I read the language not as “you can create apps that play user-supplied ROMs” so much as “if you’re Sega and want to launch an emulator app that allows you to sell emulated old Sega ROMs as in app purchases you can do that.”
Apple and Gaming
- Thread starter jeanlain
- Start date
Apple isn't distributing these emulator apps in the App Store right?
They're just allowing 3rd party app stores, which may distribute them.
In that case the liability would rest solely with the 3rd party app store. HOWEVER, we know that the entity with the deepest pockets are always targeted for civil litigation.
The Vergecast was cheering these emulator apps, how cool it would be to play these old games. They should know better about the liability issues.
They're just allowing 3rd party app stores, which may distribute them.
In that case the liability would rest solely with the 3rd party app store. HOWEVER, we know that the entity with the deepest pockets are always targeted for civil litigation.
The Vergecast was cheering these emulator apps, how cool it would be to play these old games. They should know better about the liability issues.
No, they are allowing them in the App Store proper, world-wide. It's not limited to 3rd party app stores or the EU.
They're also allowing apps with embeddedgames (correction: "mini HTML5-based apps within an app") as well, without the games having to be broken out as separate apps for review (this sounds somewhat related to them relaxing the rules on game streaming apps, but targeted more at "mega" apps like WeChat that often embed all sorts of disparate executable content separate from the primary function of the app itself).
They're also allowing apps with embedded
I was thinking that too...but it's weird cause I remember Capcom already having something like that setup years ago for their arcade games.
The relevant clause here (4.7) if you want to try reading between the many lines/finding loopholes: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#third-party-software
As japtor suggests, those sorts of apps—emulator code tied to a single developer and their IP—have already existed for some time, and I think what made them "ok" is that they were closed-end systems. There was no way to introduce different ROMs and therefore change the app's behavior or "surface" after sale. The key takeaway of Apple's announcement seems to be that they're more willing to accept apps that can contain their own executable code that may fundamentally change their function after the point of submission (EDIT: to a degree. I've been doing some reading this morning and some developers are indicating there are still some key restrictions in place, so... baby steps). Which is, as the kids say, a huge big deal.
Given this is the Gaming thread, the primary attractor to me is emulators. If I were in a position where I had tens of thousands of Commodore 64 and Amiga ROMs, I might be interested to see how an emulator of one of those systems functioned on my iPad. I think it'd be great fun as I love retro gaming. But I do not have any ROMs for those systems so I guess I'll never know.
Given this is the Gaming thread, the primary attractor to me is emulators. If I were in a position where I had tens of thousands of Commodore 64 and Amiga ROMs, I might be interested to see how an emulator of one of those systems functioned on my iPad. I think it'd be great fun as I love retro gaming. But I do not have any ROMs for those systems so I guess I'll never know.
Can any of these ROMs come off copyright after enough time?
I think Steamboat Willie is no longer under copyright?
I think Steamboat Willie is no longer under copyright?
Steamboat Willie was a 1928 release. ROMs are going to be copyright protected for 95 years from date of filing or release. That will be quite the wait.
That's why I don't get the interest in these old games. They were fine back in the day.
It would be cool to play them on personal devices but there are plenty of other games and diversions these days.
The old ones you put quarters in when you were a kid, why such a big deal to play them on your iPhone again, with touch controls instead of the dedicated arcade controls they used to have?
It would be cool to play them on personal devices but there are plenty of other games and diversions these days.
The old ones you put quarters in when you were a kid, why such a big deal to play them on your iPhone again, with touch controls instead of the dedicated arcade controls they used to have?
They’re fun for a few minutes, whilst the nostalgic glow envelopes you, but really they’re pretty awful to play after that. With very few exceptions, I’ve always found retro games to be highly repetitive, usually utterly unforgiving, and just no fun to play for more than the aforementioned five nostalgic minutes.
Why does anyone do anything? Because it makes them happy. I don't know that anyone really needs to justify what they find enjoyable about retro or emulation gaming, or emulation in particular.
For me, it's mostly about nostalgia and history. My introduction to computers was in the 80s with the Commodore 8-bits and the Amiga, as well as many hours (and many quarters) spent at my local arcade. Of course, modern games (at least, outside of 90% of the trash in the App Store) are far more immersive, complex, and advanced. I enjoy many of those games too. But an hour spent playing a game from my youth, in all its 8-bit glory? That's fun to me. The presentation may be more simple, but the challenge no less severe. Plus, emulation is a difficult programming problem. I'm no programmer, but I love learning about how emulation works, and trying to understand how people with that talent approach the challenges of re-creating one system on another. It helps to remind me of the programming I used to do, back in 65xx machine code, and how to get very simple, very limited computers to do amazing things.
