Time to get off my ass and grab as many roms and isos as I can before they actually manage to scrub them for good.

The state of this industry really gets to me. I don't even hardly game anymore. I've broken my brain so badly I can't seem to enjoy them without a constant looming existential dread that I'm failing to do other more important things.

But I learned to code when I was a fucking TODDLER and all I EVER WANTED was to join a studio and make sick ass games. Then the EA Spouses letter was released and I realised that the dream would in actuality be a goddamn nightmare. Then I learned even more, about capitalism and work and life has been one miserable fucking slog without even my old comfort of gaming to soothe my intrusive sense of fucking failure.

Fuck them. Pirate everything. If you take it, it is yours.

I put down my emulation handheld that runs up to ps2 and some wii games to type this comment

They think these older games would cannibalize sales from newer releases, which is uniquely stupid.

It's only stupid when it's only RETRO-RETRO games, like from the N64 backwards. Yeah I might spend some time on a retro game but they're usually very short and they're probably not gonna scratch the itch of a modern game, though for JRPGs that might not be the case.

But when we talk about from the ps2 onwards? Yeah sometimes I play one of the many many many 6th gen games instead of buying a recently released game at full price.

It's obvious that they just don't want to start the process of making old legally inaccessible game freely available, because then we could start with Retro games and then move forwards into games that DO bite into new game sales.

Either way emulation is always available, so I'm not losing sleep over this.

Video game industry as always trailblazing for all the worst reasons. But sure some pronouns, a minority and a woman in games is the problem. Got mfs paying 10s of thousands on diablo immortal, will end up getting adverts every 5 minutes in a triple A game like crusty mobile games but they'll still whine about a minority even in non speaking roles. Gamers do this to themselves I swear

Yeah good luck suing roms off the internet because it's never going to happen. People are going to want to play retro games in the same way that readers enjoy the classics.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Aside from obvious stuff like, fuck IP and you aren't entitled to customers, there's also this:

Nobody makes these games anymore.

When I was a kid I loved Mega Man Battle Network. You know when they last released one? 2008.

I also loved Mega Man Legacy, last entry was in 2000.

They don't make these anymore.

The closest we've seen is One Step From Eden and it's a fast paced combat only roguelike from an indie studio. I still bought and enjoyed it, idk maybe if a major legacy studio would make games like the ones they don't want to let people access instead of timed dopamine release triggering addiction machines designed to sell loot boxes they wouldn't have to worry so much about "piracy."

preserved video games would be used for recreational purposes

And what about those of us who use preserved video games for medicinal purposes huh? HUH? OH YEAH I'M TALKING ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS LETS NOT BEAT AROUND THE BUSH YOU REALLY WANT TO TAKE AWAY THE TREATS THAT KEEP US TOO BUSY TO ORGANISE, TO BUILD UNDERGROUND NETWORKS IN REAL LIFE INSTEAD OF IN VIDEO GAMES? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO TAKE AWAY THE FAVOURITE OUTLETS OF PEOPLE WITH FASTER TWITCH REFLEXES THAN YOUR PATHETIC SO-CALLED 'SPECIAL OPERATORS' AKA PUSSY ASS DUDES ITCHING FOR BOOK DEALS AND TALK SHOW INTERVIEWS WITH 5 MILLION DOLLARS OF TECH TO PROTECT THEM BUT STRICTLY MANDATED ONLY TO ACT ON FOREIGN SOIL?

Good luck with that lol the global south is crawling with bootleggers who sell bootleg consoles packed with retro games all the time. I have a couple myself to play all the SNES, PS1, and Arcade classics.

They targeted gamers.

Gamers.

We're a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.

We'll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it's fun.

We'll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.

Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know evety little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.

Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?

These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We're already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren't shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic,removed apologists is going to change us? We've been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. They picked a fight against a group that's already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they've threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can't is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.

Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You're not special, you're not original, you're not the first; this is just another boss fight.