The one about video-game piracy.
Sep. 8th, 2019 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goth_is_not_emoThat's right, y'all, I'm getting on my soapbox again. This time, it's about video games and whether piracy is ever ethically justified. (Note: piracy is still very much illegal. Please don't break the law for stupid reasons. It's not worth it.)
So let's talk about this via actual examples, and who does or doesn't benefit in each case. This post will be very, very long, so I'm putting my examples behind a cut. (And it took me three and a half hours to research and type this post, so y'all better not complain about me leaving out a game you like. Research and write your own damned post.)
Example 1: Metroid
Metroid was released for the Famicom in 1986, and for its US counterpart, the NES, in 1987. It has been ported many times in 33 years: there was a GBA cartridge port, a Wii Shop Channel port, and the game is available on the Switch as part of a subscription to Nintendo's online service.
Obtaining it legally, for NES:
Any copies of the NES cartridge are going to be about 30 years old, if not older. There is no guarantee that the cartridge still works, because the inside could have degraded over time even if it was kept in the relatively dry, cool environment of someone's home.
Here is a recent eBay listing for the NES cartridge. (Click the images in this post to see them full-size.)
That's about $20US more than the cartridge cost when it was new, not counting shipping costs. Pricey, but reasonable if you're focused on obtaining a physical copy of the original cartridge, rather than just "I want to play the game." Because this is a used copy, neither the game devs nor Nintendo's corporate office will get one red cent from the person who purchased this game from eBay user jonadesor-0.
Who benefits: The seller benefits by getting money for their old copy of the game. The purchaser benefits by getting a copy of the game they wanted. Nintendo does not benefit from the sale of this out-of-print version of the game at all.
Obtaining it legally, for GBA:
The GBA port was released in 2004. This means it's been out of print for about 15 years, but since that's about half the age of the original game, copies are far less likely to be as badly degraded as the average NES cartridge. Cartridge failure within even just a decade can and does happen; it's just less likely because of the much shorter timeframe.
Here are 3 eBay listings for the GBA port of the original Metroid, all current as of Sept. 8, 2019 (all prices in USD):
These are clearly different levels of quality, and the price reflects that. The cheapest cartridge, which has a peeling-off label, is $4.25. The one which states in the title of the listing that it has been tested to ensure that it still works is $16.99. The one that's mint in box costs about $60--which is a lot considering the game was only $35 when new, and is a port of a previously-existing game! Considering that a mint-in-box game hasn't been playtested recently, $60 is patently ridiculous if your reason for buying the game is just so you can play Metroid.
Who benefits: Same as before: The seller benefits by getting money for their old copy of the game. The purchaser benefits by getting a copy of the game they wanted. Nintendo does not benefit from the sale of this out-of-print version of the game at all.
Obtaining it legally, via the Wii Shop Channel:
Metroid was one of many classic NES, SNES, and N64 games to be available for digital download on the Wii Shop Channel. It was released in 2007, and was available for 500 Points (the equivalent of $5US) from then until the Wii Shop Channel was taken down permanently in January of 2019 (along with the last vestiges of Internet support for anything other than the Opera browser, if you've got that).
It is no longer possible to buy the game this way, and I am only including it for completeness.
Who benefits: If you purchased the game this way, then you benefited by getting a copy of the game (which, if you didn't back it up to your SD card, can no longer be re-downloaded because Nintendo offers zero Wii support of any kind nowadays). Nintendo got $5, but since the devs got paid for this game back in the 1980s, and porting a game of that size isn't all that expensive or difficult, the money from sales of this and other NES ports probably went towards other purposes.
Obtaining it legally, by purchasing Metroid Fusion, Metroid Prime, a GBA-GameCube link cable, and if necessary the GameCube (or Wii) and a Game Boy Advance:
First of all, while this was feasible for Metroid fans who already owned one or both games at the time, using the method of linking Metroid Fusion to Metroid Prime is far too expensive if all you want is to play the original Metroid, and was even when these items were all easy to find on the cheap. Again, this is only being included for the sake of completeness, and I do not recommend buying all of these items unless you also intend on playing the other 2 games.
A quick ebay search gives the following prices for these items (all in USD, shipping charges not included):
Metroid Fusion: $14.10, with original box (original price: $35)
Metroid Prime: $11.50 (original price: $60)
GBA link cable: $4.79, assuming that the knockoff is of the same quality as the original. Otherwise, about $10-20. (Original price: N/A because IIRC you could only get the cable with copies of Four Swords Adventures, which was a whopping $60)
Gamecube: I found a $27 listing for the console, an extra (third-party) controller, AND one of the nicer third-party memory cards. (Original price: $200 for the console, $15 for the third-party controller, $5 for the memory card)
GBA: $45 for an SP, $25 for the original model. Both work, so it's up to personal preference. (Original price: $100)
Total cost: $82.39 if you go for the cheapest of the above options (not counting shipping). (Original price: $406, since the memory card is necessary to enjoy a GameCube game, but a second controller isn't necessary for either game.) So about the same as that NES cartridge, but this includes consoles as well.