Again, it's the one thing about gaming in general that Apple has never understood and never will understand: It's the community. Whether it be the Halo players I team with for competitive matches, or other people interested in Commodore 64 games, or the tweaking and mod community. Breaking shit and making it different. Remove the guardrails and see what trouble can be had.
And yes, I can satisfy all these itches on my Mac just fine. I don't need my iOS/iPadOS devices to support emulation any more than I need them to do most of the things they do. But if there's an opportunity for me to leverage a new or different computing device to do something interesting, and explore how it's better (or worse, or different, or...) at that task, I'm going to pursue that. Computing is exploration to me. Computing as fixed-use "appliance" is boring.
And ew, touch controls. I agree, a terrible choice for any game built around the idea of physical controls. Luckily, that problem is almost entirely solved on iOS/iPadOS thanks to controller support, and was never a problem on the Mac. I still have a custom spinner control someone made for me years and years ago specifically to play Tempest in emulation. I love it to death.
Wings. TV Sports Basketball.
Two formative games I‘d immediately pay for if casually playable. Nowhere near HOF games, but important for me personally.
I agree that a lot of those old games haven’t aged well, they still have their merits and I’m also reminded of and want to hawk two of my favorite games that unfortunately remain stuck on the disaster that is the Wii U: NES Remix 1&2. Take classic NES Nintendo games (which does unfortunately mean no third party titles, so no Castlevania or Mega Man) and break them down into their components. You basically have a series of challenges that are focused around a single gameplay element or level with the goal of completing it as quickly as possible. Once separated out into brief challenges and with the ability to freely switch between games you eliminate the tedium and boredom that can easily accompany a lot of the fake difficulty that replaced actual longevity. And then there are the remix levels that add a unique twist. Donkey Kong but with Link (can’t jump). Mario as an autorunner! The screen zooming out to show multiple screens playing simultaneously! There are some really clever ideas here that add a welcome spin on otherwise old games.
Ironically, although NES Remix 2 features games that are rightly seen as better, that actually makes it the lesser of the two entries. Those later NES games were largely better because of the added depth and complexity of their gameplay which actually works against NES Remix’s highly-focused approach. There’s also a 3DS version that takes the best games from both entries while leaving out the lesser games like Golf, Tennis, or Ice Climbers and sticking to just the heavy hitters like Mario, Zelda, Kid Icarus, etc. If you like the idea of retro games more than the experience of actually playing them all the way through any of the three releases are well worth your time and it’s a shame Nintendo seemingly abandoned the series. They’d be absolutely perfect on the Switch.
Ironically, although NES Remix 2 features games that are rightly seen as better, that actually makes it the lesser of the two entries. Those later NES games were largely better because of the added depth and complexity of their gameplay which actually works against NES Remix’s highly-focused approach. There’s also a 3DS version that takes the best games from both entries while leaving out the lesser games like Golf, Tennis, or Ice Climbers and sticking to just the heavy hitters like Mario, Zelda, Kid Icarus, etc. If you like the idea of retro games more than the experience of actually playing them all the way through any of the three releases are well worth your time and it’s a shame Nintendo seemingly abandoned the series. They’d be absolutely perfect on the Switch.
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IIRC, various "arcade classics" collections have been released on consoles over the years.
So you could play these games without ROMs. You'd have to buy the disc and also own consoles.
So people are looking for the cheapest way to play these old games, since they already have a device capable of playing them?
So you could play these games without ROMs. You'd have to buy the disc and also own consoles.
So people are looking for the cheapest way to play these old games, since they already have a device capable of playing them?
Obviously, sourcing ROMs is a gray area at best. Software for retro computer systems is slightly less gray since much of it is abandonware, with the original publishers long out of business and rights never transferred. The newer the system being emulated, or if the publisher is still in business, the harder it is to justify the legality on anything approaching fair use. Regardless, how and where someone sources ROMs does not make the emulator executable any less legal, any more so than iTunes/Music.app making a distinction about the source of music files loaded into its catalog.
I don't think Apple's unwillingness had anything to do with the legality of the software an emulator runs, however, and more to do with the execution of arbitrary code that didn't go through Apple's review process. Whether or not the App Store review process represents a "real" test of safety is... not a universal belief.
I don't think Apple's unwillingness had anything to do with the legality of the software an emulator runs, however, and more to do with the execution of arbitrary code that didn't go through Apple's review process. Whether or not the App Store review process represents a "real" test of safety is... not a universal belief.
