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Emulation, defined by the all knowing authority, Wikipedia, means "to duplicate the functions of one system using another." However, a better definition would be "I'm playing Mario on my computer." Through virtual hardware, we're granted access to games long past their retail shelf life for either very low prices or even completely free -- although the latter can be questionable both ethically and legally. With this comes the added bonus of being able to experience a title long after it's original cartridges/cabinets fail. In short, emulation is fundamentally necessary for preserving the historical roots of interactive media.
While such a selfless and noble motivation is probably the most important result of these virtual consoles, it's hardly the driving force for the mass adoption enjoyed by emulation over the last decade. Let's be honest, the real reason is because it's possible to copy every single game ever released prior to disc-based media onto your computer in the amount of time it takes to eat lunch. Not only can you access any of them within thirty seconds, but they can be perfectly upscaled and color calibrated to your shiny new monitor or HDTV. There's no static, dusty pin connectors, color bleed, shelving space, a/v switches or daisy-chained power strips to play all these consoles; and most importantly, there's no scarcity. If you want to play Earthbound and you live in the US, you don't need to shell out 80-100 dollars to get a copy. The storage space required for that particular games takes up less space than most MP3s. Or if you decide to play the unreleased NES predecessor to the cult classic and you don't speak Japanese, emulation provides the opportunity to experience something never offered to previous generations: unofficial translations.
In a way, emulation is the Che Guevara of gaming. When a console manufacturer says "no", the people can rise up and say "yes!" Granted, since this generation has seen copious remakes and rereleases through various official channels, it's also the Che Guevara t-shirt of gaming as well. In the long term though, most seemingly don't care how the revolution got here and where it will go in the future, they just want it to show up in a timely and reasonable manner. But below this display of adoration lurks a fundamental question which has yet to be answered: What's the goal of the revolution is in the first place?
For those who think the revolution is to play old games, the overwhelming support from virtually every end of the spectrum are evidence of a resounding victory. I once placed myself in that camp, yet even after all these years of geekhood and a computer which can comfortably run Crysis, I still find myself going through the effort to hunt down original systems and games, replace NES cart batteries, and keep my unreasonably large collection of games. Forcing me to realize why I haven't forsaken these pursuits when I could be spending all that time and money doing something a bit more constructive, you know, like creating witty bumper stickers or solving world peace? It's not because of nostalgia, though that certainly plays a part; I've enjoyed some pretty mediocre games simply because I had them as a child.
No, my pursuit acts as the perfect example for why emulation is nowhere near it's promise of solving the problem -- at least as it stands today. While emulators can perfectly process the code, sometimes even better than their original hardware, that doesn't create the experience. To argue that emulation of a game provides a comparable experience to the developer-intended setup is akin to believing that watching 2001: A Space Odyssey on a 5 inch black and white portable TV is just as good as the theatrical release.
While emulation may reproduce the code's data for visual/audio output, it just can't reproduce the experience. Playing with a keyboard or generic controller or on anything other than a CRT television fails to deliver the designer's intended experience.
Original controllers and displays aren't just a preferential problem; some very practical issues can arise when the code is executed on newer hardware. Phosphor glow , scan lines, and independent resolutions/refresh rates are but a few of the CRT quirks and features used by developers to produce effects the systems weren't designed to generate. Without these many common output effects like transparency by 'flickering' the sprite on and off result in an ugly blinking block of pixels. The input can be just as problematic when a game's required button combinations or analog sticks render it unplayable without the original controller layout.
There are many solutions to the controller problem ranging from retro-USB adapters and to in depth hardware mods, but the display side isn't quite so easy. The most obvious solution is to use a CRT screen, but that means either putting a second television in your living room, or usurping the mature console's seniority rights by relegating them to a less central part of the house. As time goes on, it will become increasingly difficult to find an old tube telly at all. Another option is to use emulators equipped with workarounds to these intentional glitches, but reliability of proper code execution must be sacrificed. Possibly the most promising solution to the death of CRTs can be at Georgia Tech. Students have produced a technology which emulates an older CRT television's imperfections. While this nascent method has a ways to go, such a feature could enable reliable display recreation.
