Vimm's Lair and the ESA

[Zerpina]

Yeah, it all boils down to the old Saying "Loose lips sink ships"
The more people know about something Like this site, the more chance it will get around to the I.P. Suits, and back to H.Q. and then wam.

I Don;t think anything is Technically Hosted on here <Correct me if i am wrong>. so it should be safe, for the time being anyhow.
And yeah, if Tubers and such would just Shut-up about their Sources things would be Shipshape.

As to the Apple Fiasco, yeah. of all the Mush-brained things they could have did. people Happily Side-loaded and JB their IWhatevers, and didn't go around Spouting "Get all these games From Site A, and Bi0s from Site B" and drawing the Gaze of The big N's Suit Ninja.

I Been "Legally backing up" Games for along long time. and kept where i got stuff from, to my Damn self

 

[MajesticSiN]

Thats why all of my old fav anime sites keep getting exploded, people got too comfy and were spilling the beans

 

[Tonberry]

In any case; If the Repo would be shut down for whatever reason, I'd still wanna hang around here because this place is too comfy. It's like the chillest site I've been on since I was an active Newgrounder a million years ago, and I really enjoying talking with you all.

 

[Zerpina]

Thats why all of my old fav anime sites keep getting exploded, people got too comfy and were spilling the beans

RIP 9Anime

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Youtubers and tiktokers are a plague. They'll spill the beans on any hacker/piracy site with the quickness just for a couple of views and clout. I remember googling for switch emulation sites and youtube videos with thousands of views would explain how to jailbreak a switch and put all the sites with the software on blast.

 

[redjeff76]

you all are deluding yourselves if you think this is a secretive site. CDR was the main site mentioned on most of the Discord servers I have been on. More so than Vimm's ever was. Once CDR changed locations and name, it may have discouraged some people, but most just updated their bookmarks and grabbed a free account to RGT. They all got CDR exactly like it was, just under the RGT name. Like for Dreamcast and Saturn, RGT is the most commonly named dropped site period. I imagine the name change from CDR bought us all some time. Each day we have this awesome site should be appreciated. We live in the age of take downs for inexplicable reasons. Harsh as it sounds, grab what you can, when you can. There is no promise of tomorrow.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

In any case; If the Repo would be shut down for whatever reason, I'd still wanna hang around here because this place is too comfy. It's like the chillest site I've been on since I was an active Newgrounder a million years ago, and I really enjoying talking with you all.

Oh, for sure.

I don't even use The Repo anymore... I'm here to write articles and read people now.

That said, I wonder if Nintendo, Atari and all those other companies would attempt to prevent ANY kind of discussions of their property again, like the Dark Ages of not being able to upload raw gameplay footage to YouTube, nor parody things because copyright. I can totally see them trying that again.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

you all are deluding yourselves if you think this is a secretive site. CDR was the main site mentioned on most of the Discord servers I have been on. More so than Vimm's ever was. Once CDR changed locations and name, it may have discouraged some people, but most just updated their bookmarks and grabbed a free account to RGT. They all got CDR exactly like it was, just under the RGT name. Like for Dreamcast and Saturn, RGT is the most commonly named dropped site period. I imagine the name change from CDR bought us all some time. Each day we have this awesome site should be appreciated. We live in the age of take downs for inexplicable reasons. Harsh as it sounds, grab what you can, when you can. There is no promise of tomorrow.

Yeah, sad but true. A site with a quarter of a million subscribers is probably not a secret to anyone who is keeping tabs on these things.

 

[DoubleGulpSlurpeeCup]

Oh, for sure.

I don't even use The Repo anymore... I'm here to write articles and read people now.

That said, I wonder if Nintendo, Atari and all those other companies would attempt to prevent ANY kind of discussions of their property again, like the Dark Ages of not being able to upload raw gameplay footage to YouTube, nor parody things because copyright. I can totally see them trying that again.

Thats a Horrible thing to imagine... I can definitely see that becoming reality in the near future. I don't really care too much about reaction youtubers but the amount of editing and loopholes they have to jump through in order not to get flagged is absurd.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Thats a Horrible thing to imagine... I can definitely see that becoming reality in the near future. I don't really care too much about reaction youtubers but the amount of editing and loopholes they have to jump through in order not to get flagged is absurd.

Indeed.

The first YouTube controversy I ever heard of was when Smosh got their channel taken down (I think) for uploading a parody of the Pokemon theme.

 

[Fenril]

i worry i might have alluded to cdr during a stream a long time ago since it come up in chat, but i hope i'm so small-time no one will ever really notice. STILL going forward i wanna make sure to be more careful and make a hard rule to never mention specifics, though i wanna advocate archiving and fan translation efforts. im sorry for being a dumb youtuber, very smooth brain

i heard about the apple store thing very secondhand and foggy on the details, but along with that i feel like nintendo became very motivated with takedowns around the time of nintendo online subscription incentive being tied with the retro games library possibly?

 

[bjork]

I mentioned a game that I had played from CDR on bluesky, but I don't believe I linked to it or anything. But it was specific enough that Teone found me and liked the post, heh. To me, it's enough to mention a hack or a translation exists, then it's up to interested parties to seek it out and not blab too much.

 

[ct9983]

So... I am brand new to the game preservation scene, I'm sure most of you on here have heard of Vimm's Lair. Why was that website peepee slapped by Nintendo, Sega, and the ESA but this one has not been? is there any chance of something like that happening to The Repo??

Not to be mean or anything, but I always get a little annoyed when people say "game preservation"

I know the lingo always changes, but that's such a Gen z term. Just call it what it is. Piracy.

