[HN Gopher] What Happened to Dolphin on Steam?
___________________________________________________________________
What Happened to Dolphin on Steam?
Author : panic
Score : 228 points
Date : 2023-07-20 08:29 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dolphin-emu.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (dolphin-emu.org)
| dangus wrote:
| They should have never tried. They're poking the bear.
|
| Projects like this that are legal but in the crosshairs of
| massive corporations need to keep things a little bit less
| mainstream and on the down low so to speak.
|
| A company like Nintendo doesn't have to get laws changed to shut
| you down. They can bury you in lawsuits and threats.
| postmortembees wrote:
| [flagged]
| hospitalJail wrote:
| I admit I have a mental illness in favor of Nintendo,
| specifically Zelda. I believe it happened in childhood, the
| relentless marketing/hype around the games growing up, the
| magazines that promoted it, the guides needed to 100% it, etc...
|
| I hate Zelda today, but I have a compulsion to play all of them.
| I don't enjoy it, I think the games are borderline bad quality. I
| must play. According to chatGPT this is likely some FOMO or
| desperation to achieve nolstaiga.
|
| I have such ill will toward Nintendo that I can't really have a
| conversation about it. They have extracted so much money from me.
|
| Go emulators. Go team.
| veave wrote:
| If they are so convinced that the circumvention code (which is
| illegal according to the DMCA) is not important, the version of
| Dolphin that they upload to Steam should not have the
| circumvention code, which would allow users to only play homebrew
| games.
| dathinab wrote:
| read article fully not just skim it
| veave wrote:
| What part do you think I didn't read?
| wildrhythms wrote:
| The bold text in the article in this section:
|
| >However, we do not think that including the Wii Common Key
| actually matters - the law could easily be interpreted to
| say that circumventing a Wii disc's encryption by any means
| is a violation. As such, it is our interpetation that
| removing the Wii keys would not change whether the
| exemption in 17 U.S.C. SS 1201(f) applies to us or not.
| [...] And to all the armchair lawyers out there, the letter
| to Valve did not make any claims that we were violating a
| US copyright by including the Wii Common Key, as a short
| string of entirely random letters and numbers generated by
| a machine is not copyrightable under current US copyright
| law. If that ever changes, the world will be far too busy
| to think about emulation.
| happymellon wrote:
| You are talking about keys.
|
| They are talking about the circumvention code completely.
| [deleted]
| jmholla wrote:
| Their stance is that Dolphin is not primarily designed
| for circumvention, but is primarily designed for
| emulation thus the carve out the DMCA has allowing for
| circumvention applies:
|
| >> ...a person may develop and employ technological means
| to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent
| protection afforded by a technological measure, in order
| to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph
| (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of
| an independently created computer program with other
| programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such
| interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not
| constitute infringement under this title.
|
| >> 17 U.S.C. SS 1201(f)(2)
|
| Paragraph 1 requires the person using the software have a
| legally obtained copy:
|
| > Notwithstanding the provisions of sub-section
| (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right
| to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a
| technological measure that effectively controls access to
| a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose
| of identifying and analyzing those elements of the
| program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of
| an independently created computer program with other
| programs, and that have not previously been readily
| available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to
| the extent any such acts of identification and analysis
| do not constitute infringement under this title.
|
| > 17 U.S.C. SS 1201(f)(1)
|
| which is something Dolphin can be used for.
| ineedasername wrote:
| They're hinging their view on the word "primary" with
| respect to functions in the code base: _" Only an
| incredibly tiny portion of our code is actually related
| to circumvention"_. That is only one way in which the
| word "primary" might be applied here, with another being
| the primary thing users actually do with Dolphin. A
| glance through sites that have such things shows that
| available content & downloads aren't homebrew, it's
| ripped game ROM & disc images.
|
| I'm saying I like this part of the DMCA, or the way
| Nintendo bullies people around on things like this, but
| the legal area here is much more gray then the Dolphin
| folks seem to believe.
| psd1 wrote:
| If you rtfa, then you'll understand.
| veave wrote:
| If you think I didn't rtfa because I didn't mention that
| nintendo asked valve not to list dolphin, you are wrong.
|
| If you rtfa, you'll find that the first part of the email
| nintendo sent valve said that dolphin circumvents
| encryption, which is illegal under the DMCA. If dolphin
| were to strip the circumvention code, then nintendo would
| have no legal reason to ask valve not to list dolphin,
| and valve could ignore the request.
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| Valve is saying they'll only accept Dolphin onto Steam if
| Dolphin can show Nintendo has authorised it.
|
| Dolphin don't believe Nintendo will authorise the app
| under any circumstances, key or not, homebrew only or
| not.
|
| Since Dolphin can't force Valve to put an app on Steam,
| and neither Valve nor Nintendo will change their
| positions, the matter is closed.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| > valve said that dolphin circumvents encryption, which
| is illegal under the DMCA
|
| The article explicitly mentions that the DMCA has an
| exception for interoperability that they believe applies
| to Dolphin:
|
| > ...a person may develop and employ technological means
| to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent
| protection afforded by a technological measure, in order
| to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph
| (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of
| an independently created computer program with other
| programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such
| interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not
| constitute infringement under this title.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| The code isn't illegal for multiple reasons. For one, innocence
| until proven guilty in a court of law. Can you guess where this
| hasn't been? Secondly, the DMCA has exceptions for emulation,
| which they mention in the article itself. I highly suggest you
| check it out, by the way; it's a good read.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Could have been a really good opportunity for Valve to take a
| stance here. Shame.
| dncornholio wrote:
| Valve pro-actively contact Nintendo. They pre-emptively took
| Nintendo's side. Not sure what to think of that. Don't think
| Valve will ever allow them on their platform.
| kevincox wrote:
| I don't think I can blame Valve much for this. They aren't so
| much taking Nintendo's side as trying to avoid shoveling money
| into a fire. They know Nintendo's reputation for waging
| expensive and often frivolous lawsuits and don't want to be on
| the receiving end. So their options are basically 1. put it up
| then take it down 3 days later when Nintendo sends them some
| bullshit or 2. ask nicely first in case there is a small chance
| that Nintendo is feeling nice today.
|
| Sure, it was obvious that 2 wasn't going to work. But maybe it
| is still better to shut this down before launch rather than 3
| days later with extra disappointment after lots of work has
| been done.
