Did you ignore my point that people that people who will use emulators for games they can't find new will more than likely emulate other games they could easily find new?

Like I said, I support buying used games because it doesn't support illegally getting the games.  I don't see why you're bothering to argue this since you cannot justify something that is obviously illegal is better than something that isn't.

Also, I know you don't like supporting places like Gamestop or random Joe Blow, but many people buy games because they know they can get money off of them.  If they can't get money off of them when they're finished they probably will never buy that game.  As much fun as it is to hate places like Gamestop, they account for a huge amount of Game sales.  There have been many games that I would have never bought, used or new, if I had not gone to Gamestop to buy them.  When I go to a place like Wal-Mart or Amazon I know exactly what I want and I don't browse.  When I go to Gamestop I browse and buy things I never planned on.

I did ignore that point because it seems to be a slippery slope argument. Once someone tries pot, it'll just be a few short days before they are snorting cocaine off a hooker's tits! Once someone downloads a rom for an old system, Bioshock will mysteriously appeared cracked on their harddrive in 3 weeks!.

The people who want to play games illegally know how, and find it, and go until they are comfortable, no slope involved.

So you don't actually support giving developers money, just following laws. Fair enough. Laws are in place for a reason.

 But there is a slope involved. 

Hey, wow Chrono Trigger is pretty cool!  Lets fire up the old computer and try Chrono Cross.  Well that wasn'tr very good but I heard FFVII was fun, lets give that a try.  Wow, that was cool, now lets try VIII and IX.  Wow! this whole getting games thing for free is fun, what's a torrent?  Wow, I heard Bioshock was cool maybe I should give that a try.

3.  The Final Fantasy Chronicles version is a pale comparison to the SNES version, the loading times and poor sound drag the game down.  I was severly disapointed when I got it.  Damn my friend for selling his copy of chrono trigger for money.  I mean heck i'd of paid him more for it.  It might just be me but the colors look off too.  Really it's a poor port which doesn't seem possible since it's a port up.  The new movie sequences don't cut it.

This thread is going places

....it seems that whenever the issue of emulators (gasp!) comes up in a forum discussion, there are always those who sport this "I'm following the letter of the law, so I'm going to tell everyone else how wrong they are" attitude....

 Why should it matter so much if others choose to do things differently?  If they would rather play the original version of the game than having to go through the hassle of obtaining an original, "legal" (but subpar) port, that's their decision.

...Oh, and to the OP - emulators aren't that hard to figure out, the menus are basically self explanatory...unless 

you're using Linux.

Glad to see copyright issues are so black and white for everyone. Foremost whenever talking about the topic, it makes sense to replace the words developers/artists/whatever with publishers/distributors etc. 90% of the revenue (in the music industry at least) goes to the latter but the former is pushed into the spotlight because piracy steals from their hard work.

I suggest everyone to do some reading up on how much is taken away from the creators (artists, development houses) by the publishers before taking the high ground with statements like "piracy is bad and illegal! I am an upstanding citizen!". We know its bad, but its also a smokescreen on the inner workings of most industries that thrive on creative output.

Also add to this the fact that I'm paying by the nose for shipping and customs because I live overseas. Why am I forced to pay an ADDITIONAL 30-40$ for a physical commodity that can be download via the internet in 2-3 hours? Because the industry does not give me the option, if they did the next step would be to remove the distributors/publishers and pretty soon I'd be paying the developers/artists directly. See the slope on that one?

Also. I think it's kinda stupid for people to be giving out emulation information on this site. Public forum and all, but that kind of stuff i don't think helps the reputation on of the site. Since it is illegal.

However, you can't say someone pirating games is costing developers money as well as other places.

Piracy as a whole does, but not all people who pirate games do. That's why music and game companys don't get nearly as much sympathy on piracy as they should. They treat every act of piracy as if it was a lost sale, which obviously isn't the case.

The studies show there are three kinds of piracy.

Some people do own copies of the CDs. However this is still illegal as far as I know. Backups via emulation are legal but i'm fairly certain that the Rom in question needs to be copied from your particular cartridge or CD. This kind doesn't cost sales. This is the rarest kind of piracy.

The second kind of piracy are people who would buy a game but have instead decided to pirate it. These are the kind that hurt sales.

However the most common form of piracy is from people who just wouldn't buy the CD or Videogame anyway. For example someone who might get an old NES emulator, but if given the choice between not playing NES games, and going down to the store corner and buying an NES they would choose to not play the NES.

A Harvard study has shown that music piracy had almost zero effect on CD sales.

While all people who download roms and emulators are criminals the amount that are actually costing comapnies money are as the study put it "statistically indistinguishable from zero."

Basically if sales were a giant bowl of rice, the amount of money actually lost to piracy would be 1 grain of rice.  It's an issue of morals.  Not an issue of costing someone money because in nearly all cases it doesn't.

There have been studys done that have shown the opposite but these studies often compare what a person downloads and what they buy on the individual level, which is pointless since that is using people as a "Control", which would assume that all people would buy the exact same things for the exact same price.

Or worse... just saying that every act of piracy is a lost sale.

twestern: Gee, Jay walking is really fun and gets me places faster! Lets begin to run red lights! Boy, this really is fun, isn't it?

I believe people know what they are doing and know when it costs people's money or causes harm. Responsible ones will be responsible, own up to their actions and do the right thing. People who aren't will do what is wrong, no slope about it.