Brad Oliver
Ars Tribunus Militum
This is the key takeaway here. Ditto for
No need to focus on $200-$300 mill games. AAAs mostly run best on console unless you buy a $3k gaming pc with massive amounts of vram to offset the ssd tech in the ps5 and are happy with trade offs in terms of fans and bulk.
I just want to play pc focussed titles like disco elysium, age of empires ii, cs2, sim city and emulators up to rpcs3. So I’m moving to a 24 gb m3 MacBook Air and maybe an ROG ally as a backup where it’s not enough grunt.
No more rgb color schemes, bulky laptops, gigantic cases or loud fans. But I would rather Apple did a bit more to get actual pc games ported to Mac and help Valve out too. Not interested in a Death Stranding or Resident Evil 4 port when I have a $500 ps5 for that.
From my limited experiences with gaming on a M3 you'll want an actively cooled Mac for demanding titles. My experience is limited because NMS sucked me in and I didn't tinker much with my new MBP in the 2 weeks I have it. But as beautifully as the game runs, the M3 does get warm. That fits with a friend's report of his MBA M2 throttling a lot under constant gaming loads.
I for one have owned about 382,428 different versions of Pac-Man and by golly I want them all. ;-)
Many people who like, or fondly remember, old games have never, or may never own a console or a PC able to play them. even if it's as easy as a CD or download. Others don't want to spend the time in one place to do so. An app on your phone is much more convenient and accessible for a casual gamer and it's a huge monetization opportunity. People pay a ton of money for nostalgia and having those apps in the App Store means a ton of potential for in-app purchases and their associated fees.
I haven't ready much about it, but I can see Apple making a deal with Atari, Nintendo, Sega, or anyone to build and market a legit avenue for emulated games. With all the cheap retro handhelds available and ROMS being sold literally on Amazon in retro game SD cards, turning that into a profit center is a no brainer.
I think the one on that list that’s guaranteed not to happen is Nintendo. Nintendo wants you to buy whatever will be the next re-release of the NES Classic, or just get a Switch and use the Virtual Console.
Both Atari and Sega have their own products for playing retro games on (the Flashback and Genesis Mini, respectively). Whether they’ve got any appetite for extensive bollocks and bullshit required to get licenced emulation onto Apple’s platform remains to be seen.
The thing with all that stuff on Amazon is that while it proves there’s something of a market, it’s almost certainly sketchy as fuck from a licencing perspective, and anything landing on Apple’s platform will have to be squeaky clean, with all Is dotted and all Ts crossed.
Both Atari and Sega have their own products for playing retro games on (the Flashback and Genesis Mini, respectively). Whether they’ve got any appetite for extensive bollocks and bullshit required to get licenced emulation onto Apple’s platform remains to be seen.
The thing with all that stuff on Amazon is that while it proves there’s something of a market, it’s almost certainly sketchy as fuck from a licencing perspective, and anything landing on Apple’s platform will have to be squeaky clean, with all Is dotted and all Ts crossed.
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The App Store has plenty of sketchy games there (the 2048 debacle is still affecting it). All one has to do is give Apple their cut and it can get approved.
Speaking of Sega, they already have retro games on the App Store, so I'm not sure what this change would mean to them (if anything).
Circling back: While I wouldn't have been surprised if you were correct (disappointed, but not surprised), turns out that wasn't the case: There is a GameBoy Emulator now live in the App Store and it requires users to supply ROMs. Setting aside that this particular emulator appears to be an unauthorized repackaging of an open source project with onerous advertising added—we're in the gold rush phase, so there's going to be a lot of that, unfortunately. I'm focused on the fact that Apple approved a non-Nintendo-blessed emulator that requires externally sourced ROMs in a format that is not commercially available anywhere. Either you've laboriously dumped cartridges you own—sure you have—or you've sourced them from the Scene.
Apple clearly (surprisingly?) meant Emulators in the royal sense, not pre-packaged corporation-authorized emulators. For me personally, this single move has done more to make iOS devices in particular more attractive to me as a "gaming" platform that literally anything else Apple has done up to this point. If someone ports a Commodore 64 emulator to iPadOS I may faint.
Something like Emu64 XL? Early days but things are starting to get interesting…
The emulator was pulled...but for spam and copyright reasons, so who knows what they'll allow still.
www.macrumors.com
Apple Removes Game Boy Emulator iGBA From App Store Due to Spam and Copyright Violations
Apple today said it removed Game Boy emulator iGBA from the App Store for violating the company's App Review Guidelines related to spam (section...
www.macrumors.com
Reading between the lines, I think that had more to do with the provenance of that app itself, not that it was an open-ended emulator. But... as you say, who knows. This is Apple, after all. Rules must be kept murky at all times.
