is Emulation killing the gaming industry?

[Darashiva]

Emulation is a bit of a double-edged sword, but I don't see it causing any great harm to anyone. Sure, there are games that people often emulate that could also be bought legally from one of the console market places or Steam for example, but I'm not sure how many of those who emulate would otherwise even consider getting those games in the first place.

More importantly, emulation is often the only way certain games can even be played today without actually owning the original releases of those specific games. This is the result of most developers in the past not really seeing much worth in archiving their games after they were past their original run on the market. As such, many games were simply lost to time and are very hard to come by these days. As such, most people's only option is to turn to emulation if they want to try out some old game themselves without paying ludicrous amounts of money for them.