I recently saw an article about how people are racing to perfect Tears of the Kingdom emulator.
I know Breath of the Wild has been emulated for awhile and there’s entire consoles worth of games being emulated. How and why do companies allow this?
Is it because they don’t expect to make any more money on a Dreamcast or GameCube game from 20 years ago so they just allow it?
What about when they remaster the game?
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>How and why do companies allow this?
They don’t, if they can help it. Companies like Nintendo go after them to the extent possible under the law. They do not like them.
>How do video game emulators not break copyright laws?
Copyright laws are generally about copying, and intellectual properties. So making your own emulator is ok. It’s like making your own CD player- there’s nothing inherently wrong with making something that can interact with a piece of media. Just because Sony made a CD player doesn’t mean you can’t make one. You just can’t copy Sony’s code/design.
It would be illegal to just copy Nintendo’s media playing software/hardware, but Nintendo would have to prove that you copied them, and didn’t just make your own.
Typically copyright protection comes into play with the game/ROM itself. You can’t legally just copy/rip the game. You (arguably. Nintendo doesn’t think it’s legal. And if it has DRM it may not be) make copies of a game you already own.
This is why these days, you’ll notice that many emulators don’t ship with the actual game files, and say you need to provide your own.
Enforcement is also tricky. Legal battles are expensive, so there is a limit to how much time a company will spend. They might go after big sites hosting game files, but it’s generally not worth their time chasing down every single person who downloaded a ROM. Often as long as they can make it “hard enough” that it doesn’t drastically impact sales, that can be good enough.
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