Who benefits: Well, if you're an aficionado of collecting old video-game memorabilia, like the host of Stop Skeletons From Fighting, then you benefit by having this delightfully-convoluted way of playing Metroid. But, um, why?! The sellers benefit, because they now have your money. And again, all of this stuff is out of print. Nintendo profits not at all.
Obtaining it legally, by subscribing to Nintendo Online Service:
Metroid, along with quite a few other NES/Famicom and SNES/Super Famicom games, are available for free with a subscription to Nintendo Online Service. The service costs $20/year for a single user, $35/year for a "family plan" that includes all users on a single console, and if you unsubscribe, you lose your copies of these games.
Considering that both PSN and XBL cost way more than Nintendo Online Service, this isn't too bad a price to pay to be able to play your games online, especially since you get your own classic games library that you can also play online. (Try doing that with the original NES!)
Who benefits: You benefit by being able to play your existing Switch games online, and by being able to play Metroid, and a bunch of other games, for less than the cost of getting a fancy Starbucks coffee per month. Nintendo benefits by having an easy way to fund its servers for online play AND since the games are cheap and easy to port, it's easy to offer the games as further incentive for people to subscribe. Sure, the Switch is expensive, but if you already have one, then this is a no-brainer.
Piracy:
Good luck finding a Metroid ROM. Nintendo has cracked down on illegal ROM-hosting sites in recent years, and does occasional random Google sweeps to find offenders. The vast majority of emulator and ROM-hosting sites have removed all copies of NES and SNES games because of this.
Finding a knock-off cartridge would be easier, but again, this is also illegal.
Who benefits: You benefit by having a copy of the game, and the seller of knock-off cartridges benefits by getting your money, but since this is against the law, and the NSA has been storing records of everyone's internet history since 2004, you have a decent chance of getting caught. The penalties for game piracy, if Nintendo decides to press charges, are usually more than the games are worth.
The verdict: This game is widely-available in many formats. Prices vary, but even the most convoluted method of playing the original Metroid costs less than $100, and that includes both of the necessary consoles--an absolute steal. Buying a GBA and the GBA port could run you as little as $40, total. If you own a Switch, playing Metroid via NES Online takes 2 whole years to go above that cost. Piracy is definitely not justified for this game.
Example 2: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
I'm mentioning this game because it's the primary example people are using right now to support piracy of out-of-print GameCube games. Other, more obscure games are more expensive, but since the Fire Emblem games have been a Huge Deal in Japan for over 30 years, and have finally gotten a decent amount of attention in the US after decades of cult status, this struck me as the best example.
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2005. It was only the third game in the series to get an official US release. Thus far, there have not been any ports to other systems.
Obtaining it legally:
Like other GameCube games, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance has been out-of-print since the release of the Nintendo Wii. Because no other legal methods of getting the game exist, the few copies on the market are stupidly-expensive. Looking at the first page of eBay results, here's the least-expensive, the most-expensive, and the most common price (again, USD, shipping not included):
All but one of the entries under $100US were for packaging only, without the game disc itself! (Imagine being the poor soul who spends $75 for this game, only to realize they've bought a goddamn empty case because they didn't read the fine print.) Most copies go for between $100 and $170. The infamous $300+ copy is not a fake image--I found a copy for $310 here--but it's a bit of an outlier, and the most expensive copy is an absolutely ludicrous $1400, for a copy of a game that cost $60 when it was new.
$1400. That's over 23 times what someone paid for that copy of the game on the store shelf in 2005.
Who benefits: Scalpers. I can't even say that YOU benefit from purchasing this game, given that the median price appears to be double the original retail price. Only hardcore Fire Emblem fans should even bother purchasing this game in America.
Ah, but wait! What about the game's original market? What about Japan?
That's right, folks: I went to the trouble of searching for the game by its original Japanese title, ファイヤーエムブレム蒼炎の軌跡 ("Fiya- Emuburemu: Souen No Kisaki"), restricting my search to entries from the past year. (Thank you, Nintendo, for including furigana in the official game title so I could actually get my computer to type that. Also, I have learned that a seriously MASSIVE number of kanji are pronounced "sou." This one wasn't even in the first 10 suggestions when I typed that phoneme in using Windows 10's hiragana input.)
The vast majority of hits were blogs. A lot of gamers mentioned this game recently, I guess, but since I can barely comprehend any Japanese at all (I can sound out kana, and know a few kanji, but my vocab is still very, very small) I didn't bother finding out what they have to say about it.
There was a Yahoo! Auctions result, but as the auction had ended and Yahoo! doesn't allow you to see info on past auctions at all, this was a bust.
What I did find were the following:
Amazon is a US company, so perhaps it's not so surprising that the game costs as much via Amazon Japan as it does when sold by scalpers on eBay, especially since Amazon's price-setting bots tend to crawl the Internet looking at other people's prices for stuff in order to set a "fair" price.
