If you haven’t yet put together your own collection of games for retro consoles, whether for emulation or other purposes, now is a great time to start.
Vimm’s Lair is a solid option for downloading games for a wide range of consoles, from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation Portable. They offer a substantial selection of titles across major consoles released over the past several decades. Many of these titles are now considered abandonware and cannot be purchased by any means.
However, the battle against emulation and preservation under the guise of combating piracy continues. Vimm’s Lair has faced multiple DMCA takedowns from companies like LEGO, Sega, the Entertainment Software Association, and most notably, Nintendo, as announced on June 5th.
The involvement of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is particularly troubling, given their role as a trade advocacy group for the American games industry. This raises the possibility of other companies joining forces with them to spearhead such initiatives.
It’s no surprise to see Nintendo demand the takedown of another “piracy” website or the removal of games they no longer sell. Nintendo has a history of aggressively targeting forked versions of the Yuzu Emulator, Garry’s Mod, and nearly every PC port of their games.
Following the announcement, various users have compiled a list of games that have been removed from Vimm’s Lair. Unsurprisingly, many Nintendo franchises, such as Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon, have been taken down, along with SEGA titles like Yakuza and Sonic, as well as Resident Evil, Persona, Pac-Man, DOOM, Metroid, Metal Gear, Mega Man, and Ace Attorney.
Interestingly, not every version of these games has been barred from download. Specifically, many Japanese versions of these games are still available, although some have been purged regardless of region. These DMCA takedowns have targeted all PAL/NTSC versions for these games.
It’s a significant issue that websites preserving games companies no longer offer are being targeted. Nintendo is particularly notorious for this. The flaws in copyright laws become evident when companies like Nintendo abandon older consoles, refusing to provide modern means to play many games.
They don’t resell these games, leaving the second-hand market to be dominated by retarded “enthusiasts” and scalpers.
Keep in mind that handheld games from popular franchises like Pokémon have sold millions of copies each. With no way to purchase many of these games due to companies like Nintendo refusing to provide them, the only alternatives are to download ISOs and ROMs and emulate them at our convenience, or for the more dedicated, play them on their original hardware.
Nintendo not only refuses to provide access to their extensive catalog of games but also actively works to thwart emulation efforts. They’ve taken down the Yuzu Emulator, which was generating income at Nintendo’s expense by paywalling preview builds.
Additionally, they’ve shut down countless websites in the past and it’s only a matter of time before they target more sites hosting such content.
Vimm’s Lair isn’t the only platform offering libraries of long-forgotten games. With a bit of searching, you can find entire console dumps on Archive.org and other platforms like CDRomance, which may likely be their next target.
If you have storage space to spare, or even if you don’t, consider purchasing some extra hard drives and start gathering your own retro collection while you still can.