|
| We should blame the legal system that Nintendo is using to
| bully others.
| happymellon wrote:
| [flagged]
| dathinab wrote:
| read article
| speedgoose wrote:
| > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article.
| "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be
| shortened to "The article mentions that".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jdiff wrote:
| It can apparently be even further shortened to "read
| article."
| happymellon wrote:
| .
| awestroke wrote:
| It has nothing to do with legality. Valve has a business
| interest of removing Dolphin from their store, regardless
| of any keys.
| [deleted]
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Then I don't get that you think the key is the issue. This
| is not a problem whether the keys are legal or not. The
| article makes very clear that the issue is that Nintendo
| has to give approval for Dolphin to release on steam. Do
| you really think Nintendo would give approval if they
| remove the key?
| UnixSchizoid wrote:
| As soon as I saw this was put on the steam store I knew it was a
| matter of time until it was removed. Im surprised that Retro Arch
| has been on the store this long, probably because it doesn't have
| any emulator cores for modern systems
| lantry wrote:
| Did the other commenters even read the article? The article
| explains that removing the key wouldn't make a difference,
| because Nintendo is against emulation and Steam is requiring them
| to get Nintendo's approval. Even if they remove the key Nintendo
| won't approve, and Steam can block them from the store even if
| they haven't broken any laws.
| sylware wrote:
| Various levels of shadow banning is certainly implemented on
| steam.
|
| This is an edge case which on a worldwide scale is a mess.
|
| For instance in my country, and I guess for most EU (since it
| was a EU directive), DRMs have a legal protection which is lost
| upon technical interoperability. This protects on legal grounds
| the people against digital golden jail/planned obsolescence
| supplemented with legal locks.
|
| Well, this is what I understood.
| dcow wrote:
| I've come to the conclusion that people have a really really
| poor understanding of copyright and the DMCA, which probably
| stems from a history of normalized abuse by recording industry
| and motion picture associations. I bet most people don't even
| know that they're legally allowed to circumvent DRM in order to
| maintain archival copies of any media they own.
|
| Like people, Nintendo CANNOT restrict your right to obtain and
| use the Wii common key for any purpose other than you
| intentionally and solely helping others circumvent copyright
| law to steal games. It's Nintendo's problem, not yours, if they
| don't like emulators. It's refreshing to see such a thorough
| understanding by Dolphin and their lawyers.
| faeranne wrote:
| Exactly. Steam can, and honestly must, block them. People don't
| seem to realize that, of most of the large tech companies out
| there, Nintendo has figured out that they can easily outspend
| anyone in legal fees, and no one will care. Just look at their
| financials. Their lawyers make more than their board. They
| don't care what is legal or not, they can simply sue anything
| they don't like into oblivion. They don't have to win the suit
| to make it disappear.
| volkl48 wrote:
| Valve/Steam is more than large enough to fund any legal
| fights it wants to have forever.
|
| Understandably, I don't think Valve has any interest in
| fighting this battle for Dolphin, but they certainly have the
| money to do it.
| c-hendricks wrote:
| I hate to bring it up for fears it gets taken down, but how
| does RetroArch survive on Steam in that case? It doesn't come
| with them, but you can download cores for Nintendo systems
| directly from RetroArch.
| rasz wrote:
| >Nintendo has figured out that they can easily outspend
| anyone in legal fees
|
| so does Sony, didnt help them one bit https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_I....
| DannyBee wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| A lot of people here seem to think Nintendo would not claim it
| illegal without the circumvention code or wouldn't write a
| letter saying that. This is totally wrong and shows a complete
| lack of historical understanding of Nintendo and their legal
| threats and lawsuits going back decades. Nintendo has
| repeatedly sued even when they lose. Nintendo has even sued
| companies for making unlicensed games. Not homebrew, but
| commercially successful games.
|
| Others seem to believe valve would suddenly be okay with it
| without circumvention code. This seems naive at best,
| delusional at worst. That letter includes a threat to valve on
| distribution. As above, Nintendo isn't going to say "it's fine
| now I guess". They would happily sue valve with or without the
| code. Valve may want to partner with them someday.
|
| Valve may be better than most but it seems very unlikely for
| them to want to die on this hill. The good will does not seem
| worth the trouble.
| shagie wrote:
| > Valve may want to partner with them someday.
|
| https://www.nintendo.com/search/#cat=gme&f=softwarePublisher.
| ..
|
| Partnerships can go the other way too.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Nintendo has repeatedly sued even when they lose.
|
| Why don't we have laws to punish companies like Nintendo for
| this kind of harassment? What if we had one like "if a
| copyright lawsuit is found to be frivolous or filed in bad
| faith, the copyright for all of the plaintiff's works
| involved in the case is forfeit to the defendant"?
| flutas wrote:
| We do.
|
| They're called Anti-SLAPP laws[0], but iirc they really
| only let you stop the current lawsuit.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_agains
| t_publ...
| DannyBee wrote:
| SLAPP laws would not help since they are about public
| participation - like for example, you oppose a permit for
| someone down the street, and they sue you for doing so.
|
| Or you express an opinion on facebook about a political
| figure, and they sue you for defamation.
|
| What we are talking about here would not be considered a
| SLAPP in most states.
| greggsy wrote:
| > Valve may want to partner with them someday.
|
| This aspect is totally lost on so many people. Even apple
| partnered with them for games on their own platform.
|
| It's fiscally irresponsible for company directors to close
| that door in preference over a hobby emulator, while
| pretending that it isn't intended to infringe on copyright.
| circuit10 wrote:
| > while pretending that it isn't intended to infringe on
| copyright
|
| It might be used for that but it isn't intended to by the
| developers
| Folcon wrote:
| > It's fiscally irresponsible for company directors to
| close that door in preference over a hobby emulator, while
| pretending that it isn't intended to infringe on copyright.
|
| I'm not sure if this applies in Valve's case, as I
| understand it, Valve is privately owned and held by Gabe
| Newell and what he says goes, so really the question is
| does he want to do this or not?
| henriquez wrote:
| Right, Valve is privately owned so they are free to be
| fiscally irresponsible, but they aren't. Burning bridges
| with Nintendo is just bad business.
| me_me_me wrote:
| Give me a single reason why nintendo would even begin to
| consider partnering with valve.
|
| Nintendo is famous for its closed and closely controlled
| ecosystem.
|
| Partnering with apple to release a mobile game is a bad
| (outlier) example as nintendo has no capabilities to
| release their own phone.
|
| Why would Nintendo invite/open competition with steam
| deck? Why would they make it easier to pirate their games
| and give steam cut on the sales via steam store. All the
| while nintendo has their own console their own store.
|
| Its like apple allowed android store on iOS. Sure they
| could do it but why would they?