In the end, these purely technical problems can be overcome by those wishing to invest the time and money to do so. But technical issues, while major hurdles right now, aren't the biggest concern. Unlike the technical issues, contextual and value-assignment dilemmas don't diminish overtime. Quite the opposite, they loom ever larger as we separate ourselves from these games' eras.
Even knowing whether we the recreation is accurate will become a near impossible feat within only a few decades. As living first hand accounts of games in their heyday dwindle over the coming decades, verifying the meta experience will soon prove impossible.
Perhaps the least obvious of these intangible experiences is scarcity -- if only for the reason that it's also the greatest benefit over original consoles. Yet since the benefit and problems surrounding scarcity are directly tied to a ROM's mass availability, the issue is both the easiest and most difficult of all the presented problems. Our brains are magnificent at parsing reward structures. We value something far more when obtaining it requires sacrifice. Whether that effort was spent working to gain money or during its acquisition, a reward means more when we have to trade something for it. Such logic is extended even further since often the reward means more when more effort is exerted.
If you've wondered why you've rarely, if ever, invested more than a few hours into an emulated game, it because of the ROM's value assignment. When every title exists at your fingertips, probably for free, then there was no investment in the acquisition of an experience. Compounding this problem is the information overload from suddenly having access to so many titles -- most of which are complete crap. The end result is disillusionment and attention deficit as you jump from title to title. Even if a game is good, the mindset that there could be something better often overpowers any tenacity the current experience may offer.
While a rational response to such a problem would be to either limit the number of titles, or the frequency of game swapping, such an answer is anything but easy. That's because people believe they prefer more choice, when in reality their satisfaction diminishes as choices increase. Sadly, even if we are aware of this inherent human behavior, the temptation is often too great to actively discourage it even in ourselves.
One possible solution is to decrease ease of access by placing only a handful or titles in the main folder at any given time. Unfortunately, such a solution requires constant reminders to maintain a task, and as New Year's resolutions show, resolve weakens overtime. On top of that, the issue of sacrifice is still unaddressed. The only practical and coincidentally, legal solution I've seen to reintroduce scarcity is a project called Retrode. By using a physical cartridge instead of a rom, both scarcity and value are restored to the experience. However, such a solution also allows for rom files so the primary benefit of availability isn't torn out of the concept of emulation.
Sadly, the last component lacking in emulation, contextual experience, has no answer in sight. Recreating the experience of playing a game during its prime is something that, at least as far as I can comprehend, is unsolvable, regardless of nostalgia. It's but a fond remembrance; not a recreation of an experience. While it can make a mediocre game enjoyable, it cannot diminish your refined tastes to that of your six year-old self. Five minutes replaying a once-loved, but terrible game quickly illustrates this concept. For those titles which we have no direct playing experience to pull from, its tempting to assume we could overcome this obstacle by pulling context through an historical analysis of the culture. Such an endeavor would prove futile though since we know the results from older, more studied media. All an academic approach like this can do is illuminate why a person or group of people would react to an event. It can't reproduce an accurate transference of emotions.
It's a simple fact that emulation can provide a glimpse into history, but can never recreate it. Yet, no matter how much we understand that, the devotion of forums, sites, enthusiast aftermarket sellers, and second hand prices for rare games prove that it won't stop many from trying. These people, myself included go to great lengths in an attempt to taste an era where five-year-old consoles weren't referred to as 'Next-Gen'. By no means does that invalidate the current breed of consoles nor do I wish to present a false choice on the matter. Rather, these games feel different and provide something tied to their era much in the same way music is.
For that reason I, like many of you, love my classic systems. However, the ease and benefits of emulation don't quite stack up to the cons yet for me. No matter how many times I debate whether to dive into the deep end and box my systems up for storage, they end up staying put. That inclination makes me wonder whether I have a universal opinion, or I'm becoming an old curmudgeon; though it's probably a bit of both. Beyond all of these concerns, like it or not, these systems and games are quickly reaching their end of life. Eventually emulation will be the only way to easily access these titles. When that time comes, whether or not solutions to these problems eschew their compromises will decide if that day is regarded as a funeral or phoenix for retro games.
This editorial was written as a conversation starter. If you retro game, how do you overcome these problems? Further, how far can you detach the code from the original experience before the game no longer feels the like its authentic distribution? We'd love to hear back from you in the comments.
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