The Uridoki listings, however, tell a different story. It looks like the average Japanese gamer considers $15-25 to be a reasonable cost for a used game from about 15 years ago (which is a common price for easily-available used games of that age in the US, and has been for well over a decade). This means that way more copies of Path of Radiance were produced for the Japanese market than the US market (understandably, given that Japan has a MUCH larger Fire Emblem fandom than the US), keeping the cost down to what you'd expect to pay for Super Mario Sunshine. (What you'd ACTUALLY pay for Super Mario Sunshine is...holy shit, Amazon, over $100?! Seriously?)
So yeah, if you can read Japanese, just buy a Japanese GameCube and a copy of the game from Japan. As long as you don't use Amazon, you'll get a pretty good deal.
Who benefits: Again, these are all used copies of a game that's been out of print for years. Copy and paste the results from the NES or GBA ports of Metroid.
The verdict: If you can read Japanese, then pretty much ANY GameCube game that was released in both Japan and the US is cheaper if you order it from Japan, even if you factor in the cost of overseas shipping. Otherwise, scalpers have made the average GameCube game far more expensive than makes any kind of sense, even given the relative scarcity of an out-of-print game.
If you can't read Japanese, then I hate to say it, but the pirates are right on this one. Demand so far outstrips supply for pretty much any GameCube game that unless it was on the budget-titles list or is part of a series of basically-interchangable games (like SSBM or MarioKart Double Dash), you're going to pay way more for that used/refurbished copy than you would have paid new. (Sonic Adventure 2: Battle sells for $40, which isn't all that surprising considering that the full game with the add-ons from the GCN version is only $12 on Steam.) In short, Nintendo's decision not to port ANY GameCube titles other than the two Zeldas both shortchanges fans AND leaves easy money on the table.
Case 3: Mickey Mouse games for Genesis/MegaDrive
There were a lot of Disney video games released on the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive and the Super Famicom/SNES. Four of them starred Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion, World of Illusion, Mickey Mania, and Mickey's Ultimate Challenge. Yes, I have played all 4 of these games on the Genesis. If there's one thing Blockbuster Video knew, it's that a Mickey Mouse game is a good investment to have on your game-rental shelf. (Or at least it was in the early 90s, when Disney games were all made with care to produce a good quality product. Most Disney games since have been licensed shovelware not worth the purchase price.)
Castle of Illusion (a Sega exclusive) was remade and released on the PS3 (and is utterly gorgeous--if you like Mickey and platformers, and you own a PS3, you should already have a copy). The PS3 remake was also released for iOS and Android devices. World of Illusion was also a Genesis exclusive, but never got the remake treatment. It was an OK platformer; the only thing I really remember about it that was memorable is that you could play co-op with the 2nd player controlling Donald Duck. (The other Sega games in the Illusion/I Love Mickey Mouse series were only for Game Gear and Master System, so I'm ignoring them here.) Mickey Mania was very heavily-advertised as a tribute to Mickey's 65th anniversary (it came out a year late) and features Mickey traveling through some of his old cartoons. It got a PlayStation upgrade with new sprites within 2 years under the title Mickey's Wild Adventure. (Insert fangirl raving about Traveller's Tales here.)
Mickey's Ultimate Challenge isn't a platformer like the others. It's a kind of weird game, really. You complete all the challenges to get items that the other NPCs need, then make sure you give those items to the right person, or you'll lose them forever, making the game unwinnable. (The lowest difficulty setting makes it so that if you try to give an item to the wrong NPC, they'll refuse it; the other settings allow you to suffer the consequences of an obviously-bad choice.) Then you climb the magic beanstalk and solve a sliding puzzle to finish the game.
It's short. You can easily play through the whole game in less than 3 hours on your very first try, even assuming you use the difficulty level calibrated to your age. (The easiest is meant to be solvable by kindergartners, with the hardest being an adult-level challenge.)
Legally, any game that hasn't had a release (including ports and remakes) or copyright extension in 25 years or more is considered abandonware and is fair game. Technically none of these count as of 2019, except for World of Illusion: the Castle of Illusion remake is still for sale, Mickey Mania's most recent release was in 1996, and Mickey's Ultimate Challenge was ported as the Master System's last hurrah in 1998. So legally, World of Illusion is the only one you can just download a ROM of (if you can find it) without violating US law, even though the two 1994 titles haven't been in stores for over 20 years in any form.
So let's look at how these four games go. Same test.
Obtaining It Legally: Genesis/Megadrive and SNES Cartridges
Since two of these games were also released for SNES at the same time as the Genesis/MegaDrive release, I'm including it here.
Castle of Illusion: Copies of the Genesis/MegaDrive version that aren't obvious pirated copies (the game came out in 1990; if a listing says "Brand New," it's not legit) range from about $15-40, with the Japanese version accounting for pretty much all of the ones over $30. (Reprints of the box art and pirated copies are rampant, however, and all tend to be $13 or less.) The Game Gear version goes for less than $10.
World of Illusion: This one ranges from $9-30. As always, the most expensive listings include the original packaging and instruction manual. Average price around $18.
