Who financially benefits from the emulation community?

[jimmy2x2x]

On the whole the most essential parts of the loop, emulators and rom images, are acquired (rightly or wrongly) free, as in you don't pay directly for them.

So what products or services are making money from the community?

Front ends
Themes for front ends
Cabinet makers
Parts suppliers

who else?

[Blanka]

I think only part suppliers. And I believe there is just enough interest in the world for a few off them to earn their bread completely (maybe just Ultimarc, GGG and maybe a few others).
All the rest is hobbyism or historian work.

[jimmy2x2x]

I think you are right, not many depend entirely on the community.

I might have got this wrong, but are there 'Media Merchants' who sell access to download screenshots and video clips too?

[hypernova]

I made some dough when I sold my NES, SNES, and N64 stuff after it was faithfully emulated, and thus I didn't need the clutter anymore to play the classics.

[WhereEaglesDare]

I made some dough when I sold my NES, SNES, and N64 stuff after it was faithfully emulated, and thus I didn't need the clutter anymore to play the classics.

What do you think of this?

If emulation never picked up then the pace at which new hardware and consoles come out now would be slower.  The PSP is a good example of this.  They came out with newer and better models over time and one of the reasons was to try to stop emulation on the console.  Same for PS3 and XBOX.  Nintendo stuck with carts and proprietary disc formats much longer than the competitors in order to try to slow or stop emulation on their consoles and of their games.  So, in conclusion I think any modern console gamer may benefit (even though not financially) from the multitude of new hardware improvements that may have been initially brought about in order to hinder hacker.

Some people will say that the DRM doesn't help gameplay one bit, but if it wasn't for the motivation to stop the hacking of consoles we may still be using Nintendo 64s and Playstation 1s.  And can you imagine God of War 3 on Playstation 1? 

What weird and sick world that would be.

[RayB]

What a ridiculous leap to go and pin all gaming innovation on emulation and piracy. Utterly ridiculous claim.

Re the original question, many of the emulator cores that were written fir free ended up being licensed and used in official "retro" game releases. The hobbyist emulation scene paved the way for the commercial retro market.

[WhereEaglesDare]

I did not say all innovations were caused by piracy, I said some were obviously created because of piracy.

They came out with newer and better models over time and one of the reasons was to try to stop emulation on the console.

and you make a good point about emulation being a HUGE catalyst for the retro-gaming market.  This also benefits the big three with all the DLC games.

[SavannahLion]

Well... if we look at how the market bears out in the past, saying that piracy encourages innovation (in any form) really doesn't fly.

Piracy has been a very real part of the PC scene for as long as writable media existed. IIRC, any innovation related to said piracy came in the form to prevent such piracy.

Yeah, I admit it's true the market has gone in a direction that might not have occurred if piracy is a non-issue. But to say piracy created some innovations.... well... I guess it depends on what you say is an actual innovation. 

[Blanka]

If emulation never picked up then the pace at which new hardware and consoles come out now would be slower.

I don't know in what sand your head is, but it is more the opposite. Emulation goes twice as fast as hardware development. The fact that there are no XBOX 360 and PS3 emu's are that these machines are bloody fast, and there is no good overhead available on the average computer. Remember these 2 machines use PPC code, and so the overhead needed is quite large.
Another issue is that there is a certain unwritten law to not emulate current profiting systems. PSP, PS3 and XBOX360 are still sold, and emulating the PSP for example on a iPad would cause a lot of legal trouble. If PSP is EOL somewhere in the next months, an great working emulator is just a few weeks away.

On the positive side: the hacking-community reacts to new hardware blocks within a few days, and cross emulating systems is the new hobby. Android running on iPhones, Linux on iPads, MAME running on Nikon D3 camera's, you name it, and some home-brew hacker finds a way to get it working. Have a look at MESS. It almost emulates every computer ever made, just with a tiny 100Mb of code! That is just flabbergasting!

[shateredsoul]

Code? what code?

what about the Nintendo wii emulator and nintendo ds emulator? there's a psp one too

[Blanka]

The WII emulator is just a Gamecube emulator with some extra mayonaise.

[Hoopz]

I got a 12 pack of beer for setting up a dude with an emulation software setup a few weeks ago...

 

Good beer or cheap stuff?

[Hoopz]

Eh, Shiner Bock so not too shabby.

Nice.  Beats MGD 64 or something crappy like that. 

[massive88]

Sony still makes good money off the PS2 as well, and its emulation is coming along pretty darn well.

Mame specifically follows that line of thinking to try and avoid legal entanglements, I dont think the community in general has the same "code" however.