 

[King Koopa's iconKing Koopa]

Not to be mean or anything, but I always get a little annoyed when people say "game preservation"

I know the lingo always changes, but that's such a Gen z term. Just call it what it is. Piracy.

I mean yes it is piracy but the more time goes by the more people are afraid of the idea of older games being "lost" due to companies constantly shutting down rom sites and refusing to port them.

 

[DoubleGulpSlurpeeCup]

Not to be mean or anything, but I always get a little annoyed when people say "game preservation"

I know the lingo always changes, but that's such a Gen z term. Just call it what it is. Piracy.

Here is a link to the SEGA FAQ
Sega Classics De-listing

This is the reason why I use the term "game preservation" as opposed to "piracy". Sega is not the only company to remove games from online stores, either to never be seen again, or to be used to further price gouge 30 year old video games.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Here is a link to the SEGA FAQ
Sega Classics De-listing

This is the reason why I use the term "game preservation" as opposed to "piracy". Sega is not the only company to remove games from online stores, either to never be seen again, or to be used for further price gouging on 30 year old video games.

The companies shouldn't be allowed to hold hostage their games in out of circulation machines in perpetuum. They should let the people experience the cultural heritage of this world freely. I believe that the game preservation cause is real. When it comes to current day consoles or even previous gen I get the piracy argument but not for old stuff that is not for sale.

 

[sillierbillier]

Rip Vimms

 

[DoubleGulpSlurpeeCup]

The companies shouldn't be allowed to hold hostage their games in out of circulation machines in perpetuum. They should let the people experience the cultural heritage of this world freely. I believe that the game preservation cause is real. When it comes to current day consoles or even previous gen I get the piracy argument but not for old stuff that is not for sale.

Preserve the classics. Pirate the greedy.

 

[Phage]

The catalyst that started the recent crackdown on rom hosting sites was when Apple allowed emulators on the App Store.

This is the biggest and worst culprit for sure. I frequent another community dedicated to game preservation, and just today saw someone ask about 3DS games and how to apply a translation patch. This was promptly met by someone brand new popping up and asking '3DS GAMES ON YOUR PHONE?!?!?!?!?!" when nobody said a damn thing about a phone.

There is an entire generation of ipad kids and tech illiterate adults who think that emulation is *brand new* and only exists on phones, and they're absolutely ruining shit for the rest of us, who know how it works and have been keeping the fire burning for decades, by thinking that it's cool to openly discuss this stuff but also being too dumb to not just yell on twitter "HEY, IS THIS SITE SAFE TO DOWNLOAD ROMS FROM?" and link to it. ?

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

This is the biggest and worst culprit for sure. I frequent another community dedicated to game preservation, and just today saw someone ask about 3DS games and how to apply a translation patch. This was promptly met by someone brand new popping up and asking '3DS GAMES ON YOUR PHONE?!?!?!?!?!" when nobody said a damn thing about a phone.

There is an entire generation of ipad kids and tech illiterate adults who think that emulation is *brand new* and only exists on phones, and they're absolutely ruining shit for the rest of us, who know how it works and have been keeping the fire burning for decades, by thinking that it's cool to openly discuss this stuff but also being too dumb to not just yell on twitter "HEY, IS THIS SITE SAFE TO DOWNLOAD ROMS FROM?" and link to it. ?

To be fair, the first time I heard about ROM sites I had the same reaction. I was 13 and dumb, but yeah I told all my friends.

 

[Phage]

To be fair, the first time I heard about ROM sites I had the same reaction. I was 13 and dumb, but yeah I told all my friends.

And that's fair, but we all learned pretty quick back in the day because it was harder to find on your own, and in the process you learned not to be a snitch.

The biggest issue I have is the "emulators on app store" debacle, because it's introduced a bunch of functionally tech illiterate people to the idea, and they don't have two brain cells to rub together about online etiquette or how emulation works AT ALL. I'm the farthest thing from a coding whiz, but I learned how to get my hands on an emulator, configure it, download a rom, apply a translation patch to it, and get it all running back in the day because I wanted to play RPGs that had never been released in English officially.

These are a bunch of kids who were raised by tablets or people who never touched a desktop in their life who are getting overexcited because they wanna replay pokemon on their phones, and they're too dumb to realize that the shit they're doing is questionably legal at best or that they're gonna destroy all the best sources if they don't zip their lips. It's pretty damn infuriating honestly.

 

[AlanStream24]

So... I am brand new to the game preservation scene, I'm sure most of you on here have heard of Vimm's Lair. Why was that website peepee slapped by Nintendo, Sega, and the ESA but this one has not been? is there any chance of something like that happening to The Repo??

With the recent changes spike has made to the site, the creation of the forum and repository, I don't think it will be closed in the near future.
and about vimms's lair, it's a shame what happened with vimm's, to be fair the site is still active, but who knows how visited it is right now, I hope it holds up a bit because the roms are not the only thing that the site uploads (they got the manuals project and romhacks/translations patches support)

 

[BeBop]

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that it has never been so easy to get roms or dumps ??

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

I just saw a few days ago a soft to synchronize your own library with archive.org in order to get missing titles from your collections ....

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

Only talking about the iceberg tip

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Somewhere i frequent for old PC games, used to have their links on mediafire, but (i am going from what the maintainer said on his twitter) apparently some people were putting the mediafire links on Reddit, and a bot mass reported everything the account had hosted, and it was gg for a few months.

As my old business teacher used to say, always assume your client is stupid.

Even when i was a kid i kept my mouth shut about where i got the cool roms and isos, why is it so hard for people these days?

 

[BeBop]

As for vimm's ... just check it, and it's perfectly working ??