Mickey Mania: Ranges from $10-40, with the Sega CD version fetching up to $75 for a complete set. The more expensive copies include the package, manual, AND the included poster. This was a very popular game, so you also have a lot of listings of JUST the box going for the same price as the full game. Average price around $20.
Mickey's Ultimate Challenge: The vast majority of eBay listings, including ones with the original packaging and instruction manual, are under $20. This includes the Game Boy release. The average price is about $10. (Not surprising, really.)
Obtaining It Legally: 90s-era Rereleases
Since Mickey Mania, Castle of Illusion, and Mickey's Ultimate Challenge were all either ported or completely re-vamped for releases in the late 90s, it's only fair that I include prices for these.
SEGA AGES Castle of Illusion (Sega Saturn): The Sega Saturn was a complete bust in the US, so I found exactly 3 eBay listings, two of which are for the Japanese version. Prices range from $76-85.
Mickey's Wild Adventure (Mickey Mania PS release): Entries range from $5-35, but most of those are international sellers and ALL are PAL region-locked. (The Americas, except for Uruguay and I think Paraguay, are NTSC.) So outside of Europe, this version is a non-starter.
Mickeys' Ultimate Challenge Master System release: I found 2 copies. One was for $170 and the other was a whopping $450 (yes, really). When you consider that the Master System was released in the late 80s and this game didn't come out until 1998, over a decade after its release in all markets except Brazil, this isn't too surprising. I wasn't kidding when I said this was the VERY LAST game released for the Sega Master System. It was deader than dead by the time this version came out. The unsold copies probably ended up in landfills alongside the ET game for Atari.
,
Obtaining It Legally: Castle of Illusion Remake
The only game to get the re-release treatment after 2000 was Castle of Illusion, which was completely remade by Sega as a well-crafted homage to the original and released in 2013. Level designs were tweaked to make some parts of the level 3D, but the 2D parts are laid out exactly the same as in the original. The PSN digital game is still up on the official PlayStation Store site for $15. I don't know if you can actually still buy it though--if anyone tries it, I'd love to know.
The iOS port is available for $5. Seriously, don't pirate Castle of Illusion. You can buy it legit for FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS, brand new.
The remake is also the only version of any of these games that you can still purchase new (in fact, you can't get it used at all, because it's a digital copy), so buying it this way also pays Sega and the developers.
The Verdict: Unless World of Illusion is totally out of stock when you check and you're just dying to play that specific game for some weird reason, just don't even bother pirating these games. Original Genesis and SNES carts are reasonably-priced on the secondhand market, Mickey's Ultimate Challenge is barely even worth the money, and you can buy a massively-upgraded port of Castle of Illusion, right now, for any cellphone, iPad, or Android-compatible tablet, for $5. FIVE. DOLLARS.
So there you go. That's 6 specific cases of games that were all originally released 15 or more years ago. Four of them are illegal to pirate, but still easy to obtain legally. One is abandonware. One is illegal to pirate, but difficult or impossible to obtain legally at anything like a fair price.
In my personal opinion, any game that is still available brand-new from the original manufacturer, either in its original form or as a port/remake, should be purchased the good old-fashioned way. Most new games nowadays have free demos available; this isn't feasible for ports, but those ports have been reviewed and Let's Played to death if you want to get a feel for what the game's like before you buy. Don't pirate them. Pirating a game that is still actively being sold by the developer hurts the devs. Yes, even the $70 AAA titles. The Telltale Games debacle shows that game-developing is a massive gamble, and if a company loses too much money on a game, they can, in fact, go under. (And in the case of Telltale Games, leave their entire employee base unemployed and without benefits or severance pay, then start right back up again--without giving former employees ANY of these things that they had earned--as if they were a brand new company.)
If a game is legally abandonware (and you should check Wikipedia to see if it was ported or remade after 1994, because you never know), then downloading a ROM for free is not, legally, piracy. Any game that has had NO ports, re-releases, or copyright renewals in 25 years or more is, legally, no longer under copyright under US law and can be legally distributed for free. This only applies to video games, and only in the United States. And again, if there's been a port, re-release, or copyright renewal to a game within the past 25 years, it's still under copyright, and downloading that ROM is piracy. Because of this law, the Internet Archive actually has a lot of abandonware DOS games available for free download, 100% legally. (And yes, they check to make sure it really IS abandonware according to US law.) So since it's not piracy, it should be totally OK for you to get that free ROM in these cases, but be aware that heavy-hitters like Nintendo can afford to sue you anyway if they catch you.
If a game has been out of print for more than 10 years, is hard to find for anything less than $100USD on the secondhand market, and the publisher has flat-out refused to port it to a new system, then there is no legal way to get that game for a fair price. This means that either you need to cough up way more than any game is worth, or break the law, if you want to actually play that game. There aren't any games worth that expense to me right now (except Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, but I still have a copy of that game from when it was new). Path of Radiance could be, but I'd rather just improve my Japanese, buy a Japanese GCN, and get a Japanese copy of the game than spend $175 for a game when the console it's on is literally available for less than $30 on eBay.
