Nintendo was able to sue palworld using a patent that didn’t exist before palworlds release. It’s not right, but they can do whatever they want regardless of what the law says.
People say this, but I believe it is mostly technically untrue. It’d be a relatively easy argument to say that a downloaded ROM that isn’t exactly the digital copy YOU purchased with a license would be seen as not legal.
However some people talk about literally ripping the game off the physical device themselves, hence copying their own copy of it. Now you are in grey territory of making copies of copyrighted materials, and in the case of more modern games like the last decade, they almost assuredly have language that specifies you don’t actually own the code and all that.
All I’m saying is be careful and probably refrain from repeating the fallacy that owning a game makes emulation of it legal, because that implies having the ROM is legal and that’s doubtful.
Copying your own game and materials for backup purposes is no grey area, and neither is development or use of emulators, and panicky, uninformed spewing of gut feelings are how public knowledge of your actual rights gets muddled into people with zero knowledge waxing poetic about how they THINK it works because they like games and think that makes their ramblings valuable.
/edit: I was WRONG. This is my memory failing me. I explain it further below, and apologize for wasting any time.
After the DMCA passed there was a case of a judge finding it legal to bypass DRM to make backup copies, but illegal to distribute the software used to do so. I have no idea if there was ever further clarification or new law about this. That was like 20 years ago. It was part of a case going after the company who was making the software, but the name slips my mind. I’ll try to look it up if anyone cares enough and wants to look for something more than hearsay on a forum.
I get you! I was bigger into copyright some 20-30 years ago myself when we would’ve all been on Slashdot.
To that end, I was WRONG in my post, I think I was conflating two things, and for that, I’m sorry. I was certainly thinking in part about Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley (2001). That was the case that decided that the software DeCSS was illegal, and you could distribute the software. I was thinking that while the court did agree with Universal over the software, that it did not find that breaking DRM on a product you owned was inherently illegal. (I legit think this was a “take” at the time. Probably wouldn’t hold up in court these days, sadly.) And I did find that years later the Library of Congress offered exemptions for breaking DRM on some hardware (vehicles, medical devices,) but I believe even those were temporary and have since lapsed.
Sorry I spoke so surely about something I was wrong about.
Not to be a stickler, but this does not say making copies is illegal - it makes circumvention of drm methods illegal. You can make drm’d copies as you like as long as you don’t circumvent the drm method. If your game isn’t encrypted, and the emulator doesn’t implement the drm, you haven’t circumvented drm - you are playing your legal copy on a device that does not implement the drm. It’s distinct from removing the drm from a device that implements it.
I do get that most consoles encrypt their software these days, but let’s be clear - it’s not as simple as “DRM means you have no rights.”
I don’t agree with any of that noise around the DMCA for the record. I feel like we effectively lost our right to archival copies.
On a PC, what you said about copying the DRM along with the data is largely true. It is possible sometimes to copy the DRM and reproduce the image with the DRM intact. It also might not be depending upon the copy protection mechanism. Commercial video DVDs used to employ tricks with the storage sector that made it almost impossible to properly copy by a standard computer disc drive. You could get around this with additional program like AnyDVD, but that was only available for sale outside the USA because of the fact that it allowed you to bypass DRM.
And like you said, the content can be encrypted. Decrypting it is, IIRC, considered bypassing DRM - at least in the USA.
Again, I don’t agree that this is how things should be, but the legality of emulation is complicated depending upon what we’re talking about emulating.
I also don’t like how things are legally speaking with DMCA, but the main takeaway is - the creation and distribution of an emulator, without DRM protections, is unequivocally protected and legal. ROM backup is certainly in most cases not, but if you are making your own copies for your own use, even while illegally breaking encryption, it would be difficult to prove and prosecute on an individual basis.
The right we must continually remind people is NOT even REMOTELY in question is the right to create and distribute emulators. This is by far the more important one, because people cannot reasonably develop their own emulators - it requires an open, collaborative community to ensure future preservation, and it’s a constant battle to keep people from actively trying to cede this right because they have nebulous loyalties to soulless companies that return no such feelings.
The emulation itself is legal, assuming you’re not using any copyrighted code, BIOS, etc. to make work.
The backup copy of your game that you need can be made legally as well, but in the USA, if the source contains a form of DRM, then you cannot legally make a copy.
You can get them secondhand, that’s not the issue. What would be the point of making a Steam controller from Steam controller parts? We already have that.
They have mechanical components that will wear out over time (though I suppose some people probably use them lightly enough that it’s less of an issue).
