6-11-07 #795 "You have come across a wild slime!"

[kaskar]

       If Mab squeezed the slime too hard in the middle, it would split, forming two slime. ( what obscure old game does that remind me of ? ) 

[bill]

       If Mab squeezed the slime too hard in the middle, it would split, forming two slime. ( what obscure game does that remind me of ? ) 

[Tapewolf]

HEATHEN!  Hast thou never heard mention of Dragon Quest?!

Until today, never.  And by the looks of it Superluser still has a better grasp of it than me 

[luiqui]

So here's this GIANT ENEMY MAB; attack its weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE.

[kaskar]

  It listed MAGIC on the options. What does this option do ? Change it into another form or something. And how does the point system work when you use magic ? In one game, you could be only allocated so much 'magic as you have allocated left on this level, etc...

[Akisohida]

Ok, the ROM thing is a major grey area in the US. Some say it is illegal, some say it is legal to DL it for 24 hours. Some say it is legal to DL it if you ever owned the game since you purchased it and now own the rights to own/play that game in any way, shape, or form. The way I see it, origonal NES games are now freeware; Nintendo is no longer making money off of origonal NES games because Nintendo does not make money off of us buying the games, you know. Nintendo makes money off of the stores buying the game, the stores mark it up (for a profit), and make money in the difference in price when we buy it from them.

Now, some of you may say 'Aki! If the game companies make money when the stores buy the games, not when we do, why can't we DL roms of newer games?' And I answer thusly; Because if everyone started simply pirating newer games, stores would no longer buy them because they would not be able to sell them and thus the companies like Nintendo would go out of business and we would have no games to play.

So, ultimately, we DO keep the companies in business when we buy video games, but our money is not going to the company itself; that's what the stores pay for. They may buy games for...oh.. (and these numbers are TOTALLY random) $40 a game, and then sell them for $50 and make $10 difference per game. Not alot, per game, but every 10 copies they sell makes $100 and you have to think, popular games may sell by the hundrids, per store, and thus they can make quite a bit of money.

Back on topic, alot of people (me included) see the older systems and games are shareware or freeware since the companies are never going to see a cent off of them ever again. The stores are no longer buying the games to sell them.

(and, on topic) At least it is not a Metal Slime! And Amber, you can draw backgrounds! Yay!


Edit again: My avvy seems to have gone away. I am trying to upload it to geocities but they suck. It keeps saying it was uploaded but it does not show in my user files.

[rt]

Hmm dragon quest .. a 'nope' here too .. I was thinking final fantasy also, slimes, and blue and white fight-magic ect.

Anyways .. I choose hug

And as the saying goes "It isn't illegal unless you get caught"

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

It listed MAGIC on the options. What does this option do ? Change it into another form or something. And how does the point system work when you use magic ? In one game, you could be only allocated so much 'magic as you have allocated left on this level, etc...

*sigh*

It's a -joke-, kaskar. Laugh, and move on.


In the original game, that's a choice menu. Once you select one of them, you get a sub-menu to select what sort of fight, or what sort of  magic, etc, that you use. In some cases, a third sub-menu. I believe the last choice on the main menu is "run", rather than hug, for use when the enemy is way too strong for you. Despite that, I still think you're reading too much into it.

So, ultimately, we DO keep the companies in business when we buy video games, but our money is not going to the company itself; that's what the stores pay for. They may buy games for...oh.. (and these numbers are TOTALLY random) $40 a game, and then sell them for $50 and make $10 difference per game. Not alot, per game, but every 10 copies they sell makes $100 and you have to think, popular games may sell by the hundrids, per store, and thus they can make quite a bit of money.

I feel I should point out here, just in case anyone is feeling like that's "a licence to print money" sort of deal, the store also has a lot of costs to balance out.

Just off the top of my head, there are:
- rent
- services (electricity, water, gas, etc)
- council taxes
- pay for employees (including sick pay, and pay for employees who are on leave, etc)
- tax on the pay for the employees
- VAT/GST/tax on the items

And probably others. All this comes out of that $10/game that you buy. If the employee takes 2 minutes to sell you that game ( a low estimate, generally - most game shop employees will talk to you for much longer than that, no?) and gets paid $30/hour (depending on where you are, that's not an unreasonable rate.) he or she will have to sell 3 games every hour. If there are two employees working, that's 6 games an hour. Every hour, all day, every day. And that's just to break even, and not go out of business.

(and, on topic) At least it is not a Metal Slime! And Amber, you can draw backgrounds! Yay!

Indeed. I was going to comment about the background being well drawn.

[Tapewolf]

In the original game, that's a choice menu. Once you select one of them, you get a sub-menu to select what sort of fight, or what sort of  magic, etc, that you use. In some cases, a third sub-menu. I believe the last choice on the main menu is "run", rather than hug, for use when the enemy is way too strong for you.

There was a game called 'Rearguard' which did this kind of thing many, many years ago.  Like 1988.  There was a bug in the random number generator so that if you were hit by virtually any kind of monster at all, it did about 800 damage points and killed you instantly.

