as well
But well, let’s stay by the topic then.
This isn’t a good argument, right?
The topic is Nintendo who make a handheld console and unless CD Project make a GOGBoy with a bespoke SteamOS-like “console OS”, yet another storefront for Windows PCs is hardly an actual alternative.
I also though of them because they recently improved their subscriber agreement (apparently not for selfless reasons but still an improvement esp. in the light of what Nintendo is currently doing).
Not that you need to use special tools. SteamOS is built on Arch so you can just… y’know, install shit on there.
Thx, I did not know about this one
Steam getting a cut isn’t a problem, it’s a well deserved rewsrd.
I wonder why you think that way? Do you know how high their cut is?
I’ll give my own experience as a Steam customer and aspiring game dev:
I’ve never had a problem with Steam that wasn’t quickly and satisfactorily resolved. Usually, in ways that go above and beyond Valve’s stated responsibilities. They have been quick to respond to the two hardware tickets I’ve raised over the years of owning a Steam controller, two Steam Links, a Valve Index, and my own Steam Deck.
In the many years that I’ve used all flavors of Linux and installed all manner of native games and non-native games, it has only been in the last 4 or 5 years that the process has become, in my own experience, painless enough for me to not only consider suggesting other less technical people I know to try Linux, but to enthusiastically recommend it. They were the strongest single driving force I am aware of in bringing day-one mass-market release games to Linux.
I have, over the years of my dealing with them, come to believe that money spent towards Valve is materially making my life better in ways that just playing games through Steam doesn’t fully encapsulate.
They provide development assistance and funds for open source projects in a way that truly gives back to the projects they work with, their company is run in a way that I find personally satisfying and aspirational, their leadership feels like they’re maintaining their relevance in the industry instead of being disconnected money-men…
I respect their decisions enough to consider their cut reasonable as compared to the services they provide both directly and indirectly to the PC gaming industry as a whole.
I see why you have a positive view on Valve / Steam. However, while this can be the case for many people, it still doesn’t adress what is typically criticised.
One is that they take 30% of the money, which can be described as incredibly high, compared to other paltforms like Epic Games (12%). Is it justified just because they have the same service as any big company has? I don’t know.
I think there is much room for discussion about this, however, I won’t discuss it any further here, because brainless people just downvote my comment.
I don’t own a deck, but i know it’s way more then JUST a steam game player.
My fault, I watched a review where it was said that you can only play steam games, but I see that this isn’t true. You can indeed play all your PC games or whatever
You can still install other game stores such as Epic or GOG and add games to the SteamOS gaming mode. Autoflatpak also works for that as well. I don’t have the steam copy of FFXIV but no issue, I added it to my library without issue.
Indies is where it’s at
And what do you play them on? Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, or Microsoft Windows? Maybe you play the Microsoft Windows version on Linux or macOS?
Playing the windows version on Linux doesn’t really support Microsoft. It’s not like on the consoles where they get a cut of the sales. Even playing directly on windows isn’t that terrible. I don’t remember the last time I purchased a copy of windows. I’ve been using the same key for like 15 years now
on my steam deck.
That means you’ll be playing the Microsoft Windows version on Linux, yes.
And that benefits Microsoft, how?
Oh no, I’m not saying it benefits them. It just means we depend on them.
Also means Steam, GOG, Itch etc. will see a high percentage of Windows games sold and played. It’s either that, or one of the consoles. Linux or macOS ports are incredibly rare.
Well, or play a mobile game.
Indies and decent publishers, Itch.io, GOG, It might regress a little, but gaming won’t go away.
It will just move or transform
There are a lot of indie games out there.
VR is still growing
Tue choice is indie. Always has been.
I’m glad I bought a switch second hand and immediately installed a modchip on it, 0 money went to Nintendo
Didnt you technically support the guy that supported Nintendo?
Technically, yes, but I know for a fact that he went on to buy a PS5
Nintendo needs to chill the fuck out.
On one hand, I don’t want to reward their shitty copyright etc. practices, on the other hand Nintendo as a game developer is about the only large studio making finished games anymore and I do want to support that
Santa Monica? From Software? Firaxis? Capcom?
There’s options, but I see your point.
Buy the games that are worth rewarding and maybe the seven seas can help with the rest
Has Firaxis released a game since Civ 6, which was better than most at launch, but still rough
Edit. Forgot they did Midnight Suns and XCOM Chimera Squad. Both released fully working to my knowledge
