While emulation certainly seems shady to me in instances where new games are immediately available for emulation or old games are still readily available and for sale, it's true that, legally, emulation is not the same as piracy. That said, the legality of emulation is definitely more of a grey area than many seem to believe, as when it comes to software you're only allowed to copy your own legally owned version of the software.
Playing said legally-acquired software on an emulator is legal and, given that they were built from the ground up, emulators themselves are absolutely legal as well. Thus, combining the two is perfectly fine and not considered piracy. The problem, of course, is that the vast majority of people using emulation utilize it to play illegially acquired ROMs. Thus, while it is definitely true to say that it's possible to play software on an emulator legally, in reality the large majority of people are using it illegally. It's akin to people selling "water pipes" and such strictly for "tobacco" here in the US (which I have nothing against for the record), when everyone and their mother knows these are really mechanisms for the smoking of marijuana for 99% of the people who buy them.
Still, as said above, emulation is not definitively illegal nor directly comparable to piracy. Is it the same in spirit, though? That's subjective, and I think we all have our own lines; I personally think it is for newer games (thankfully emulation tends to take long enough that it's not much of a problem), but at the same time emulation also preserves and makes available old games that no one is profiting from anymore. One example that literally just received a youtube video is from the guys at DidYouKnowGaming? that provided an overview of some old Zelda games that were streamed via a service only in Japan. These games would be entirely lost today were it not for people dumping the ROMs and would be unplayable without emulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqCJOBwBy_g&t=0s
I think a Pro's and Con's list would help put things in perspectives:
Pro's of Emulators/Emulation
- Preserves games that might otherwise be lost (personally my biggest pro)
- Allows for fan localization of games that never received translations
- Results in fun little compilations of past games in things like the NES Classic and plug-and-plays
- Can allow for backwards compatibility
- Allows for the patching of games that can fix otherwise unpleasant games
- Makes available long-since forgotten games that no one is profiting from to newer generations
Con's of Emulators/Emulation
- Their very nature encourages the piracy of illegally acquired software (very few people would actually use their own legally acquired games)
- When produced quickly enough (such as with Bleem!) they can make games intended to be exclusive to some current hardware available outside of it
- Using the example of BotW, it can encourage some users who might otherwise buy the intended hardware to simply wait for an emulator to be able to run it. The BotW example is probably about the worst I can think of as a result of its Wii U port, as the emulating community is making hitherto unseen progress on it while it is still in its prime.
- While most games no longer profit their creators and intellectual owners, many are popular enough to continue to be rereleased (think Virtual Console or those Collection games), and so the ease with which emulators allow a person to pirate some software and play them without spending a penny essentially encourages theft.
As the lists might imply, I'm definitely on the fence with it, as I feel there's definitely both room for emulators and a need for emulators. I've certainly taken advantage of ROM dumps and hacks once or twice (such as getting a compatible Mr. Gimmick that never released in NA or getting an awesome Guardians of the Galaxy reskin of Bucky O'Hare lol), I've benefited from things like the DOSBox and fan patches of older PC games from that awkward Windows 95 age that can be hard to get running, and I'm completely in favor of dumping all ROM's and Software for preservation reasons. Likewise, opening all of these old games to younger generations and allowing everyone access to formerly region-locked games is very cool.
Otherwise, I do see the emulation of more recent games or those that are still readily available for sale from the intellectual owners to shady, and in the majority of instances where distributed software is used instead of a legally owned copy it is piracy and theft. Games, after all, are not food, water, shelter, or clothing; while it can suck to have limited access to some games, it's not as if your health is at risk if you don't play them, and so I've always found all attempts to justify the theft of games to be rather weak. For the most part, if a game is available directly from the source to this day and you want to play it, one ought to buy it straight from them. Playing your legally acquired game on an emulator isn't illegal, but as I've said before, that's very much the minority of emulators.
As for moderating the threads, unmoderated it's certainly true that attempting to discuss emulation (especially of newer titles) without mention of piracy is akin to talking about Bongs without mention of marijuana; someone is going to do it, and that's why they post a million "These are Water Pipes for Tobacco, any mention of Bongs or Marijuana will get you thrown out" signs at such stores lol... I think the BotW videos where they show side-by-side examples of the improved graphics and such will justifiably continue to prompt some angry posts and misplaced comparisons to "piracy", but with Nintendo leaving the Wii U behind I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that none of the current gen systems are particularly close to being emulated now. That ought to reduce the piracy posts.
Essay Pro