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| Nintendo historically has enormous leverage on multiple
| Japanese publishers and developers.
|
| Speaking for previous experience in the music industry,
| It wasn't uncommon for some A&R or label to become
| "persona non grata" for personal or "political" (rocking
| the boat too much with some untouchable manager or
| artist) reasons and getting the boot from most if not all
| big publishers and distributors.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was going on
| in the gaming industry.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| You could have asked this question about Sega in the 90s.
| Why would Sega ever consider partnering with Nintendo,
| Microsoft, and Sony?? And then the Dreamcast tanked and
| they pivoted to software only. Other platforms were there
| for them to port all their games. If Sega had done
| something more boneheaded than "Sega does what
| Nintendon't" then Nintendo could have told them to pound
| sand and they wouldn't have a successful platform on
| which to save their business.
|
| Will Nintendo suffer the same fate? Highly unlikely. The
| Switch is doing great, the successor will probably do
| great. But then again, so did the Sega Genesis. There's
| no need to burn bridges.
| me_me_me wrote:
| As a counter argument in one sentence you say
|
| > Will Nintendo suffer the same fate? Highly unlikely.
|
| In next you suggest not to discount something "Highly
| unlikely".
|
| That's basically a Pascal Wager territory.
|
| Building closed off ecosystem is Nintendo's whole
| business, you making business decisions based on idea
| Nintendo _might_ upend their whole business is...
| wasteful?
| Teever wrote:
| I know it's semantics, But I dont think 'financially
| irresponsible' is the right semantics to use the context.
|
| Gaben could put a video out tomorrow of him burning piles
| of Nintendo merchandise and swearing that Steam will
| never do business with Nintendo and both Gaben and Valve
| would be fine.
|
| It's hard to conceive of how much money an entity like
| Valve has and how fast it continues to accumulate.
|
| Steve Jobs was notorious for shit listing companies like
| AMD or Nvidia and it doesn't seem to have been
| detrimental to Apple whatsoever.
| wolpoli wrote:
| > Steve Jobs was notorious for shit listing companies
| like AMD or Nvidia and it doesn't seem to have been
| detrimental to Apple whatsoever.
|
| The difference is that Apple has alteratives to AMD CPUs
| and Nvidia GPUs. Whereas the Nintendo products are
| unique.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think there's also an implied point that the key _in a
| substantial codebase_ is more legally defensible than the key
| _in a codebase that only provides the key_.
|
| In essence, the entirety of Dolphin's functionality provides
| legal cover for the small amount related to the key, under DMCA
| exception wording.
|
| Kudos to the Dolphin team.
| henriquez wrote:
| Other emulators don't include keys but let you enter them in.
| I get Dolphin's justification for leaving it in though.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| The article says that they *think* it wouldn't make a
| difference. I have no position on Dolphin being on Steam but it
| might have been worth it to try without the key once.
| dathinab wrote:
| > _think_
|
| after careful considerations and consulting lawyers, and
| doing that more then one time
|
| > been worth it to try without the key once.
|
| No it would make the situation worse for them, they can
| publish it _without any WII support at all_. But not just
| without the key.
|
| Trying it without the key would be like saying "we do know
| it's illegal" instead of "it's clearly covered by DMCA
| exceptions and related law".
|
| Removing the key without removing the whole WII functionality
| *is the one think they must no do no matter what*.
| voxl wrote:
| In what world is placating a business partner an admission
| of guilt?
| dathinab wrote:
| in our in many many ways
|
| but in this case it wouldn't be a legal admission of
| guild but it would be propagated as such by Nintendo if
| there ever is a legal case reducing the odds of winning
| such an hypothetical case
|
| The reason why Dolphin is legal is based on it being
| mainly a tool for playing old games you own and
| potentially with mods, accessibility tools and similar.
|
| So for Nintendo to win a case they would need to convince
| the judge that it's mainly meant for illegal copyright
| infringement.
|
| Their argument would likely be on the line of the Wii
| code without the ability to load legal Wii games is
| useless and having it would be really strange as you
| could only use it with illegal copies with the copy
| protection stripped. And stripping it is always illegal
| to do. So it would be designed for illegal usage. (And
| rare new games released that way but they would argue it
| doesn't matter in the grater picture).
|
| I.e. it would be easier for them to win a legal case
| against Dolphin without it having been an legal
| admittance of guild.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| They need approval from Nintendo. It's as easy to ask: "Does
| Nintendo approve that Dolphin with the builtin Wii encryption
| key is released on Steam".
| veave wrote:
| They need approval from Nintendo because they include the
| circumvention code which is illegal under the DMCA. Whether
| the key is included or not doesn't change anything because
| the code itself is illegal as it is. But if they removed
| the circumvention code, Nintendo wouldn't have any right to
| ask for the emulator not to be published.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| > Nintendo wouldn't have any right to ask for the
| emulator not to be published
|
| ...which is completely unrelated, since it was Valve who
| asked Nintendo even though they didn't really have to.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Nintendo would deny ANY and ALL circumvention, no matter
| how "illegal" it is (which it isn't, if you'd read the
| article). Nintendo profits off the deaths of their
| previous hardware, so of course they will say things are
| illegal which aren't. I mean they did abuse the DMCA just
| a few months back against various legal projects.
|
| https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-reportedly-issues-
| dmca-...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's way more than just profits, look at all the loved
| games from their past that they continue to not release
| on digital storefronts or "Nintendo Plus" or whatever
| they call it now.
|
| Nintendo has an ideological position that essentially the
| first sale doctrine is wrong and they have privilege over
| you for things you legally purchased.
| realusername wrote:
| > Nintendo wouldn't have any right to ask for the
| emulator not to be published.
|
| They already don't and yet that's what they are doing.
|
| There's a difference between legal and private pressure.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| The article says a lawyer firm they hired say it's legal.