It was still kind of fun.  The best bit was when I took a hex editor to it.  I changed the name to 'Beergarden' and all the monsters into garden wildlife.  The chests became suitcases full of stolen jewels.  It still had the sprites for all the original monsters but by carefully choosing the replacements it wasn't too bad.  The boss monster was changed from a fire dragon into a fire snail.

I guess this thing on the Nintendo was where they got the idea from.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

I don't know

There is slime in Zelda's windwaker game, too.  But the menu reminds me of all the Pokemon GB games.

Isn't a Hug a Mab special attack..  an attack that which turns monsters into chibis...  but oh oh it's  Fan-art time...

Runs away to stretch pad.
PBH

[Ryudo Lee]

most game shop employees will talk to you for much longer than that, no?) and gets paid $30/hour (depending on where you are, that's not an unreasonable rate.)

$30/hour?  Yeah maybe for the district manager, but not the guy behind the counter, unless he's been there for 10 years, which is highly unlikely.  My roommate works for Gamestop and he's pulling minimum wage.  The average guy behind the counter works for a little bit more than that... maybe $9/hour at most without being a manager.  Heck if I could make $30/hour for selling videogames at a store then I'd change jobs in a heartbeat.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Heh.

ok. Even so - do they sell a game every hour, every day? That adds up, after a while... They still have to be paid, even if there's no customers in the store at all for three hours at a stretch - other than the browsers, I mean.

And then there's all the other costs in there - you can bet the electricity costs aren't small, either.

[Ryudo Lee]

Where they make the most money is off of used stuff.  People bring in their stuff, they give store credit for less than half of what it's worth and then sell it back for a mark up.  I found an interesting article on this subject if you'd like to read up on it.  It's called Confessions of a Game Store Employee.

[Caswin]

This one's going in my mental 'favorites' folder.  Not least because of panel-three(?) Amber.

[Azraelle]

I figure it's legal to have a ROM if you have previously purchased the game - the ROM then becomes a software backup which is perfectly within the EULA.  And the emulators themselves are of course very legal.

I don't know about downloading older MS operating systems, though.  This IS Microsoft we're talking about.  They'd never pass up an opportunity to make money off of you, and if they find out you downloaded Windows 95 without paying for it, they'll come for you.

And on topic - I remember fighting slimes in Zelda II, though that wasn't a turn-based game.  Oh I remember how cool it was when I could finally one-hit kill them, with a bouncing downthrust.  Hehe, that was always my favorite move.

[Kenji]

And on topic - I remember fighting slimes in Zelda II, though that wasn't a turn-based game.  Oh I remember how cool it was when I could finally one-hit kill them, with a bouncing downthrust.  Hehe, that was always my favorite move.

Especially when you bounce on those jet jousters in the temples and end up going the same way as them, therefore bouncing on them across the screen for 2-3 goes.

[Aridas]

I figure it's legal to have a ROM if you have previously purchased the game - the ROM then becomes a software backup which is perfectly within the EULA.  And the emulators themselves are of course very legal.

Nintendo doesn't think so. but then again, Nintendo also thinks it's ok to make your own backup copy of your game, but says not that long after that copying devices are illegal. -_-

And on topic - I remember fighting slimes in Zelda II, though that wasn't a turn-based game.  Oh I remember how cool it was when I could finally one-hit kill them, with a bouncing downthrust.  Hehe, that was always my favorite move.

What, you didn't upgrade your sword which effectively made all hits against them kill them BEFORE that point?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I don't know about downloading older MS operating systems, though.  This IS Microsoft we're talking about.  They'd never pass up an opportunity to make money off of you, and if they find out you downloaded Windows 95 without paying for it, they'll come for you.

As I recall, it goes something like "for any machine you install any Microsoft OS on, you must have a copy of the latest version of that OS" or words to that effect. So to install MS-Dos5 on a new, blank machine, you need to purchase a copy of Vista.

I'm sure that makes sense to someone...

[James StarRunner]

Oh boy... That game needed so much level grinding. Should I be proud or embarrassed of the fact that I put in enough time to beat it?

Anyways, made me laugh.

[Dard]

I wonder where people get the idea that copying anything that isn't being sold anymore is legal.
If an author/artist/software engineer or whatever decides not to sell a product anymore, the only legal way to get that product anymore is to buy a used original, wait for 70 years (depending on where you live) after the author's death or wait until you are given a licence to copy it. (freeware licence or something like that)

[Kenji]

If interweb users say it's legal, it's ok.

But really, unless NES games pop up on the Virtual Console, DS, or GBA, I can't picture Nintendo hunting you down. Might give them the idea to port it, if they find out enough people emulated it, though.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

But really, unless NES games pop up on the Virtual Console, DS, or GBA, I can't picture Nintendo hunting you down. Might give them the idea to port it, if they find out enough people emulated it, though.

"Probably not going to hunt you down" is a hell of a long way from legal, if you ask me.

Not that I'd let it stop me, mind. But then, I probably have a reasonable idea of how to not be caught....

[Fuyudenki]

Knowing Mab, she'd hug it, and then let it go.


[pre-post edit]Thanks, Dard, that's the short version of my post.

