Open Letter to the Emulation Community

Panix has written in with an open letter to the Emulation community where he addresses the recent rise and fall of the UltraHLE- the N64 emulator, ROM piracy, and the real reason for console emulators. Click below to read what he has to say.

The following was written by Slashdot Reader Panix

This is an open letter to the emulation scene, and to the authors of UltraHLE.

I have been an emulation fan for years, ever since I downloaded the first version of VSMC years ago. That version of VSMC did not run a single game, in fact I don't even think that it displayed graphics. But, it still fascinated me, and many others like me. I remember reading hundreds of technical documents relating to emulation, specifically of the SNES, a brand new system at the time. The emulation world was exciting, even though commercial games were not the focus. In the past few years, hordes of people have hit the emulation scene and have equated it with the warez scene. A few days ago, with the release and discontinuation of UltraHLE, this reality has come to a head.

I repect the authors of UltraHLE, but I would like to address this open letter to them and to any other true members of the emulation scene, who are simply amazed by the technical prowess of UltraHLE. At the release of UltraHLE, I was extremely excited for the community. With bleem, Connentix's Virtual Game Station, and UltraHLE all ready for release, the scene finds itself at a defining point. The events that occur now will shape the future of emulation.

Then it hit. Many outsiders, mostly "31337 warez h4x0rs", discovered UltraHLE and the frenzy began. No matter where I went, I saw requests for ROMs. At one point, I had to leave EFNet's #emu out of disgust. What ever happened to the true emulation scene and the days of Archaic Ruins, Node 99, VSMC, and technical interest in emulation? Simply put, with the world watching, we all ran and hid.

The first people to hide were the true members of the emulation scene. We easily could have prevented this from the very start by not giving away our own personal ROMs, not posting ROM sites, and kicking every person from our IRC channels that we could. The maintainers of popular emulation sites could have removed all links to ROMs, and posted the true point of emulation. But, instead we just bitched. That's all, we just complained about how lame the warezers were, and otherwise kept quiet. What is the result of this? The rest of the world looked at the scene and didn't see us, didn't hear us, and saw one thing and one thing only: piracy. I am very disappointed in myself and the scene.

Following this, the authors of emulators began to get scared. At a pivotal point in the history of emulation, the very founders got scared! With Sony suing Connectix, the potential for legal action, and the explosion of warez foolishness, the authors got frustrated. But, what did they do? Several of them just quit, further tarnishing the public view of the emulation scene, at the most important time in emulation history. To those authors that discontinued their emulators: I am ashamed.

Now, this is specifically to the authors of UltraHLE. Congratulations, you have created the best emulator of all time. Oh, and by the way, thank you for destroying the scene. Don't get me wrong, I hold the highest respect for your technical abilities, and as a coder myself, I am aware of the daunting task that you had ahead of you. But, please, your arguments for discontinuing your emulator are weaker than any that I have ever heard. Let us analyze your argument:

"The UltraHLE project was a technical demo, an experiment to see if N64 emulation really is possible and an attempt to advance the state of the art in emulation. It was not designed to be a tool for piracy."

No emulator is designed as a tool for piracy! In fact, nearly every emulation author gives their emulator away for free, simply because they are only interested in the technical side of emulation. If you had stated this days in advance before releasing your emulator, then maybe some of this could have been avoided.

"Once it was released, things moved at an unforeseen pace. In a matter of hours, the main interest for people became acquiring illegal copies of game ROMs. This was why the pages were put down in a matter of hours."

If you did not expect this hysteria, then I doubt that you thought over what you were doing when you were writing the emulator. In fact, if you thought that there would not be warez pups fighting and pleading for ROMs, then you must be naïve. This is not an excuse! On top of this, you only kept the site up for a matter of 4 hours. I can guarantee that the hysteria would die down in under a month. If you would have stood up for the emulator, and for the scene, then you may have actually helped the community, instead, you have damaged it nearly irreparably.

"We do not condone this use of illegal ROMs in any form and do not allow our emulator to be used in this way. As we cannot effectively stop people from using this product in wrong and illegal ways, we have no choice but to discontinue the project.

This is the crescendo of your argument, and it is essentially like a software engineer saying the following: "I am going to stop coding anything at all, because people are going to pirate it." OF COURSE THEY ARE. There are millions of idiots in this world, it is unavoidable, but that does not mean that you can use them as a crutch, and it does not mean that any idiots are a part of the scene. With this statement, all you have done is admitted publicly to the rest of the world that noone in the emulation scene cares about the technical element, which is simply not true. As an ambassador to the world for the emulation scene, you pointed at us and made us look like fools. Thanks a bunch. Now the world thinks that we are warezing anarchist teenagers and that emulation is illegal. Evidence of this is Nintendo's comment on UltraHLE.

In conclusion, I would like to reinstate that I have the utmost respect for the technical abilities of the UltraHLE authors, and I am not trying to attack them. I understand that it all happened so quickly, but that does not mean that there were not 3 months to prepare before you released the emulator. At this point, I wish you hadn't released it at all.

There is only one way to mend the damage that has been done. And it is twofold. First, the emulation scene needs to gather together to get rid of the warez pups. Simply put: don't give out ROMs, don't post ROMs, don't post links to ROMs, deny that UltraHLE ever existed, and explain the technical beauty of emulation. Secondly, the authors of UltraHLE must release the source code of their emulator, release technical papers on how they did it, how it works, and why it was created. This would be for the benefit of the community, and would show the world what we are really about.

With hope,

Jonathan LaCour Panix on EFNet
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