Furthermore, scalping copies of games that have been out of print for a decade is bad, and you should feel bad. I'm looking at you, Guy Who Sells A Used GameCube Game For $1500. Charging more than $120 for these games is just plain extortion. Stop doing that.
So let's talk about this via actual examples, and who does or doesn't benefit in each case. This post will be very, very long, so I'm putting my examples behind a cut. (And it took me three and a half hours to research and type this post, so y'all better not complain about me leaving out a game you like. Research and write your own damned post.)
Example 1: Metroid
Metroid was released for the Famicom in 1986, and for its US counterpart, the NES, in 1987. It has been ported many times in 33 years: there was a GBA cartridge port, a Wii Shop Channel port, and the game is available on the Switch as part of a subscription to Nintendo's online service.
Obtaining it legally, for NES:
Any copies of the NES cartridge are going to be about 30 years old, if not older. There is no guarantee that the cartridge still works, because the inside could have degraded over time even if it was kept in the relatively dry, cool environment of someone's home.
Here is a recent eBay listing for the NES cartridge. (Click the images in this post to see them full-size.)
That's about $20US more than the cartridge cost when it was new, not counting shipping costs. Pricey, but reasonable if you're focused on obtaining a physical copy of the original cartridge, rather than just "I want to play the game." Because this is a used copy, neither the game devs nor Nintendo's corporate office will get one red cent from the person who purchased this game from eBay user jonadesor-0.
Who benefits: The seller benefits by getting money for their old copy of the game. The purchaser benefits by getting a copy of the game they wanted. Nintendo does not benefit from the sale of this out-of-print version of the game at all.
Obtaining it legally, for GBA:
The GBA port was released in 2004. This means it's been out of print for about 15 years, but since that's about half the age of the original game, copies are far less likely to be as badly degraded as the average NES cartridge. Cartridge failure within even just a decade can and does happen; it's just less likely because of the much shorter timeframe.
Here are 3 eBay listings for the GBA port of the original Metroid, all current as of Sept. 8, 2019 (all prices in USD):
These are clearly different levels of quality, and the price reflects that. The cheapest cartridge, which has a peeling-off label, is $4.25. The one which states in the title of the listing that it has been tested to ensure that it still works is $16.99. The one that's mint in box costs about $60--which is a lot considering the game was only $35 when new, and is a port of a previously-existing game! Considering that a mint-in-box game hasn't been playtested recently, $60 is patently ridiculous if your reason for buying the game is just so you can play Metroid.
Who benefits: Same as before: The seller benefits by getting money for their old copy of the game. The purchaser benefits by getting a copy of the game they wanted. Nintendo does not benefit from the sale of this out-of-print version of the game at all.
Obtaining it legally, via the Wii Shop Channel:
Metroid was one of many classic NES, SNES, and N64 games to be available for digital download on the Wii Shop Channel. It was released in 2007, and was available for 500 Points (the equivalent of $5US) from then until the Wii Shop Channel was taken down permanently in January of 2019 (along with the last vestiges of Internet support for anything other than the Opera browser, if you've got that).
It is no longer possible to buy the game this way, and I am only including it for completeness.
Who benefits: If you purchased the game this way, then you benefited by getting a copy of the game (which, if you didn't back it up to your SD card, can no longer be re-downloaded because Nintendo offers zero Wii support of any kind nowadays). Nintendo got $5, but since the devs got paid for this game back in the 1980s, and porting a game of that size isn't all that expensive or difficult, the money from sales of this and other NES ports probably went towards other purposes.
Obtaining it legally, by purchasing Metroid Fusion, Metroid Prime, a GBA-GameCube link cable, and if necessary the GameCube (or Wii) and a Game Boy Advance:
First of all, while this was feasible for Metroid fans who already owned one or both games at the time, using the method of linking Metroid Fusion to Metroid Prime is far too expensive if all you want is to play the original Metroid, and was even when these items were all easy to find on the cheap. Again, this is only being included for the sake of completeness, and I do not recommend buying all of these items unless you also intend on playing the other 2 games.
A quick ebay search gives the following prices for these items (all in USD, shipping charges not included):
Metroid Fusion: $14.10, with original box (original price: $35)
Metroid Prime: $11.50 (original price: $60)
GBA link cable: $4.79, assuming that the knockoff is of the same quality as the original. Otherwise, about $10-20. (Original price: N/A because IIRC you could only get the cable with copies of Four Swords Adventures, which was a whopping $60)
Gamecube: I found a $27 listing for the console, an extra (third-party) controller, AND one of the nicer third-party memory cards. (Original price: $200 for the console, $15 for the third-party controller, $5 for the memory card)
GBA: $45 for an SP, $25 for the original model. Both work, so it's up to personal preference. (Original price: $100)
Total cost: $82.39 if you go for the cheapest of the above options (not counting shipping). (Original price: $406, since the memory card is necessary to enjoy a GameCube game, but a second controller isn't necessary for either game.) So about the same as that NES cartridge, but this includes consoles as well.