| They dedicate a significant portion of the article to it.
| So I don't understand how you can just it's illegal.
|
| Nintendo doesn't have any right, in the legal sense. That
| doesn't mean it's smart for Valve to make an enemy of
| Nintendo. It's obvious Nintendo uses that pressure. Not
| legal pressure. The DMCA claim is just pretense.
| dathinab wrote:
| Exactly there is no claim because a claim can be disputed
| in court.
|
| If Nintendo believes they had a valid claim why only
| enforce it with Steam but no other places Dolphin is
| available?
| amiga386 wrote:
| No. Valve needs them to get approval from Nintendo
| because Valve is afraid of Nintendo. They are afraid
| Nintendo might:
|
| 1. Start a lawsuit against Valve rather than Dolphin Team
| as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public
| Participation). Valve could then end up spending millions
| defending itself from the mad tyrant and the best case is
| it spent millions to confirm it was doing nothing wrong
| in the first place.
|
| 2. Tell all their 3rd party publishers to stop publishing
| on Steam, in order to continue doing business with them,
| utterly ruining Steam.
|
| In both these cases, it has nothing to do with legality
| or the DMCA, which Dolphin Team's own lawyers have
| explained if you'd just read the article. It has to do
| with a big bully getting angry if it doesn't get what it
| wants, and is willing to throw its weight around.
| circuit10 wrote:
| Also Valve has published games on the Nintendo Switch
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| I had to look up which games they published on Switch, so
| to save anyone else doing the same:
|
| Portal: Companion Collection (containing Portal and
| Portal 2) came put last year.
| an-unknown wrote:
| The interesting question here would be if "Tell all their
| 3rd party publishers to stop publishing on Steam" would
| be legally OK or if it would result in a lawsuit against
| Nintendo because of e.g. anti-competitive behavior.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| That sort of thing can drag on for years. Why would Valve
| be eager to get into such a fight, even if they feel
| certain they would eventually prevail? Valve is a
| business, not a charity or a public utility. (I think a
| lot of Steam-fanboy gamers are often confused on this
| point!)
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I see that this could go bad for Valve, but the
| principled side of me thinks this sets a bad precedent
| for Value and the gaming community at large to be asking
| for permission from publishers/developers to green light
| a tool that helps people play games that are no longer
| able to be played. (if I am understanding this correctly)
|
| Retro games are in jeopardy of being lost forever because
| publishers/developers actively work against making it
| possible to preserve game history.
|
| If that doesn't do harm to the common good, I don't know
| what does.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| No, it wouldn't.
|
| Also I doubt they would care about the legality in the
| slightest. It's not like they would send a press release
| about it.
|
| It would be an one-time, in-person, strictly private
| meeting between the respective publishers and executive
| management. Like the one where they're shown a new
| console and talk about renewed licensing terms for the
| platform.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Nintendo literally has a history of this. If you did
| anything to try and get around their extremely
| restrictive game selling rules in the 80s to sell more
| games than you were allowed or games that weren't
| "licensed" or anything like that, Nintendo would just
| stop sending you any games.
|
| Nintendo is straight up evil. US courts have told them in
| direct language that they are wrong and emulation is
| fine, but they don't give a fuck and the US seems against
| preventing big money entities from harassing people with
| lawsuits or fixing the goddamn court system to not cost
| you a million dollars when you are unambiguously in the
| right.
| dathinab wrote:
| > code which is illegal under the DMCA.
|
| no that code is most most likely not illegal at all
| because there are cases, under DMCA, where code like that
| is fully legal
|
| this is nothing but a ruse of Nintendo threatening Valve
| to avoid having to do a proper DMCA request/suing as such
| an action can be disputed in court, an dispute Nintendo
| is likely to lose
|
| so it's basically Nintendo pressuring Valve to circumvent
| proper DMCA enforcement procedures in their favor in a
| sketchy dishonest way which undermines the law (but might
| happen to not be illegal)
|
| if Nintendo would think it's illegal they would already
| have used DMCA to take down Dolphin everywhere, instead
| of using such roundabout ways
| dathinab wrote:
| no they don't need approval from Nintendo
|
| They need Valve to not block them for Nintendo without
| legal case based on some excuses (which Valve as store
| owner is somewhat allowed to do).
|
| And the one thing Nintendo does not want is a legal case,
| because they know they are most likely going to lose it and
| then it's likely not just dolphin which would take
| advantage of the additional legal clarity created by the
| case.
|
| In the EU I'm not sure there even would be a case because
| the law being _that_ clear cut in favor of Dolphin.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > And the one thing Nintendo does not want is a legal
| case, because they know they are most likely going to
| lose it and then it's likely not just dolphin which would
| take advantage of the additional legal clarity created by
| the case.
|
| Bollocks. Nintendo has a reputation for suing the hell
| out of anyone, often repeatedly, even if they would
| likely lose. They're rabid about protecting their IP, to
| the point where they're infamous for it.
|
| Family friendly front-end, but ruthless corporation
| behind it. They'd absolutely get lawyers and charge in
| aggressively.
|
| Valve has nothing to gain by putting their money at risk
| for someone else's emulator; "no dog in this fight".
| dathinab wrote:
| But in this case if they lose in court they will lose far
| more then "just" dolphin being on steam.
|
| And with how it's currently they for sure guaranteed
| won't see dolphin or similar on steam, a sure fire way
| which might even be cheaper then suing.
|
| Also AFIK in most cases where they sue they either have a
| good chance of winning or losing will just lose that case
| and not set a precedence which can cost them dearly.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _But in this case if they lose in court they will lose
| far more then "just" dolphin being on steam._
|
| The only thing they'd really lose is the money they
| already spent on lawyers, and they're more than happy to
| accept that loss. Nintendo will sue in futile situations
| just to make the other party miserable.
| dathinab wrote:
| No they set legal precedence that Nintendo device
| emulators are legally okay (as long as they don't do
| anything additional etc.). And publicity, too.
|
| If you considers how many people in this chat alone just
| blindly assumed it's illegal, and that's given a "more
| tech affine audience of HN, then that is a huge deal.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Are you serious here? You think the Dolphin team can
| meaningfully affect Valve here? That's delusional.
