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Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

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Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#201

Post by iinnPP »

serf wrote: post #198
redox99 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". If getting switch ROMs were as easy as buying any other game on Steam, most people would probably pay, the same way most people already pay instead of pirating PC games.

> Only because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". how many rootkit-level DRMs does Steam need to distribute before we can throw that comment of Gabe's out the window? They own the PC market, they have just about mastered software distribution, and everyone seems fairly happy with the service provided, yet piracy still ex…

I have a Steam library like many people (with 500+ games I will never play) and have not pirated a game since installing Steam.

It is easy, affordable, and acceptable to me. I think the user experience can improve a lot. At this moment however, it is my preferred method of buying games.

The service problem is the problem for me. A Prime example being that I "pirate" movies available to me as a Amazon subscriber because of the VPN policy.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#202

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jimbob45 wrote: post #96
RajT88 wrote: post #51

Oddly enough, the light that Humble Bundles have shone into gaming revenue cycles has made me question our copyright system as a whole. Stay with me. In Europe during the time of Mozart, composers were incentivized to be prolific by only getting royalties off the first public performance of their works. Now that is not fair today because of course we can losslessy reproduce such things infinitely. However, Humble Bun…

We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. An advocate for the devil would claim that those creators were compensated upfront rather than over the lifetime of the product. Therefore, the company is rightfully collecting the revenue that the creator left to them that…

Wouldn't such an argument strongly favour the company (Nintendo's) copyright expiring early--as they were compensated up front by the first raft of sales--and so suggest we, the public, should limit their copyright as that won't inhibit new development and will enrich the public domain.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#203

Post by [deleted] »

ThinBold wrote: post #131
lousken wrote: post #7

And what's the problem exactly? It's just emulation - if anything should cause a stir, it should be nintendo for their anti-consumer behaviour

VALVe themselves have game IPs they want to protect. Within the boundary of "it's legal, wygd" there are always ways to make pirating VALVe games easier and VALVe will stand no ground to ban those.

[deleted]

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#204

Post by dotnet00 »

some-human wrote: post #200
knaik94 wrote: post #61

While this is legal, Nintendo is very vocally anti-emulation. Nintendo and Denuvo announced anti-emulation measures for switch games in August 2022. There's a big difference between support and marketing support. Nintendo doesn't care what other companies do internally, but cares a lot about what is shown publicly. I remember when Nintendo took down a bunch of youtube videos showing how to jailbreak the original swit…

Nintendo are anti piracy, not anti-emulation. They used to sell emulators on their marketplace for their back catalogue under the 'virtual console' brand and more recently on Switch include emulation for NES, SNES and Nintendo 64 titles as a benefit on their online subscription model. https://www.nintendo.com/switch/online-service/

They're anti-emulation when they aren't the ones doing it.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#205

Post by dartharva »

serf wrote: post #198
redox99 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". If getting switch ROMs were as easy as buying any other game on Steam, most people would probably pay, the same way most people already pay instead of pirating PC games.

> Only because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". how many rootkit-level DRMs does Steam need to distribute before we can throw that comment of Gabe's out the window? They own the PC market, they have just about mastered software distribution, and everyone seems fairly happy with the service provided, yet piracy still ex…

Gaben's comment is related to how you can curb the effects of piracy by making games accessible and easy to install, which Steam undoubtedly does. There will obviously be people still not willing to pay who pirate games, but these were never a marketable population anyway. By improving your services you reduce the relative appeal of Pirate sources for the actual target population of these games, i.e. people willing to pay.

Piracy often wins in cases when it provides a vastly superior experience than official channels themselves. A LOT of today's AAA titles end up giving a massively better experience in Pirate releases than in official ones - Assassin's Creed and Far Cry series, Bethesda's Doom and Wolfenstein series, the Mass Effect series, Rockstar's GTA series,... the list goes on and on - plainly because the official releases are so insufferably bloated and ridden with consumer-hostile designs. Piracy is indeed a service problem. Ensure your services are good and people won't turn to Pirate releases anymore.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#206

Post by dotnet00 »

int_19h wrote: post #157
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be easily solved, if the burden of proof was on the company itself... when they report/sue you for copyright infringement, they'd just have to prove, that it's reasonably simple for the person to obtain the material legally (so, is there a (eg nintendo) distributer in the country of the accused, is there a store that sells those games there, is it possible to buy it online, etc.). If there are no reasonabl…

Simpler still, collect property taxes on copyright. Companies aren't going to pay money just to sit on something that doesn't earn more money.

That simply ruins the copyright system for everyone that isn't making money. Which is pretty bad given that copyright is also what stops people from say, simply stealing someone's art drawn and shared as a hobby or even drawn and shared as part of a portfolio (and thus indirectly being a potential source of profit for them).

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#207

Post by dartharva »

ThinBold wrote: post #131
lousken wrote: post #7

And what's the problem exactly? It's just emulation - if anything should cause a stir, it should be nintendo for their anti-consumer behaviour

VALVe themselves have game IPs they want to protect. Within the boundary of "it's legal, wygd" there are always ways to make pirating VALVe games easier and VALVe will stand no ground to ban those.

Name one instance when Valve showed even a fraction of the amount of aggression Nintendo shows to protect its IP. Pirating Valve games has always been easy - it's as easy as copying the game folder anywhere else and running the game executable.

When you are confident in your own products, you don't have to stoop to cheap user-hostile bullying tactics to protect your wares.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#208

Post by goosedragons »

redox99 wrote: post #92
ErneX wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s pretty obvious most people using Switch emulators are getting the games on the net for free. So it’s awkward to show that on promotional material of another handheld device.

Only because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". If getting switch ROMs were as easy as buying any other game on Steam, most people would probably pay, the same way most people already pay instead of pirating PC games.

It's extremely easy to buy Switch ROMs and is just as easy as buying a game off Steam. Just buy it off Nintendo's website, the eShop or Humble Bundle or wherever.

Dumping the game so you can use it on an emulator isn't as easy but removing the DRM from a Steam title isn't necessarily easy either (especially if it's a new release).

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#209

Post by redox99 »

goosedragons wrote: post #208
redox99 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". If getting switch ROMs were as easy as buying any other game on Steam, most people would probably pay, the same way most people already pay instead of pirating PC games.

It's extremely easy to buy Switch ROMs and is just as easy as buying a game off Steam. Just buy it off Nintendo's website, the eShop or Humble Bundle or wherever. Dumping the game so you can use it on an emulator isn't as easy but removing the DRM from a Steam title isn't necessarily easy either (especially if it's a new release).

That's not buying a ROM. That's like saying when you "buy" a movie in Prime Video you are buying an mp4.

Buying a ROM would mean buying a ROM. As in, you get the .ROM.

Steam DRM by the way is trivial to bypass. From Steamworks documentation:

> The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy (i.e. copying all game files to another computer) and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker.

Of course some games have third party DRM, and in the store it will tell you that before you buy it.

But the problem is not the DRM here. Your average gamer wouldn't care about a non invasive as long as they could get the same or better experience than they can now using a pirated ROM.

Re: Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator

#210

Post by bscphil »

stavros wrote: post #189
thristian wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game developers are not required to implement Steam DRM to sell their games on the Steam store. If a game developer chooses to implement Steam DRM, Valve will enforce it.

Yes. What is the other meaning? DRM that doesn't enforce protection?

Not sure where the confusion lies here. If the developer wants Steam DRM, then Steam enforces it. It's not just the Steam API integration, if the game has Steam DRM and you try to start it without the Steam-specific files and your cached login present on the system, it won't work.

I call that "enforcement", and most significant games on Steam use it.

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