Who benefits: Well, if you're an aficionado of collecting old video-game memorabilia, like the host of Stop Skeletons From Fighting, then you benefit by having this delightfully-convoluted way of playing Metroid. But, um, why?! The sellers benefit, because they now have your money. And again, all of this stuff is out of print. Nintendo profits not at all.
Obtaining it legally, by subscribing to Nintendo Online Service:
Metroid, along with quite a few other NES/Famicom and SNES/Super Famicom games, are available for free with a subscription to Nintendo Online Service. The service costs $20/year for a single user, $35/year for a "family plan" that includes all users on a single console, and if you unsubscribe, you lose your copies of these games.
Considering that both PSN and XBL cost way more than Nintendo Online Service, this isn't too bad a price to pay to be able to play your games online, especially since you get your own classic games library that you can also play online. (Try doing that with the original NES!)
Who benefits: You benefit by being able to play your existing Switch games online, and by being able to play Metroid, and a bunch of other games, for less than the cost of getting a fancy Starbucks coffee per month. Nintendo benefits by having an easy way to fund its servers for online play AND since the games are cheap and easy to port, it's easy to offer the games as further incentive for people to subscribe. Sure, the Switch is expensive, but if you already have one, then this is a no-brainer.
Piracy:
Good luck finding a Metroid ROM. Nintendo has cracked down on illegal ROM-hosting sites in recent years, and does occasional random Google sweeps to find offenders. The vast majority of emulator and ROM-hosting sites have removed all copies of NES and SNES games because of this.
Finding a knock-off cartridge would be easier, but again, this is also illegal.
Who benefits: You benefit by having a copy of the game, and the seller of knock-off cartridges benefits by getting your money, but since this is against the law, and the NSA has been storing records of everyone's internet history since 2004, you have a decent chance of getting caught. The penalties for game piracy, if Nintendo decides to press charges, are usually more than the games are worth.
The verdict: This game is widely-available in many formats. Prices vary, but even the most convoluted method of playing the original Metroid costs less than $100, and that includes both of the necessary consoles--an absolute steal. Buying a GBA and the GBA port could run you as little as $40, total. If you own a Switch, playing Metroid via NES Online takes 2 whole years to go above that cost. Piracy is definitely not justified for this game.
Example 2: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
I'm mentioning this game because it's the primary example people are using right now to support piracy of out-of-print GameCube games. Other, more obscure games are more expensive, but since the Fire Emblem games have been a Huge Deal in Japan for over 30 years, and have finally gotten a decent amount of attention in the US after decades of cult status, this struck me as the best example.
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2005. It was only the third game in the series to get an official US release. Thus far, there have not been any ports to other systems.
Obtaining it legally:
Like other GameCube games, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance has been out-of-print since the release of the Nintendo Wii. Because no other legal methods of getting the game exist, the few copies on the market are stupidly-expensive. Looking at the first page of eBay results, here's the least-expensive, the most-expensive, and the most common price (again, USD, shipping not included):
All but one of the entries under $100US were for packaging only, without the game disc itself! (Imagine being the poor soul who spends $75 for this game, only to realize they've bought a goddamn empty case because they didn't read the fine print.) Most copies go for between $100 and $170. The infamous $300+ copy is not a fake image--I found a copy for $310 here--but it's a bit of an outlier, and the most expensive copy is an absolutely ludicrous $1400, for a copy of a game that cost $60 when it was new.
$1400. That's over 23 times what someone paid for that copy of the game on the store shelf in 2005.
Who benefits: Scalpers. I can't even say that YOU benefit from purchasing this game, given that the median price appears to be double the original retail price. Only hardcore Fire Emblem fans should even bother purchasing this game in America.
Ah, but wait! What about the game's original market? What about Japan?
That's right, folks: I went to the trouble of searching for the game by its original Japanese title, ファイヤーエムブレム蒼炎の軌跡 ("Fiya- Emuburemu: Souen No Kisaki"), restricting my search to entries from the past year. (Thank you, Nintendo, for including furigana in the official game title so I could actually get my computer to type that. Also, I have learned that a seriously MASSIVE number of kanji are pronounced "sou." This one wasn't even in the first 10 suggestions when I typed that phoneme in using Windows 10's hiragana input.)
The vast majority of hits were blogs. A lot of gamers mentioned this game recently, I guess, but since I can barely comprehend any Japanese at all (I can sound out kana, and know a few kanji, but my vocab is still very, very small) I didn't bother finding out what they have to say about it.
There was a Yahoo! Auctions result, but as the auction had ended and Yahoo! doesn't allow you to see info on past auctions at all, this was a bust.
What I did find were the following:
Amazon is a US company, so perhaps it's not so surprising that the game costs as much via Amazon Japan as it does when sold by scalpers on eBay, especially since Amazon's price-setting bots tend to crawl the Internet looking at other people's prices for stuff in order to set a "fair" price.
The Uridoki listings, however, tell a different story. It looks like the average Japanese gamer considers $15-25 to be a reasonable cost for a used game from about 15 years ago (which is a common price for easily-available used games of that age in the US, and has been for well over a decade). This means that way more copies of Path of Radiance were produced for the Japanese market than the US market (understandably, given that Japan has a MUCH larger Fire Emblem fandom than the US), keeping the cost down to what you'd expect to pay for Super Mario Sunshine. (What you'd ACTUALLY pay for Super Mario Sunshine is...holy shit, Amazon, over $100?! Seriously?)