| dathinab wrote:
| no they can't, and I didn't say so
|
| but it's Valve which is blocking them not Nintendo
|
| and sure Valve might do so on behest of Nintendo but it's
| still Valves doing so
|
| the idea that Dolphine (or Valve) have to asks Nintendo
| for anything is just completly absurd and beyond any
| legal basis
|
| which is why Nintendo doesn't use the proper legal
| methods here IMHO, because then you can dispute it and
| they can (probably will) lose
|
| but as long as Valve plays along there is nothing much
| Dolphin can do, so again it's Valve who first needs to be
| convinced before then either Nintendo gives up or you
| have a proper legal dispute with them
|
| anyway like you correctly pointed out there is no way for
| Dolphin to affect Valve so the is no way for Dolphi on
| steam
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Legality is not the issue here. Not everything that is
| legal can be published on Steam. The people who make it a
| legal argument after this article are missing the point.
| shagie wrote:
| (furthering this point) consider the recent Developer
| claims Steam is rejecting games with AI-generated artwork
| -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36522665 /
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36520701
|
| AI art isn't illegal, but Steam still has taken a
| position of not wanting to be the middleman for
| distribution of such content.
| dathinab wrote:
| Different situation.
|
| Valve limited there store to "in general not contain
| products of a certain type (here AI art containing)".
|
| But in case of Dolphin this isn't the case but a explicit
| ban of dolphine without it braking Valve TOS.
|
| If Valve would but in their TOS that "emulators are
| generally not allowed" then rejecting Dolphine would be
| okay and no one would have wirten any blogs or news
| articles about it, or even tried to put it on steam.
| wtallis wrote:
| > AI art isn't illegal
|
| All indications are that the dubious legality of ML-
| generated art is exactly why Valve is not approving those
| games. Valve isn't taking a moral stance against ML-
| generated art, they're playing it safe legally by
| avoiding distributing such games when they cannot ensure
| the ML models were not trained on unlicensed content and
| will not spew copyright infringements.
| dathinab wrote:
| > Legality is not the issue here.
|
| It's is in the sense that through Valve Nintendo
| effectively circumvented the legal protections targets of
| DMCA take down notices have.
|
| So while this is not using law it has everything to do
| with circumventing law.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Go to your local supermarket and start selling things,
| let's see how long until you get kicked out by security.
|
| If Valve says no, Dolphin doesn't come out on Steam. If
| Valve says "ask Nintendo", and Nintendo says no, Dolphin
| doesn't come out on Steam. Dolphin doesn't get a pass to
| be published everywhere because what they're doing is
| legal.
| erfgh wrote:
| Valve already knew that Nintendo is against emulation prior to
| sending the letter to Nintendo. The important datum here is
| that Nintendo has legal arguments why Dolphin is illegal
| software and that's presumably why Valve decided to drop
| Dolphin.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| My guess is that in the past they probably had a nice talk
| where they pointed out they could pressure various publishers
| to drop Steam if Valve started adding current-gen emulators.
| Valve sent a letter and published nintendo's response just to
| make it very obvious they had their hands tied on the matter.
| LocalH wrote:
| Dolphin is not a "current-gen emulator"
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| Yup, sorry - I conflated it with more recent systems due
| to the recently announced remakes for several Gamecube
| games.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Also maybe Valve just did not want to be the ones to have to
| fight it in court? Even if they were victorious it takes time
| from them that they can do other things. Many businesses will
| settle rather than fight something just because it is more
| expedient/cheaper not because it is right or wrong.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Absolutely. No dog in this fight. Why risk it? A few months
| of legal jousting with Nintendo could cost more than any
| amount of money Dolphin would bring in, and plenty of other
| Nintendo IPs are sold on Steam. Valve publishes games for
| Switch, too.
|
| Whole lotta risk for 0 net gain, and possibly steep
| consequences.
| dathinab wrote:
| > Nintendo has legal arguments why Dolphin is illegal
| software
|
| no Nintendo might have enough arguments to make a DACM take
| down request, but from the POV of many lawyers most likely
| not enough legal claims to have any chance at winning the
| dispute in court which would likely follow
|
| this is IMHO why they don't do a claim at all outside of
| steam
|
| But Nintendo is quite worried about emulation on Steam
| especially with the Steam Deck. They are obsessed with
| controlling the games through the hardware and have low end
| hardware many people would love to replace with something
| more beefy even if it's not officially supported. So I would
| be surprised if Nintendo hadn't pressured Valve into an
| agreement that they would reject and tell them about any
| Nintendo emulators long before Dolphin tried to go onto
| steam.
|
| Now due to the lack of DMCA claim and lack of access to steam
| Dolphin has two choices:
|
| 1. give up on it (for now)
|
| 2. provoke a legal case in one of multiple ways which would
| legally clarify if they are covered under law or not (which
| is expensive and while not very likely there is always the
| risk to lose it). Through if they are unlucky winning doesn't
| solve the problem as Valve could just add "no nintendo
| emulators allowed" to their TOS in which case they would have
| to sue Valve and Nintendo together for unfair market
| practices.
|
| ... as a non profit project it's pretty clear which option
| Dolphin can practically take, especially given that you still
| can put it on a steam deck etc. just with a bit extra steps.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > The important datum here is that Nintendo has legal
| arguments why Dolphin is illegal software and that's
| presumably why Valve decided to drop Dolphin.
|
| If Nintendo had _sound_ legal arguments, they would have
| already won a lawsuit, ergo it is reasonable to assume that
| they 're just being Nintendo (i.e. loudly screaming that
| emulation is illegal regardless of the actual law).
| bowsamic wrote:
| Please follow the rules
|
| > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did
| you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened
| to "The article mentions that".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jrmg wrote:
| I find it weird that no-one is focusing on the last paragraph of
| the letter:
|
| _The technological measures on Nintendo 's consoles and games
| are essential for Nintendo to protect its intellectual property
| from piracy. When those measures are circumvented, Nintendo and
| third-party game developers suffer tremendous harm because, for
| example, individuals can then use the emulator to play pirated
| games. Other commercial platforms have recognized these concerns
| and. as an example. We understand Microsoft recently took various
| emulators - including Dolphin - off its Xbox Store_
|
| This isn't an argument about interoperation, it's an argument
| about piracy.
|
| In my experience, though there is a lot of lip-service about
| 'only playing games you own', the vast majority of emulator users
| are playing pirated games they don't own. This would be a
| different argument if it was about literally playing Wii discs
| directly.
