My friend and I were discussing this over the weekend. Games are inherently different than movies, books, and music. They’re tied to specific hardware and operating systems that may not be available anymore.

I argue that if a game is no longer legally purchasable from the publishers or developer, it should be legally permitted to pirate it. Even EA agrees! They do not pursue copyright claims against LOTR games, as they lost the publishing license from New Line Cinemas years ago.

  • Even the PS3 game can be played via an emulator. The tech is still evolving so you still need a fairly powerful computer but it is playable. For reference, I was able to test archiving various PS3 games on my now 11 year old gaming PC which was a medium-tier system at the time of the build.