Mostly just that they’re not longer being produced and the second-hand supply is dwindling. Also the bumpers are prone to breaking and a USB-C port would be nice.
Hell, they are almost designed to break. They are utterly shabby in terms of build quality.
I was one of the early adopters going back to November 2015
I am not lying when I tell you I have been through 17 of these controllers. It’s the right bumper almost every time.
I have a giant handful of the dongles. I was saving them thinking they would go up in value but now like $2 knockoffs are available LOL
Edit: the first one I received, out of the box, had a broken face button membrane. The replacement I received had a non-functioning back right paddle. The replacement for that had a non-functioning R shoulder and you could hear the plastic crunching on each press. That’s just the first three I received and I’m not counting those in the 17 that I destroyed in my own hands.
They were built like absolute shit. After the first run got sold and they shored-up manufacturing problems, they got marginally better but the fundamental underlying issue never was solved.
If it wasn’t such a wonderful controller, I would have stomped the first one into powder and never looked back.
Totally fair take. What they lack in durability they more than make up for in ergonomics and control customization features.
I’ve got a total of 8 of them with only 2 busted bumpers. I’d say that’s not terrible considering they went through 1000+ hours of the Souls series plus Sekiro.
For me, I want one with internal rechargeable (and replaceable) batteries, more reliable Bluetooth, and multi-device targeting (ie those 1,2,3 toggles you see on stuff like mouse/keyboards - I use mine on my Steam Deck and also on my desktop - dont want to mess with pairing each time. Plus if I end up with with a Switch 2, the trackpad would be interesting for mouse mode if those could connect (no idea)).
it doesn’t let me charge and play at the same time
I could hot swap in and out batteries, but it doesn’t report battery percentage
It also doesn’t auto-pause when the battery dies, like other systems do
It runs through them quickly
it acts finicky/unpredictable when the battery is very low, rather than reaching a consistent threshold and stopping working
In combination with a bug/anti-feature I’ve posted about previously, my Steam Deck sees it as a new controller every time the batteries are replaced, despite the Bluetooth MAC/BDA not changing.
Fair enough. I much prefer swapping them every few hours rather than using a wire, and I haven’t had those identification problems you describe. Largely comes down to setup and usage profile it seems.
Rechargeables get stuck and are waaaay harder to remove than regular because they’re just a bit bigger. I have solved this with a loop of sticky tape around the batteries so I got a bit of a pull tab when using them.so it works…but not perfectly
The Deck’s controls. The Steam Controller was a bit too drastic of a change for me. It’s great for games not designed for a controller but having no D-pad and only a single analog stick is a deal breaker for most people who get a controller to play games designed for controllers.
why are people hating on a builder who designed something that a large number of gamers want? This can possibly be the catalyst for valve do give us that sweet pus*-controller we all want. I know I do! I use both my steam deck as controllers and it’s awesome. This video is inspiring
Still, being able to argue they’re not for profit is what typically has protected emulators from being sued to oblivion (and with Nintendo, even that’s risky)…
Has being non-profit been a legal defense used somewhere before? At least in the US the case law is based on commercial, profit-driven emulators being explicitly ruled as legal when Sony tried suing them. I see this said constantly and I think it’s genuinely just the result of propaganda from Nintendo or something.
They actually did a lot of rebalancing of difficulty and P Organ (hee hee) progression alongside this. Mortismal touched on this in their video.
But Lies of P, at its core, is a game about parrying. You can get a long way with dodging and i-frames (I didn’t do a deep dive on how good of a dodge P has but it is definitely on the lower end of the genre) but basically the last three or four bosses of the core game more or less require parries and guard breaks to have any chance of damaging them.
I loved Lies of P but the difficulty progression is REAL bad. Sekiro actually had similar issues but at least had Genichiro 2 to try and force you to learn (and then Ape to drill that in). Whereas Lies of P lets you play “wrong” for like 16 hours.
I think Team Ninja screwed the pooch on other aspects of it (basically every single enemy does nothing but delayed attacks…) but I still think Rise of the Ronin set the bar for what a parry should be in the 2020s: Triggerable from block so you have minimal penalty to mistiming it for all but the perilous attacks. And Clair Obscura is similarly awesome for tightly coupling the parry and dodge timings so you can learn a fight with perfect dodging before switching to perfect parries for maximum punishment.
If whiffing a parry means I lose half my health bar (cough Dark Souls cough) I am never going to use it. If whiffing a parry means I take chip damage or if I can practice my timing with a safe defensive mood? I’ll be grinning like a beast as I clown on the heroes/“heroes” of the Bakumatsu.