Indeed, Apple has clarified that it removed the GameBoy emulator because it was an unauthorized version of GBA4iOS, and not because it was an open-ended emulator that relied on user-supplied ROMs.
But Apple being Apple, their clarification leaves more questions than it answers. From the linked article:
So... what qualifies as a "retro console"? Atari 2600? Intellivision?
...XBox 360?
But Apple being Apple, their clarification leaves more questions than it answers. From the linked article:
So... what qualifies as a "retro console"? Atari 2600? Intellivision?
...XBox 360?
Correction. There was a NES emulator on the app store yesterday. It works, and I have it on my phone and iPad, but it seems to be gone.
Edit 2, from here
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Delta is now live:
Delta - Game Emulator
Delta is an all-in-one emulator for iOS. Delta builds upon the strengths of its predecessor, GBA4iOS, while expanding to include support for more game systems such as NES, SNES, N64, and DS. FEATURES Supported Game Systems • Nintendo Entertainment System • Super Nintendo Entertainment System...
apps.apple.com
Brad Oliver
Ars Tribunus Militum
Apple: Emulators are now allowed on the app store!
Devs: Imma put up a Nintendo emulator! They're a group of friendly guys! What could go wrong?
More seriously, probably these free Nintendo emulators will last but it does feel like putting a target on your back.
Devs: Imma put up a Nintendo emulator! They're a group of friendly guys! What could go wrong?
More seriously, probably these free Nintendo emulators will last but it does feel like putting a target on your back.
Brad Oliver
Ars Tribunus Militum
My point was maybe a bit more subtle: Nintendo specifically has historically been very "legally active" when it comes to emulators. I don't know that I'd want to be the app store pioneer that takes those arrows but I am curious to watch the process play out!
Delta is pretty slick, but really begs for a controller. None of these games are going to play well with on screen controls.
If Apple has opened iOS to emulators, what about tvOS? While it’s cool in a novelty way to play SNES on my iPhone, if I could get an emulator for the TV…
If Apple has opened iOS to emulators, what about tvOS? While it’s cool in a novelty way to play SNES on my iPhone, if I could get an emulator for the TV…
Yes, understood. The whole emulation-and-Apple question nicely illustrates their 'this tech is great when it serves our immediate needs, otherwise prolly a scourge' nonsense. Glad to see they're on the proper (and legal!) side of the issue now. How long will this last?
Have they been that legally active specifically with emulators? Seems like they were in the clear for decades until Dolphin trying to release on Steam, and more notably the whole Yuzu/Suyu mess (vs Ryujinx which has been untouched). Dolphin would've been an interesting case study since it sounds like Nintendo never went after them before or after, or what would've happened if they took out the Wii common key/Wii functionality.
Back to Apple's retro games clause...I kinda wonder if Apple and Nintendo legal teams had a chat at some point about the whole DMA thing and likelihood of emulators, and came up with that vague clause.
Or, the cynic's take: Nintendo et. al. come crying to Apple, who shrug and respond "We tried to protect you, but now our hands are tied thanks to what those nasty European regulators made us do."
I doubt Apple would protect Nintendo from anything as Apple already stated in regulatory filings that they compete directly with Nintendo. Plus what are they protecting Nintendo against, crappy AppStore regulation that allows IP theft? If anything Apple is protecting themselves from a lawsuit by Nintendo.
This is exactly what they are doing here. It’s a trap and a ploy to make sure the US doesn’t legislate an open app market and they are, in a roundabout way, twisting the arms of other corporations like Nintendo, Sega, Sony, etc. to get on board.
Malicious compliance at its finest. Notice the emulators are available in the official App Store in all markets except Europe.
It's the latter I was referring to, the rules conveniently avoid the pitfalls Nintendo has gone after.
Interesting. The new Assassin’s Creed game Shadows (we finally get an AC game set in feudal Japan) is launching day-and-date on the Mac. In addition , it’s an in-house Ubisoft release rather than going through a porting house. Strangely, the incoming port of AC Mirage is iOS/iPadOS only and is skipping the Mac. I can see why Shadows would be way too big for an iPhone (although maybe not an M-series iPad?), but can’t figure out why if they’re making Mac games now Mirage isn’t hitting it.
I think it's because it's the first game on the Infinity platform. FWIW, it's also launching on Luna as well.