|
| [Personally I believe that the copyright terms in computer
| software like this are way too long, and much (most?) Wii
| software is really abandonware at this point, and should be
| allowed to be distributed - but that's not the law]
| headline wrote:
| The problem is that Nintendo likes to play victim to piracy,
| surprising considering how their abandoned titles are kept
| alive by great folks who are only breathing new life into games
| that would otherwise be lost to time.
| detuned wrote:
| An especially egregious fact is that Nintendo uses open
| source emulators themselves and have re released & sold some
| older games that are just the emulator bundled with the game,
| in some cases inheriting emulator-only bugs. The most recent
| example I can think of is that the most recent Pikmin release
| includes dolphin and can therefore be played on a PC with no
| modification.
| tredre3 wrote:
| > An especially egregious fact is that Nintendo uses open
| source emulators themselves [...] the most recent Pikmin
|
| That's not true. Pikmin uses Hagi, which is Nintendo's own
| emulator. Nintendo never used an open-source emulator in a
| release product.
|
| See this fellow confused guy's thread:
| https://gbatemp.net/threads/pikmin-1-2-use-dolphin-
| emulator....
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Nintendo has absolutely modified open source emulators
| for certain things
|
| https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/05/nintendo_accuse
| d_o...
|
| There has been accusations that some "in house" emulators
| are also open source ones with superficial changes
|
| They have also been found to use ROMs dumped by end users
| and posted on the normal ROM sites for their "play an old
| game" products.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| That article isnt about Nintendo, only a publisher on
| Nintendo's store.
|
| The rom thing was only the same rom format. How are you
| going to tell if it's the same dumps or not? Roms are
| supposed to match 1:1, otherwise verification hashes
| projects like redump and no-intro wouldn't work.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| Who cares honestly? Why would I want to launch dolphin through
| steam in the first place? Just adds bloat. Just install dolphin
| with your package manager and launch it via your desktop
| environments built in launcher ("start menu").
| amelius wrote:
| Because if this Walled Gardening continues, at some point you
| won't _have_ a desktop system to begin with ...
| pjmlp wrote:
| We are beyond that with the thin client revival, also know as
| cloud computing.
| lolinder wrote:
| So the solution to walled gardening is to put everything you
| care about in the walled garden? Won't that make people even
| more dependent on said walled garden, expediting the end of
| the free desktop?
|
| I'd rather see as many popular apps as possible stay outside
| the garden. The bigger the user base that still uses user-
| controlled installation methods, the bigger the outcry if an
| OS tries to lock down a previously-free platform.
| amiga386 wrote:
| 1. The Nintendo Wii U has a portable game controller with a
| screen on it. Wii U games are designed to be played on this.
|
| 2. The Steam Deck is a portable game controller with a screen
| on it. Wouldn't it be nice to play games designed for this form
| factor, rather than typical PC games designed for
| keyboard/mouse, or typical PC/Console games designed for a
| large screen?
|
| 3. Games/Apps on the Steam Deck are most convenently launched
| by Steam
|
| 4. Dolphin emulates Wii U games (as well as Wii and GameCube
| games)
| circuit10 wrote:
| Dolphin doesn't emulate Wii U games. The Wii U is a
| completely separate console to the Wii, Cemu is the emulator
| for that
| pests wrote:
| > completely separate console
|
| Yet it does emulate GameCube and Wii, completely separate
| consoles.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Even the Wii itself will run Gamecube games in Wii mode,
| see "Nintendont".
| circuit10 wrote:
| I was going to say that the GameCube and Wii are very
| similar to the point where the Wii is backwards
| compatible but I guess that argument would apply to the
| Wii U too. Either way, Dolphin doesn't emulate the Wii U
| Dwedit wrote:
| Yeah, Wii-U has extra hardware for backwards
| compatibility with the Wii. Wii->Gamecube has no extra
| hardware, just the ability to disable parts that the
| Gamecube does not have.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Dolphin does not even remotely touch Wii U games.
| nullify88 wrote:
| I'm not a user of Dolphin, but an obvious reason is to utilise
| Steams Big Picture mode as a way to run various emulators. This
| also opens the possibility of playing over In Home streaming if
| you have a steam link.
|
| Some setups can be elaborate with Roms listed in Steam / Big
| Picture with box art, fan art, and various metadata. Software
| like Steam Rom Manager assist with this.
|
| Considering console emulation is often played with controllers
| perhaps infront of TV, Steams launcher is probably more
| suitable for launching emulation than using a keyboard or mouse
| for a start menu.
| jerf wrote:
| You can still add non-Steam programs to Steam to use them
| that way, so this doesn't even prevent that. This just means
| Valve is not distributing this over their store.
|
| The Steam Deck community already has scripts for installing &
| adding to Steam emulators for basically everything in one
| shot, and Steam isn't doing the distribution of any of these.
| nullify88 wrote:
| Parents comment was only asking why would someone launch
| dolphin via steam and commented on it being bloat. We
| weren't talking about distribution because as you pointed
| out, it has little to do with launching dolphin as a non
| steam app.
| deelowe wrote:
| You honestly can't see a difference between installing the emu
| via steam on the deck versus switching to the desktop os,
| mucking about with various packages and configs, figuring out
| how to make the app show up in the steam ui and then switching
| back to handheld mode?
| Steltek wrote:
| Without weighing in on the merits, I didn't even look for
| emulators in Steam for my Deck. I installed ("sideloaded", if
| you will) EmuDeck in Desktop mode and that was a much nicer
| experience. Deck-aware controls and unified hotkeys (quit,
| save/load).
|
| But also, Dolphin was also the only emulator which needed a
| lot of additional tweaking from the EmuDeck defaults. Wii
| games have a combinatoric explosion of control schemes
| (wiimote, sideways wiimote, +nunchuk, +classic controller,
| +pro gyro thingy, balance board, light gun, etc) and there
| are really no sensible defaults. Dolphin won't remember
| layouts per-game, you need to do some launcher gymnastics to
| make that happen.
| bjord wrote:
| to me, the most obvious answer seems like that it would make
| emulation via dolphin more accessible to the average steam deck
| user
| isthisfoss wrote:
| Some people like the convenience of a single application that
| saves your settings and backs your saves up to the cloud
| instead of many different ones you have to micromanage,
| especially across different machines
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Hey, that sounds like a package manager!
