The only time I consider emulation and piracy even remotely similar is if you download an emulator for a console that’s still alive and download games for it and play through them without buying them. I made that purchase so again it’s my game. If I already own the game and want to download it or burn it then I feel I’m justified. I feel better buying a copy and playing it on my preferred platform as a consumer. If they do have a copy for sale that is easy to access. See, if I want to download Nintendo which is no longer sold, morally I think it’s ok to download that game. Now, this is where we start to get into a gray area. If you have an emulator you can burn an ISO from a disk that you own or download one from the internet. They don’t want anyone playing their games regardless of how long they’ve been out even if the game doesn’t make money anymore, which to me is ridiculous. Some companies today are heavily stuck in the past. Now I know that seems sketchy but this is done. Some emulators actually make you download BIOS updates and patches in order to even allow the games to be played in the first place, just to ensure its legality.

Then there is nothing illegal about downloading it. So the Emulator itself is essentially a dead program since it cannot actually do anything illegal like play any video game you ever wanted to from the moment you download it. However, the program does not come with these ROMs installed. An emulation tool does just that.Īn Emulator is nothing more than a program used to decrypt specific files like OS and ROMs.

Well, let me explain, emulate means to match or surpass, typically by imitation. How is this legal? Why Emulators are even allowed to exist?

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