But yeah. I REALLY enjoyed Lies of P even if I think the last 3 or so bosses are… kind of genuinely bad (two puzzle bosses in a row is also a real bad feeling). Still need to get around to the DLC but I am INCREDIBLY interested in what the next major game from that studio is. But I wouldn’t encourage anyone who doesn’t vibe with LoP to try again (well… maybe with the new rebalance patch?).
Yeah I’d be a bit shocked if you could dodge your way through the final boss of the DLC. There are some attacks I think need to be dodged, but they feel like the exception, not the rule.
Like I said, the DLC is still on my todo list but assuming it follows the Bloodborne DLC difficulty (it sure as hell is following the Bloodborne DLC concept and narrative…)? Yeah, I would be amazed.
But I did watch a video of someone dodging to beat the real end boss of the core game which I similarly thought was nigh impossible. And it is incredibly brutal with basically a need for fairly perfect play just to do chip damage. So… sickos gonna sicko.
Agreed. Amazing game, but it’s because most of it is excellent so the jank is easy to ignore, rather than the whole thing being polished.
I think they made the parry-heavy emphasis of the game even more difficult to ‘read’ by having all the early enemies be very twitchy robots with difficult-to-anticipate parry timings. It becomes much easier to get the timing right once the enemies become more ‘organic’ a bit later. That’s also the point where you have some better gear and some level ups, so it’s not quite so brutal.
Giving the early enemies slow, smooth attacks with big swings would make sense for robots, sort out the difficulty curve, and give you plenty of chance to get used to parries. They can reasonably require a lot of damage so ripostes would be the only way to effectively defeat them - health which you could reasonably remove from a lot of the late-game enemies who are stupidly robust.
Never felt like P actually has iframes on his dodge? It’s serviceable enough when the important thing is to move away from where an attack is going to land, but it’s certainly not a Dark Souls-style ‘dodge through the attack’. It’s not Sekiro’s ‘running away to tease out an attack you can punish’ either, he’s a very slow dude in comparison.
Each game needs to have a custom profile created to render in 3D. From the linked article:
3dSen is an emulator that lets you play 2D NES games in 3D. Its programmers have to create a custom profile for it to work its magic on each game, which means there are currently 100 supported games, including Contra, Super Mario Bros, Batman, Castlevania, Bubble Bobble, and Gradius.
Yes, it is better to have incentives tied to metacritic scores and units sold rather than… your actual existence.
But it is still the same bullshit. That is even worse in the era of chud influencers looking for the latest game to blame all the sins of the world on.
This article is basically the equivalent of “In rare economic W, man succeeds in using bootstraps to climb out of The Pit”
As the article says, this should be the norm, not the exception, but how can we expect it to become the norm if they don’t even get positive press for it?
It sure beats “Thanks for your hard work. Now that we’ve released, we don’t need you anymore, so good luck on the job hunt.”
No. This shouldn’t be the norm. How “successful” a game is on metacritic and sales has shockingly little to do with the actual dev team. At best it is marketing and PR. But even that pales in comparison to whether a disgusting hateful bigot says his audience should buy it or threaten to rape the families of every single person who worked on that game and a few others to boot.
It sure beats “Thanks for your hard work. Now that we’ve released, we don’t need you anymore, so good luck on the job hunt.”
But yeah. That is the bullshit that gets pushed around. Oh, that is just how business works and we are business people and you should understand business. Wait… the CEO doesn’t have significant portions of their salary and existence tied to a metacritic score? Well, that is because the CEO is good at business.
I’ll also add on that this kind of model actively penalizes long tail games and post release support.
The poster child of this being Terraria. According to wikipedia, it was basically the indy dev darling of the year… 2011. Getting 70-80% from different outlets. And while we don’t know those initial sales figures, we do know that… 14 years later it continues to sell well enough that there will probably never be an actual final final patch. Like, the world will have cooled down from all the nuclear war and, somehow, there will be another re-release of Skyrim and another “final for reals this time” content drop for Terraria.
I agree with all of your points, but if we don’t even shine a positive light on steps in the right direction, then what are we supposed to do? Wait until we’re in a utopia, then start acknowledging improvements?
This isn’t a perfect final solution, but it’s a positive step, so I’d still say worth celebrating.
This isn’t a perfect final solution, but it’s a positive step, so is still say worth celebrating.
It is a “positive step” up from the hellscape that has been used to underpay and screw over devs for decades now.