| c-hendricks wrote:
| My package manager doesn't let me stream games to my other
| devices
|
| My package manager doesn't have a nice controller-support
| UI
|
| My package manager doesn't let me set up controller
| mappings
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Well, that's kinda my unstated serious point in that
| joking comment: Steam, in a sense, is a package manager
| but a much better one in many ways so asking to abandon
| Steam for the system-provided package manager (which may
| not even exist if we're talking about pre-Store Windows)
| is quite flippant.
| hoten wrote:
| It shows a huge disregard for non-technical users. Very
| just-use-Wireguard (tail scale) or just-ftp-rsync-your-
| data (Dropbox).
| danhor wrote:
| My package manager certainly doesn't sync settings and save
| files between multiple systems. But I'd be interested in
| one that does!
| Rhedox wrote:
| Steam Cloud synced save games are nice for people with a Steam
| Deck.
| jdiff wrote:
| Plus updates without having to drop into Desktop Mode, and a
| much more streamlined initial install and setup.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| To many gamers, Dolphin is unknown, and installing it is
| finicky. It would foster Dolphin adoption, and possibly Steam
| Deck adoption and a Switch alternative.
| wasabinator wrote:
| I don't understand how the world seems full of Nintendo
| apologists. Not in this discussion, I mean across the greater
| web. They seem to get churned out of the same factory that
| produces the Apple apologists.
| hbn wrote:
| I'm not sure I've ever seen someone who's an apologist for
| Nintendo's constant C&D requests.
|
| If you're talking about their games, then... yeah I mean
| they're basically the only AAA studio that's put out pretty
| reliably high quality games for the past 30-40 years. People
| want to play fun games and Nintendo provides them.
|
| Just like how people like Apple because they make good
| computers, phones, etc. We don't all make our tech purchases
| based on protesting the company's usage of US legal system.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| They're not usually here, but they're on so many other
| websites. Often parroting the "emulators are illegal"
| nonsense Nintendo puts out. Whenever Nintendo hits the news,
| the fanboys seem to be all the comment sections.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| What does the /s/ before the signature mean on the document sent
| by Nintendo?
|
| Searching the internet for it is making me increasingly upset. No
| I don't mean Xbox s, I put the damn thing in quotes for a reason.
| ineedasername wrote:
| >I put the damn thing in quotes for a reason
|
| I don't remember when Google stopped honoring the "..."
| convention but it's very annoying
| wut42 wrote:
| It signifies a "conformed signature": a legal way to sign an
| electronic document using a typed signer's name instead of an
| actual signature.
| Karunamon wrote:
| https://www.adobe.com/sign/esignature-resources/s-signature....
|
| tldr: a legally binding typed signature.
|
| No, I don't think it makes sense either.
| Macha wrote:
| I think it makes more sense when you consider how many
| circumstances in which we do handwritten signatures, yet the
| recipient of the signature has no intent or method to verify
| it against your usual signature
| sclarisse wrote:
| Signature.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Nintendo would have to want to sell games on steam that work with
| emulators like dolphin. This they are afraid will hurt hardware
| sales, so it won't happen.
| nfriedly wrote:
| Nintendo's been a bully for years, so their response doesn't
| surprise me at all.
|
| But I am disappointed in Valve and their handling of things.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Despite what the FOSS crowd likes to think, Valve only cares
| about what brings money to their store front.
|
| Likewise SteamOS isn't some kind of freedom fight, rather not
| wanting to lose revenue for Microsoft.
| zamalek wrote:
| But Valve does understand (somewhat uniquely) that doing best
| by the consumer tends to bring in more money - Gabe often
| talks about this himself. I guess this is one instance where
| they think more money could be had another way.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And yet they resisted a way to refund games for like a
| decade until the Australian courts pointed out how illegal
| that was basically everywhere but the US and they finally
| conceded.
|
| Valve isn't "pro-consumer", but just "less anti-consumer"
| because it's a terribly low bar.
|
| They pull in insane money from skins and stupid skin trades
| on their marketplace and basically invented the gacha
| mechanics for Team Fortress Hats and crates, including
| making it free to play to bring in more people for the
| whales to lord over.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| What do you mean?
|
| Why do you think you can't find Goldberg Steam emulator on
| Steam/Xbox/Playstation/Switch?
| (https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator)
|
| Hint: it's used to play games without Steam DRM :)
|
| Do you say that Valve's been a bully for years as well for
| trying to block Goldberg from Steam?
|
| You would do the same if people made it easy to illegally
| distribute and use your products for free
|
| And Nintendo is forced to do something to protect 3rd party
| studios/publishers as well
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| oh yeah, just enforcing their IP, real bullies there
| mrguyorama wrote:
| They have been explicitly told by US courts like twice that
| they are in the wrong here and they are not in the legal
| right to "enforce" their "IP" here because an emulator that
| was produced through explicitly public knowledge, or even
| testing against the actual system for correctness is
| explicitly fair game. This was tested multiple times in the
| 80s and 90s, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleem! was a
| pretty clear cut case that showed you can literally sell an
| emulator you have created for a profit and still be in the
| clear.
|
| Nintendo's "all emulation is illegal" stance is straight up
| wrong, they know it's wrong, and they should not be allowed
| to say such a falsehood in an attempt to exert control over
| something they legally do not have control of. At this point
| they should be labeled a vexatious litigant and should not be
| allowed to even file these kind of cases without express
| approval from a judge.
| skotobaza wrote:
| How is any of their IPs in jeopardy? Emulator doesn't contain
| any firmware code (at least not Dolphin as far as I'm aware).
| The encryption key is not IP and isn't copyrighted.
| paulcole wrote:
| > We do not believe this angle would be successful in a US
| courtroom, if it were ever to come to that
|
| Do they have the war chest to see this through?
| chaorace wrote:
| A case like this would be a landmark battle in the making, I
| think. Advocacy groups like the IEEE would most likely be all
| over this due to the weightly ramifications that would arise
| from Nintendo setting a new unfavorable legal precedent.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I'd donate. A win against Nintendo would be good for everyone.
| mberning wrote:
| It seems odd that Valve would preemptively go and ask Nintendo
| for their input. Curious if they have done that for other items
| on Steam. It would seem that if Valve allowed this on their
| platform and Nintendo became upset about it they could easily
| point to the fact that the software is easily accessible off
| Steam and Nintendo has done very little about it.