So yeah, if you can read Japanese, just buy a Japanese GameCube and a copy of the game from Japan. As long as you don't use Amazon, you'll get a pretty good deal.
Who benefits: Again, these are all used copies of a game that's been out of print for years. Copy and paste the results from the NES or GBA ports of Metroid.
The verdict: If you can read Japanese, then pretty much ANY GameCube game that was released in both Japan and the US is cheaper if you order it from Japan, even if you factor in the cost of overseas shipping. Otherwise, scalpers have made the average GameCube game far more expensive than makes any kind of sense, even given the relative scarcity of an out-of-print game.
If you can't read Japanese, then I hate to say it, but the pirates are right on this one. Demand so far outstrips supply for pretty much any GameCube game that unless it was on the budget-titles list or is part of a series of basically-interchangable games (like SSBM or MarioKart Double Dash), you're going to pay way more for that used/refurbished copy than you would have paid new. (Sonic Adventure 2: Battle sells for $40, which isn't all that surprising considering that the full game with the add-ons from the GCN version is only $12 on Steam.) In short, Nintendo's decision not to port ANY GameCube titles other than the two Zeldas both shortchanges fans AND leaves easy money on the table.
Case 3: Mickey Mouse games for Genesis/MegaDrive
There were a lot of Disney video games released on the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive and the Super Famicom/SNES. Four of them starred Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion, World of Illusion, Mickey Mania, and Mickey's Ultimate Challenge. Yes, I have played all 4 of these games on the Genesis. If there's one thing Blockbuster Video knew, it's that a Mickey Mouse game is a good investment to have on your game-rental shelf. (Or at least it was in the early 90s, when Disney games were all made with care to produce a good quality product. Most Disney games since have been licensed shovelware not worth the purchase price.)
Castle of Illusion (a Sega exclusive) was remade and released on the PS3 (and is utterly gorgeous--if you like Mickey and platformers, and you own a PS3, you should already have a copy). The PS3 remake was also released for iOS and Android devices. World of Illusion was also a Genesis exclusive, but never got the remake treatment. It was an OK platformer; the only thing I really remember about it that was memorable is that you could play co-op with the 2nd player controlling Donald Duck. (The other Sega games in the Illusion/I Love Mickey Mouse series were only for Game Gear and Master System, so I'm ignoring them here.) Mickey Mania was very heavily-advertised as a tribute to Mickey's 65th anniversary (it came out a year late) and features Mickey traveling through some of his old cartoons. It got a PlayStation upgrade with new sprites within 2 years under the title Mickey's Wild Adventure. (Insert fangirl raving about Traveller's Tales here.)
Mickey's Ultimate Challenge isn't a platformer like the others. It's a kind of weird game, really. You complete all the challenges to get items that the other NPCs need, then make sure you give those items to the right person, or you'll lose them forever, making the game unwinnable. (The lowest difficulty setting makes it so that if you try to give an item to the wrong NPC, they'll refuse it; the other settings allow you to suffer the consequences of an obviously-bad choice.) Then you climb the magic beanstalk and solve a sliding puzzle to finish the game.
It's short. You can easily play through the whole game in less than 3 hours on your very first try, even assuming you use the difficulty level calibrated to your age. (The easiest is meant to be solvable by kindergartners, with the hardest being an adult-level challenge.)
Legally, any game that hasn't had a release (including ports and remakes) or copyright extension in 25 years or more is considered abandonware and is fair game. Technically none of these count as of 2019, except for World of Illusion: the Castle of Illusion remake is still for sale, Mickey Mania's most recent release was in 1996, and Mickey's Ultimate Challenge was ported as the Master System's last hurrah in 1998. So legally, World of Illusion is the only one you can just download a ROM of (if you can find it) without violating US law, even though the two 1994 titles haven't been in stores for over 20 years in any form.
So let's look at how these four games go. Same test.
Obtaining It Legally: Genesis/Megadrive and SNES Cartridges
Since two of these games were also released for SNES at the same time as the Genesis/MegaDrive release, I'm including it here.
Castle of Illusion: Copies of the Genesis/MegaDrive version that aren't obvious pirated copies (the game came out in 1990; if a listing says "Brand New," it's not legit) range from about $15-40, with the Japanese version accounting for pretty much all of the ones over $30. (Reprints of the box art and pirated copies are rampant, however, and all tend to be $13 or less.) The Game Gear version goes for less than $10.
World of Illusion: This one ranges from $9-30. As always, the most expensive listings include the original packaging and instruction manual. Average price around $18.
Mickey Mania: Ranges from $10-40, with the Sega CD version fetching up to $75 for a complete set. The more expensive copies include the package, manual, AND the included poster. This was a very popular game, so you also have a lot of listings of JUST the box going for the same price as the full game. Average price around $20.
