This week I discovered that not only does Android have multiple emulators from consoles of all ages, but one of the SNES emulators works fantastically, even allowing me to use a Wiimote as a controller to play my games. As I dug into my file archive and found my stash of SNES ROMs collected oh so long ago, I started to wonder about the legality/morality of playing the ROM on my phone.
Parallel to the console wars was the adolescence of piracy. Before the age of the internet, piracy by average people was pretty much ignored. Back then piracy required shocking things like two disk drives, or enough hard drive space to hold a whole CD, so the act of piracy was infrequent and difficult to perform or track. Software companies only worried about people actively selling pirated copies, and rightfully so considering that most piracy exchanges with my friends went like this:
Friend: Hey have you tried out this game? It's awesome!
Me: Never heard of it, let's play.
Later Me: Oh this is amazing! Can I get a copy!
Friend: Sure.
Older Me: Oh wow! Awesome Game is coming out with Awesome Game 2! Now I have money and can buy it cause really making a copy was a pain in the ass and I spent a ton of money on new media to copy the game anyway.
Today the scene has greatly changed. Software (from games to operating systems) are advertised on TV next to beer and erection pills so we can't even pretend that people are getting free advertising from piracy; they dont need it. Media and space are so cheap so there is no deterrent there. And copying a game has now gotten so simple as to Google something like "Awesome Game 15 Cracked Version" and you will find at least 6 sources. Even cartridge games, that were impossible to pirate without special hardware, are now easily copied and shared in the same way (I know people who never purchased another DS game after getting an R4 cartridge).
Nintendo places the cost of a SNES game re-released today at $8, but that only allows playing on one Wii console, and, unless you have a rig like this, you are stuck doing so at home. On the other hand, if I have the original game, and the original system still works, there is nothing stopping me from playing it without buying it again. Also if I have enough time and ingenuity, I could create a portable SNES system to play the game on the go like this. So, then, is it not OK for me to take a shortcut and put a SNES emulator on my phone and a copy of my ROM?
Frankly no-one will care that I play a couple of SNES ROMs on my phone, at least in a legal sense. Any apprehension that I have on that idea is blown away by the awesomeness of me playing Chrono Trigger whilst out and about instead of flinging a few birds at green pigs. Then again, what sort of example does this provide for my children?
...
But Chrono Trigger!
