Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Should Retro Games Be Declared as Public Domain?

Posted on by Viljami

How popular are old NES or SNES games? Just think about how popular were NES Classic Mini and also the one that had tens of SNES games on it. I remember that I was working in a game shop as we had hundreds of customers that had ordered a NES mini. They had to wait moths to get one. This same happened with SNES mini. Although customers started to understand and not order a device that couldn’t even be delivered in a reasonable time.

This is exactly the matter when we are talking about the popularity of retro games. These games were released 30 or 40 years ago. They aren’t properly available to us gamers. Nintendo has made them available on their web service. That alone doesn’t make me want to pay for the subscription. You can get a console, maybe original NES or some other type of console, that you can play original games with. This however is expensive. You might have to pay 40 euros for a game. Some games are sold for hundreds or even thousands of euros.

Publishers seem to be holding on to these game titles. How does this make sense? If someone buys a used game from a game shop that is a private entrepreneur how does this give any more profit to the publisher of the game? There have been many sore comments on Facebook ads of this certain web shop that offers money for used retro titles. They pay you about fifty percentage or maybe even less than that for your rare games of the price they are actually selling it. This makes producing and downloading so called pirated copies of these games popular and tempting.

I just today read a story that was dealing with the ability to play old games that were released in 2010 or earlier. This is actually very hard. The writer was very concerned about older games just disappearing somewhere. These games are valuable in a certain way. Future game designers can learn a lot from old games. Someone might be willing to play these games. And many are having this certain appeal to these games now and also in the future.

What would be the solution? I think that certain games should be made a public domain. You could download them and share and even maybe modify them freely. We should have devices available that could convert the game cartridge to a rom file and they should be easily available. There could be devices dedicated to this in libraries or maybe in some other places. I have to tell you that we are already seeing all sorts of video games available in libraries already today.

So, to conclude, we should, in my opinion, share these old games and make them as widely available as possible. We already have these most important video game systems emulators available. Someone might support legalizing some mild drug. I am right now stating that I support the freeing of retro games. This is even today illegal. Who is this statute working for one might ask. I am not supporting or saying that you should break law. That is not the case. I am saying that we should change the law since it seems that old games are getting hard to play and to enjoy.

A Neat Find from a Local Flea Market

Posted on by Viljami

You don’t have to necessarily guess what I found from a local flea market. While looking to the image right above this blog post you can see that it is an original CD-ROM of the legendary FPS game Quake. What you can guess is how much did I pay for it? It cost me two euros. Yes. That is right. Two euros. I am a bit tempted to sell this forward for maybe ten or fifteen euros but I decided that I would like to keep it.

I already figured when I decided to buy this that this game isn’t going to work on my modern Windows 10 PC. Fortunately I have a dedicated PC that runs Windows XP. I am going to play it on this old PC. I also understand that there are versions of this game available for Switch, PS4 and Xbox Series X. I think I made the right choice when I decided to buy this game. While re-use centers don’t necessarily always have the right ways to analyze the stuff they are selling I am willing to support them with buying a game for two euros.

There is one cool feature with this CD. It does play the games official sound track if you insert it to a CD player. I think this was why they had it in the audio CD section of this re-use center that I bought it from. I was actually a bit surprised that this disc didn’t have even more value. I have seen some CD-ROM PC games that were for sale for maybe 30 euros. This is of course a price of a game shop and those prices are always a bit high. This is due to some expenses that these special stores have like rent for example. I am very content in this latest purchase that I made. It is definitely a good purchase. Two euros. Wow!

I actually have a holiday at the moment. I have spent it sleeping, reading and playing. I have been just relaxing. I did spend some time in a hotel. And we are going to our family’s summer cottage next week. My wife has her holidays at the same time. We have spent some time together, of course. So, I have had a lot time for these activities I described a bit earlier. Today I had time to go to three different flea markets at Myyrmäki, Vantaa.

Quake has gained lots of attention lately. So I guess that here’s some more hype for the game. I am also waiting to get to listen once again the soundtrack of this game. The soundtrack was produced by Nine Inch Nails. If you like old school first person shooters then why not give Quake a try. Back in 1996 it was something different. It is a good game and a legendary game also.

A Great Movie for a Total Fan of Resident Evil Series

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I am taking a view to the movie Resident Evil – Welcome to Raccoon City. This movie was released in 2021. I am seeing this movie for the first time. I really don’t know if it was here in Finland in film theaters at all. At least every theater would have been closed anyway. So, I watched this movie as a 4K Ultra HD copy on my 55 inch telly with my Xbox Series X. In many ways this is related to playing video games. I am likely justified to write this here.

I am watching a movie on my Xbox Series X and it is about the strange incidents that happened in 1998 in Raccoon City. There is a company called Umbrella Corporation that has something fishy going on in this small city in USA. The movie is based on at least the first two games. You will have a benefit in a way for seeing this content if you have played Resident Evil 1 and 2 or maybe even the recent remake of RE2.

This movie is rated 5,2 out of 10 in imdb. It has received some criticism. Of course hopes have been very high. We have had movies based on this survival horror video game series which isn’t such a surprise, but these movies have been of low quality. Even Milla Jovovich wasn’t able to save them. I don’t like these movies at all. I hate to even having to mention anything about them.

How did I like the movie? Were there anything I would have liked to work a bit  differently? Well, it’s a nice package. It is causing me anxiety in a similar way that the games used to when I picked them up back in the 90s and even recently I have this gloomy feeling if I start to play them. My only possession remaining from these games is a copy of the original RE2 which I think is the best out of the first three games. Now we must remember that there have been remakes and also some more recent RE games made, like for example Resident Evil Village.

This movie centers around happenings in Raccoon City when the zombie apocalypse starts. There are characters like Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield. There aren’t any superstar actors which can be also a good thing. The movie opens these strange incidents a lot and it has more going on than what can be achieved what it comes to the main plot of the whole story that is being told through first three games. At least that’s how I felt. Even my wife enjoyed the film although she said that it was scary and caused a bit of anxiety for her. The movie is actually forbidden for age under 16.

I think this was a good movie. Although it was nothing compared to the Last of Us story that was brought to us also some time ago. I watched that thing on HBO. This RE movie was one of my first films that I got as a 4K disc. These things are expensive, you know? I paid 30 euros for this movie. It has also the Bluray version and it came in a steel book. I can definitely recommend this movie to you especially if you like RE.