Mickey's Ultimate Challenge: The vast majority of eBay listings, including ones with the original packaging and instruction manual, are under $20. This includes the Game Boy release. The average price is about $10. (Not surprising, really.)
Obtaining It Legally: 90s-era Rereleases
Since Mickey Mania, Castle of Illusion, and Mickey's Ultimate Challenge were all either ported or completely re-vamped for releases in the late 90s, it's only fair that I include prices for these.
SEGA AGES Castle of Illusion (Sega Saturn): The Sega Saturn was a complete bust in the US, so I found exactly 3 eBay listings, two of which are for the Japanese version. Prices range from $76-85.
Mickey's Wild Adventure (Mickey Mania PS release): Entries range from $5-35, but most of those are international sellers and ALL are PAL region-locked. (The Americas, except for Uruguay and I think Paraguay, are NTSC.) So outside of Europe, this version is a non-starter.
Mickeys' Ultimate Challenge Master System release: I found 2 copies. One was for $170 and the other was a whopping $450 (yes, really). When you consider that the Master System was released in the late 80s and this game didn't come out until 1998, over a decade after its release in all markets except Brazil, this isn't too surprising. I wasn't kidding when I said this was the VERY LAST game released for the Sega Master System. It was deader than dead by the time this version came out. The unsold copies probably ended up in landfills alongside the ET game for Atari.
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Obtaining It Legally: Castle of Illusion Remake
The only game to get the re-release treatment after 2000 was Castle of Illusion, which was completely remade by Sega as a well-crafted homage to the original and released in 2013. Level designs were tweaked to make some parts of the level 3D, but the 2D parts are laid out exactly the same as in the original. The PSN digital game is still up on the official PlayStation Store site for $15. I don't know if you can actually still buy it though--if anyone tries it, I'd love to know.
The iOS port is available for $5. Seriously, don't pirate Castle of Illusion. You can buy it legit for FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS, brand new.
The remake is also the only version of any of these games that you can still purchase new (in fact, you can't get it used at all, because it's a digital copy), so buying it this way also pays Sega and the developers.
The Verdict: Unless World of Illusion is totally out of stock when you check and you're just dying to play that specific game for some weird reason, just don't even bother pirating these games. Original Genesis and SNES carts are reasonably-priced on the secondhand market, Mickey's Ultimate Challenge is barely even worth the money, and you can buy a massively-upgraded port of Castle of Illusion, right now, for any cellphone, iPad, or Android-compatible tablet, for $5. FIVE. DOLLARS.
So there you go. That's 6 specific cases of games that were all originally released 15 or more years ago. Four of them are illegal to pirate, but still easy to obtain legally. One is abandonware. One is illegal to pirate, but difficult or impossible to obtain legally at anything like a fair price.
In my personal opinion, any game that is still available brand-new from the original manufacturer, either in its original form or as a port/remake, should be purchased the good old-fashioned way. Most new games nowadays have free demos available; this isn't feasible for ports, but those ports have been reviewed and Let's Played to death if you want to get a feel for what the game's like before you buy. Don't pirate them. Pirating a game that is still actively being sold by the developer hurts the devs. Yes, even the $70 AAA titles. The Telltale Games debacle shows that game-developing is a massive gamble, and if a company loses too much money on a game, they can, in fact, go under. (And in the case of Telltale Games, leave their entire employee base unemployed and without benefits or severance pay, then start right back up again--without giving former employees ANY of these things that they had earned--as if they were a brand new company.)
If a game is legally abandonware (and you should check Wikipedia to see if it was ported or remade after 1994, because you never know), then downloading a ROM for free is not, legally, piracy. Any game that has had NO ports, re-releases, or copyright renewals in 25 years or more is, legally, no longer under copyright under US law and can be legally distributed for free. This only applies to video games, and only in the United States. And again, if there's been a port, re-release, or copyright renewal to a game within the past 25 years, it's still under copyright, and downloading that ROM is piracy. Because of this law, the Internet Archive actually has a lot of abandonware DOS games available for free download, 100% legally. (And yes, they check to make sure it really IS abandonware according to US law.) So since it's not piracy, it should be totally OK for you to get that free ROM in these cases, but be aware that heavy-hitters like Nintendo can afford to sue you anyway if they catch you.
If a game has been out of print for more than 10 years, is hard to find for anything less than $100USD on the secondhand market, and the publisher has flat-out refused to port it to a new system, then there is no legal way to get that game for a fair price. This means that either you need to cough up way more than any game is worth, or break the law, if you want to actually play that game. There aren't any games worth that expense to me right now (except Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, but I still have a copy of that game from when it was new). Path of Radiance could be, but I'd rather just improve my Japanese, buy a Japanese GCN, and get a Japanese copy of the game than spend $175 for a game when the console it's on is literally available for less than $30 on eBay.
Furthermore, scalping copies of games that have been out of print for a decade is bad, and you should feel bad. I'm looking at you, Guy Who Sells A Used GameCube Game For $1500. Charging more than $120 for these games is just plain extortion. Stop doing that.