(very long rant on roms, which is ultimately inaccurate)

Take a look at the legal disclamier of every video game manual you own for a console.(Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, Xbox)  They all state that having a backup of your game is not necessary, and is illegal, which overrules the standard US ruling that you're allowed to have exactly one backup copy of any given piece of software, which only you are allowed to use.  This goes for everything from the NES all the way up through the Playstation 4(coming in about 7 years).  The reason people do it anyway is that for most of those games, nobody really cares anymore.  This is what we call Abandonware, and is the real gray area.  Technically, the copyrights are still valid on virtually every piece of commercial software ever written, since US copyright law states it's valid for something like 70 years after the original author's death.  In any case, if the original author's still alive, you're out of luck.

Abandonware is like downloading of unlicensed anime.  Technically, it's illegal, and a violation of copyright law, but in the case of abandonware, the games are so old they're no longer being published, so the original author doesn't really care.  In the case of unlicensed anime outside of Japan, the original directors aren't making money on it yet, it's a form of free advertisement, and it helps US(or your country, I happen to be an American) licensing companies decide which series they want to license and bring over to (insert your country here.)  This is why, for example, Death Note, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya are hitting the States very soon(if not already), while Avenger and Mushishi probably never will.(I can count the number of Mushishi fans I know on one hand, and I'm related to all of them.)

Back to my topic.

Lemmings 2 is technically still under copyright, but at this point, nobody really cares, because Psygnosis isn't selling it anymore(even if they do still exist.)  It's abandonware.  Okami, I believe, is also abandonware, because Clover folded, and Capcom decided it wasn't worth printing the disks anymore.(sadly.  I give that game 6 stars out of a possible 5.)

All of you who are saying that Nintendo isn't making money on their NES games anymore, however, are dead wrong, and forgetting a little thing called the Wii.  Nintendo's Virtual Console on the Wii has ressurected the copyrights on a rather large number of games, which you can now download, buy, and play using a controller which looks something like an SNES pad with a pair of analog sticks.  They're not abandonware anymore.

Downloading ROMs has never been legal unless the company said so, even if you currently own a copy of the game and are only downloading it for 24 hours.  Those are things that people said to justify themselves and make themselves feel better.  Besides, who deletes a ROM after 24 hours unless it sucks?

Having said all that, I do happen to have an extensive library of NES and SNES games, which has given me a new respect for console-style controllers.(thinking of getting a Playstation->USB adapter.  $5 at Radio Shack)

Superluser, run out and grab yourself a Gameboy and a copy of Dragon Warrior for it.  That'll cost you less than $50.

[Kenji]

But really, unless NES games pop up on the Virtual Console, DS, or GBA, I can't picture Nintendo hunting you down. Might give them the idea to port it, if they find out enough people emulated it, though.

"Probably not going to hunt you down" is a hell of a long way from legal, if you ask me.

Not that I'd let it stop me, mind. But then, I probably have a reasonable idea of how to not be caught....

Have you ever known people to stop doing something illegal if no one's going to stop them? All I'm saying is it might be illegal, but no one cares.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Take a look at the legal disclamier of every video game manual you own for a console.(Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, Xbox)  They all state that having a backup of your game is not necessary, and is illegal, which overrules the standard US ruling that you're allowed to have exactly one backup copy of any given piece of software, which only you are allowed to use.

... Although the legality of a disclaimer you have to agree to before you can read it is questionable, anyway. Click-through disclaimers have yet to be ratified in any court I'm aware of. Same goes for disclaimers printed on a manual inside a sealed case you have to buy before you can open it.

Let's not go there, though. :-] I think we're all agreeing that it's illegal, but everyone does it anyway. :-/ It's nice to know that the Wii does it legally, though.

[Angel]

Is that a poring? If so, I'll pick run.

[Zedd]

And on topic - I remember fighting slimes in Zelda II, though that wasn't a turn-based game.  Oh I remember how cool it was when I could finally one-hit kill them, with a bouncing downthrust.  Hehe, that was always my favorite move.

Especially when you bounce on those jet jousters in the temples and end up going the same way as them, therefore bouncing on them across the screen for 2-3 goes.

If all fails...use fire..

[Kenji]

And on topic - I remember fighting slimes in Zelda II, though that wasn't a turn-based game.  Oh I remember how cool it was when I could finally one-hit kill them, with a bouncing downthrust.  Hehe, that was always my favorite move.

Especially when you bounce on those jet jousters in the temples and end up going the same way as them, therefore bouncing on them across the screen for 2-3 goes.

If all fails...use fire..

Well there was no fire, but lightning sure did the trick. Guess you can't leave everything up to us fires.

[Naldru]

I found it interesting that Lemmings was used as an example of abandonware.  Lemmings is now available for the Sony PSP, and the site for the game says that Lemmings is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.  I would therefore assume that Sony purchased the rights.

http://www.us.playstation.com/Lemmings/

I'm not saying that Sony would go after you.  All I'm saying is that you shouldn't make assumptions about nobody caring. 

[Fuyudenki]

well, original Lemmings is no longer abandonware, as it was re-released for the PSP, but Lemmings 2 has not been re-released yet, so it's still abandoware.

And you'll note I did specify Lemmings 2 in my post.