Should downloading games be considered illegal if they are 20 or even 30 years old?

Games like the original nes and snes are not made anymore, and the only reason to have it illegal, is to sell it on pan for full price.games like ultima 1 and wizardry are 35 years old.I have seen some posts where people say it should be illegal even if that old:Why? Furthermore:Some games that are no longer being made are sold one by for 10 times the price, and the original maker doesn’t make anymore profit.

If I could post a link, I would show one showing how Nintendo gets angry if you download an old nes game of theirs instead of purchasing it from some guy on eBay, or Amazon.

The reason that it is illegal is that like books, movies and tv, it falls under international copyright laws. these laws protect the work from anywhere between 70 to 100 years depending on the country. In Canada it is 70 years and once that time is up the work falls into the public domain and is free to use for whatever purpose. I understand you frustration at the high prices charged by people online, but unless the company specifically puts it out in the public domain they still will do everything to keep their rights protected. That’s why a fan made 3d chrono trigger games was canceled. Square Enix caught wind of it and killed it.

What if nothing is done with a game and it’s 25 and up years old? I understand that publishers don’t want to lose money.I am against pirating brand new games and even games as recent as 5 years old.

Game franchises never really end. They are always coming back in surprise new entries, or reboots or whatever. If there is no clear reason to do so, no company will allow others to interfere with their property. The amount of people who *truly* care about preserving and wanting to play the really old games is very small when taken as a percentage of the consumer base as a whole.

Just be glad that you had those experiences at all. Newer gamers may not know what they are missing out on, or not recognize the value of those games, but its their loss. And no, I don’t say that to be elitist and mean about hoarding such things. Its just the way things are.

What harm does it do though? A person who learns about it by playing, or even hacking a rom to make it harder or give it another script, makes it extra enjoyable.I learned about other games in the mother series by Roms, specifically mother 3 and mother 1 on the nes, which is similar to mother 2.I refuse to get Roms of newer games though.

Ultimately, it should be up to the original creator(s) of the game/program/etc. whether or not it should be allowed to freely download until the work is no longer protected by law. That said, copyright laws are still outdated and don’t properly address the nature of digital media in general.
Nintendo, for example, is still porting old games to their newer systems to continue to sell them. As long as they have the rights to the IP, they can and should be allowed to do what they want with it. What we think about what they do with their IPs is irrelevant. They don’t belong to us.
Now, whether or not they are making a good variety of them available to many people to play at reasonable prices is a whole ‘nother discussion to be had. (They aren’t. Just sayin’)

The answer is that there is no reason for them to do so. Gamers never reward good will by publishers and developers. EA for example could give away free games to everyone, clothe and feed the poor of the parish, cure AIDS and defeat ISIS. Yet people would talk shit about them and insist they are the Devil’s spawn.

Messing around with the rights to your property is legal minefield. Making any kind of concessions opens your legal department up to all kinds of potential difficulties down the line when trying to protect other products. Precedent is one of the most important things taken into consideration by the law. If there is no pressing need to allow people access to your property, then most companies will leave well alone and as they do with everything else, will trust that something that has worked for them thus far, will continue to work for them forever.

Asking any company to alter its established habits and business practices on just about any issue is like trying to turn a supertanker.

I wasn’t expecting everything to be given away.

I don’t think it’s right either to give every game away.Also:I would rather pay for a game and know it has effort in it, than a free android game with little to no effort and paywalls for faster building or coins for power ups