I get we all want to feel good and not have to give a shit about actual labor issues and compensation of workers. But… this is just the kind of shit that makes it even easier to continue abusing the people who make the games we love and make sure that the golden parachute upper level managers get to have 500 person studios all on the back of having been at a meeting for a successful game.
It was bonuses, added PTO, and a Switch. You’re acting like they were facing a pay cut if the DLC didn’t perform well. If they get a material reward for the big windfall they helped their employer get, that’s a good thing. You could argue they deserve pay raises instead, and I’d be inclined to agree, but then we’re agreeing on the principle and just quibbling over the extent.
Its not a false dilemma, devs getting the boot after release is fairly common in this industry. Also not sure why you keep bringing it back to chuds and bigots, since that has nothing to do with the topic.
Guess what impacts sales figures and even metacritic scores these days?
Assholes like asmongold. Because getting your game review bombed and having all the twitch streamers checking out your game have their unpaid moderators run triple time because they didn’t sticky a clip of them calling the character generator “woke trash”? That severely impacts sales. And Games Media is in a horrible state and the more corporate outlets (but also even a lot of the independent ones) just aren’t going to want that smoke for daring to say a game was fun if it is the latest “culture war” game.
It was bonuses, added PTO, and a Switch. You’re acting like they were facing a pay cut if the DLC didn’t perform well.
There is a reason that it has increasingly become a good practice to refer to “total compensation”. Because, yeah, everyone loves getting told by the CEO that they are essential and saved the company and are awesome and everybody gets a day off … but only if they give the CEO time to peel out in his new ferrari first. But the reality is that that is baked into the expected salary and you are effectively taking a pay cut any year you don’t meet those arbitrary criteria… which are almost always never something YOU have any control over.
And you know who DOESN’T get a pay cut in the years where half your department got fired on a Thursday?
Believe it or not, but you can actually criticize a business practice without solving all the problems in the world.
That said? Less of a focus on widespread acquisitions and immediate profits and more on realizing how many games have long tails and how the profits from a game that company (so not even studio) released five years ago can still fund development. Also, much more transparency in game development and regular credits updates so that people don’t have a giant five year blank spot on their CV that will never get filled in unless they crunch for six months to make sure they were employed a day before release.
I mean if you think a system doesn’t work well it’s because you are able to identify why it isn’t working well and can visualize somewhat of an alternative. If that isn’t the case then you cannot be fully sure that there is a better way to do things, and maybe the system is working as well as it can be given the environment the system needs to operate in.
I’m not a dev myself so I can’t speak too much about the pov of being a worker in the industry and the issues you describe with credits. But from a management perspective the problem is that it is simply not possible to accurately predict which games will have a long tail. So if you plan for a long tail and the game isn’t received as well as you expected, what happens then? The game makes a loss. The studio might need to close because they overcommitted resources to the project etc. it’s much safer to assume that all the sales will happen in the first 6 months and forecast for that, and if the game turns out to be more successful than expected then that’s free money basically from a planning POV.
The intention of live service games is pretty much that, creating games that will purposefully and predictably have long tails, but the problem is that even if a game is designed to have a long tail it doesn’t mean that it will find an audience that will give it the momentum needed in the first place.
As for bonuses being tied to reviews or sales, they both have pros and cons. Maybe it should be a little bit of both, because well received game might make lackluster sales while a badly received game might make crazy sales numbers (most AAA games).
As for getting review bombed or getting panned by influencers. That is always a risk in every industry. I find that most games get the reception they deserve, For example a lot of people want to frame the latest Dragon Age for flopping because of chuds, but that is not in fact the case, because those same chuds probably sunk hundreds of of hours into BG3 which is by all chud metrics also a “woke” game. So the problem, very often is the quality of the game. Chuds are more than willing to put up with politics they don’t like in games when the game is objectively (subjective to the expectations of the intended audience) good.
Of course this model fucking benefits the managers. They aren’t tied to those incentives. They get to keep their jobs when some assclown wears a “dark maga” hat to the keighelys and the game craters.
And… fuck the managers. They are already doing great.
I mean you could make a studio where there is no manager (how does that work I’m not sure) and you’d still need to make financial forecasting if you want the studio to be an entity that continues to exist. Like I don’t understand your logic here, the only other alternative is to make everyone’s salary contingent to sales and then the pie is divided evenly like in a coop model but that means a lot more of the financial risk is shouldered by the devs and you probably don’t get paid until the game releases.
Like what is a proper alternative that: a) pays you a salary while the game is being developed b) accounts for the risk inherent with not knowing the future?
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Aktywne