| jwie wrote:
| Dolphin on the Steam Deck in an officially supported capacity
| is likely the concern. That's a strictly better Switch running
| exclusive Nintendo games.
| lbourdages wrote:
| Nintendo could start by providing legal ways to rent/purchase
| their old games and emulation wouldn't be as much of an
| issue.
| lolinder wrote:
| They could, but they won't. Nintendo has a history of doing
| the IP stickler thing rather than the rational, money-
| making thing. See their approach to YouTube:
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/nintendo-copyright-zelda-mod/
| lbourdages wrote:
| I really fail to understand how these big Japanese
| companies work.
|
| It's like Toyota with electric cars, they could have
| become a leader in EVs as they had the bulk of the hybrid
| market (and thus experience), but they kept insisting
| that hydrogen was the way to go despite actual hydrogen
| car sales being abysmal and EV (read: Tesla) sales
| exploding.
| jerf wrote:
| "It seems odd that Valve would preemptively go and ask Nintendo
| for their input."
|
| Ah, this is one of those cases where you must apply a decoder
| ring. Valve literally sends to Nintendo "Hey, for no reason
| whatsoever we're just happening to ask if you've heard that
| Dolphin is coming out on Steam?" and Nintendo says "Here's why
| they shouldn't be allowed to do this with some legal
| reasoning".
|
| But what actually happened was Valve said "Hey, Nintendo, are
| you going to sue us for any reason if we do this?" and Nintendo
| said "Yes". Everyone at Valve and Nintendo are fully aware of
| the underlying conversation.
|
| One of the most amusing things to me about human politics, and
| I mean of all kinds not just national-scale governmental
| politics, are those cases where everyone involved understands
| that what is being said actually means something else entirely,
| and despite the fact that everyone involved from top to bottom
| knows what is actually being said, they still act as if there
| is some public or set of uninformed individuals who need that
| fig leaf covering over the real conversation. This is one of
| the simpler and more obvious cases, which makes it good
| practice for realizing when it's happening in other contexts.
| It is a super common characteristic of human politics, this
| constant playing to an audience that may not even exist, and
| everyone may _know_ does not exist, yet we must still play to
| them.
|
| And it happens because it works. We'd all be much more up in
| arms than we are if Valve had indeed nakedly asked Nintendo if
| they would be sued and Nintendo simply said yes. That's exactly
| what happened, and yet, the fig leaf works. (And bear in mind I
| said _more_ upset. You may be upset now, and it may be
| justified. But we 'd be even _more_ up in arms if the actual
| conversation had happened rather than the fig leaf
| conversation.)
| dathinab wrote:
| > It seems odd that Valve would preemptively go and ask
| Nintendo for their input.
|
| Indeed a much more natural way would have been to ask Dolphin
| for a statement of their lawyers why they think it's legal run
| it then by your lawyers and maybe bill Dolphin for that, too.
|
| Afterward you would have done more then needed wrt. oversight
| of your platform and can let them fight it out in curt.
|
| It makes me believe that either of:
|
| - Nintendo pressured Valve (or just payed well) into a NDA
| agreement to give them a heads up for emulator cases (seems
| reasonable to assume)
|
| - Valve has some undisclosed ongoing cooperation with Nintendo
| wrt. some future products (unlikely, but there is a surprising
| overlap and I haven been joking around that both should just
| Team up for their next handheld hardware and just sell it as a
| locked-down proprietary OS Nintendo version and a unlocked
| linux OS Valve version ..., nah probably not)
|
| - Valve is somehow dependent on Nintendo, e.g. patents related
| to handheld gaming consoles or similar
|
| - the decisions wasn't fully thought thru (also quite likely)
| MikusR wrote:
| Valve is not your friend it's a for profit company that is also
| one of the largest Loot Box pushers and NFT sellers.
| ozyschmozy wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the NFT part? The only results I get
| when searching for "valve nft" is valve banning nft
| based/related games from steam.
| MikusR wrote:
| Steam community market. The only difference is that in
| stead of blockchain it uses a database.
| EvertBouw wrote:
| CSGO skins and lootboxes are tradeable digital items, but
| they are tied to the steam marketplace. If it used a
| blockchain they'd be NFTs
| chaorace wrote:
| Yeah and if I lit a match and dropped it in my house it'd
| be a housefire. Calling skins NFTs is patently false,
| because they are both _not_ tokens and _not_ non-fungible
| ( _nametags notwithstanding_ ).
| mcpackieh wrote:
| It's not the blockchain aspect of NFTs that is
| particularly offensive and relevant here, it's the
| creation of a speculation market for the selling of
| textures/jpgs with artificially imposed scarcity. The
| only difference between what Valve does and NFTs is an
| irrelevant implementation detail; Valve uses a
| centralized database instead of a distributed ledger,
| which is a much smarter engineering decision but it
| doesn't change the fundamental nature of what they've
| created.
| ineedasername wrote:
| It doesn't seem odd to me, Valve already has a business
| relationship with Nintendo, publishing games on their console.
| They checked with their business partner before doing something
| the partner might not like. Even leaving off the DMCA legal
| stuff, that seems reasonable, and I don't think the DMCA case
| is as air tight as the Dolphin folks want to believe.
| dtech wrote:
| They likely do not want to make an enemy of Nintendo, whether
| Dolphin is legal is only tangentially related.
| headline wrote:
| I'd really like to live in the timeline where Valve pushed it
| anyway and entertained a legal battle against Nintendo to keep
| emulators on the foreground of gaming.
| jsight wrote:
| This is why I hate walled gardens.
|
| But for some reason the majority here seem to love them, at least
| when Apple is the wall builder. :shrug
| dagmx wrote:
| But there's no walled garden here. You can still get and
| install Dolphin without Steam.
|
| You can't compel Valve to host something they don't want but
| that also isn't an impediment to distribution on any platform
| that Steam is on.
| jsight wrote:
| Fair point. I was speaking more generally.
|
| I do like steam. It is a walled garden that can be exited
| whenever one chooses, and exiting is trivial but also
| requires deliberate action. That's good. :)
| jaimex2 wrote:
| I hear Epic Store have an appetite for legal fights.
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