Author Topic: Stance on PC-98 games?  (Read 8677 times)

Chill Observer

  • Aimless fanatic
  • haHAA
Stance on PC-98 games?
« on: January 13, 2017, 07:48:18 PM »
Yes, I'm aware there's the piracy rule and you're encouraged to buy the games legitimately and all that.

But take a look at this. It feels kind of ridiculous that the only way you can get the PC-98 Touhou games legitimately is by paying a 5-digit price tag, and frankly that is far beyond any level of acceptance, especially considering the data in it may already be corrupted. Not to mention even getting a PC-98 computer in the first place.

I'm not sure if PC-98 as a whole has been brought up in the past, but I feel that some awareness, and possibly an official statement, on how we can get or allow PC-98 here would be much appreciated!
Retired Touhou player. Not involved with anything Touhou anymore.

Helepolis

  • Charisma!
  • *
  • O-ojousama!?
Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2017, 06:38:44 PM »
Your question is a bit weird for me. What do you expect from us? We're not official partners or representatives of Shanghai Alice or ZUN. We're not an authority nor deal with cases like intellectual property and such. Therefore, I don't see what awareness or official statement you're asking.

It doesn't matter whether the object in question is a Touhou game or not. The rarity of said objects has nothing to do with us, nor we have any control over it. If you're not willing to pay ridiculous price, that is fine. Whether it is acceptable or not is your personal opinion. Some people do find it acceptable and thus pay the price to be owner of a rare item. People pay lots of money for some high valued: Cars, stamps, vases, paintings, jewellery, etc.

Bluntly said: No awareness required as such is life.

Chill Observer

  • Aimless fanatic
  • haHAA
Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2017, 07:26:30 PM »
Alright, thanks for the clarification. At the time I just wasn't really sure if cases like these would be different from the usual as they're no longer being produced in any way.
Retired Touhou player. Not involved with anything Touhou anymore.

Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2017, 03:08:00 AM »
From a legal point of view, piracy is piracy as long as copyrights haven't expired. This is the way things are, and even if it's not really enforced it's still copyright infringement. With that said, I do understand that the PC-98 games are well beyond reach for most people. If you're the kind of person that respects ZUN for what he does, it won't hurt to throw a few donations his way. I feel like he'd certainly appreciate it if those who are unable to purchase legal copies of his works send some cash his way. Of course, if you can purchase games and CDs easily (Amazon.jp comes to mind, as well as the multitude of proxy services), you should always go that route. If you absolutely want to play the PC-98 games and you feel bad for contributing to the rather rampant piracy scene you should definitely make up for your inability to purchase games that wouldn't support him at all in the first place. If you think about it, it's highly unlikely you'll support ZUN in any way by purchasing the PC-98 games on floppy or as the CD compilation. Unless the seller gives a share of the exorbitant money (s)he charges for the games it has the exact same financial effect on him as piracy. This is a problem not only with games, but with any sort of collectible item. Do you choose to support the creator, some random person trying to capitalize on fans for a pretty penny, or, in the case of digital media, break copyright law by receiving unauthorized copies? In the end the choice is really yours, since everyone has different thoughts on the matter.

Onion

  • Classic era Marisa-like entity
  • Failing at Touhou since 2000-something
Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2017, 03:22:06 AM »
You pay 5 digits if you want the jewel case.
As it turns out, Amusement Makers (read: copyright holder) put up installers for all five games the last four games on their website, for free. I can't get them to work, because my DOS is American, but they're definitely the full games.

If you want The Highly Responsive to Prayers, I don't know. If you want an actual PC-98, it was never released in the west. The APC III doesn't have the oomph needed to play any of the games, and IBM PCs (aka the thing you're using right now) are incompatible. :\
Please wait warmly. Girls are intentionally leaving this space blank.

Since everybody has these: 1CC PoDD ez, 1CC(?) EoSD ez, PD LoLK, something something HM ULiL

Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2017, 04:06:18 AM »
As it turns out, Amusement Makers (read: copyright holder) put up installers for all five games the last four games on their website, for free. I can't get them to work, because my DOS is American, but they're definitely the full games.
A mild correction, those aren't the full games, but the trial versions. If you check alongside the title, there's a little something called "体験版" in japanese, which means Trial or Demo.

Onion

  • Classic era Marisa-like entity
  • Failing at Touhou since 2000-something
Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2017, 04:23:23 AM »
A mild correction, those aren't the full games, but the trial versions. If you check alongside the title, there's a little something called "体験版" in japanese, which means Trial or Demo.

Oh. :ohdear:
I just... really wanted it to be so, I guess...
Please wait warmly. Girls are intentionally leaving this space blank.

Since everybody has these: 1CC PoDD ez, 1CC(?) EoSD ez, PD LoLK, something something HM ULiL

98digger

  • The Master of 9801
  • What? Windows? What's that?
    • The 98th Dimension
Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #7 on: May 01, 2017, 04:55:13 PM »
You pay 5 digits if you want the jewel case.
As it turns out, Amusement Makers (read: copyright holder) put up installers for all five games the last four games on their website, for free. I can't get them to work, because my DOS is American, but they're definitely the full games.

If you want The Highly Responsive to Prayers, I don't know. If you want an actual PC-98, it was never released in the west. The APC III doesn't have the oomph needed to play any of the games, and IBM PCs (aka the thing you're using right now) are incompatible. :\

Hi,

Obtaining an actual NEC PC-9800 Series computer is actually not too difficult to do; I personally have a PC-9821 Ce2. I've written guides on how to import one. They aren't very rare at all, especially given their status as the best selling computer series of all time (22+ million units), despite only being sold in Japan, however certain models are more compatible with most games software than others. For a decent model that runs Touhou, expect to pay $300-ish USD.

Regarding emulators, those work fine and are technically legal so long as you're using FreeDOS(98) and not the copyrighted NEC MS-DOS 3.3/5.0A-H/6.2 or EPSON DOS. The demo versions of all the original Touhou titles except the first are legally available on Amusement Makers' old site.

Technically speaking downloading the full versions of the original Touhou titles is indeed illegal, though the likelihood of ZUN going after you for doing that is very slim. Either way, it's entirely up to you tbh.

Seeing that copyright is a major dilemma in increasing fan interest in these games, personally I had started a project a while ago to try and get them released in their original form either for free, as FOSS software, or as proprietary software for some price. It hasn't been updated in a while, but here's the page:

https://themasterof9801.neocities.org/98thdimension/operationtouhoupc98.html

^Notice: I'm bad at writing replies :)    Also: Check out my personal site here: https://themasterof9801.neocities.org/

Kurzov

  • All good things must come to an end sometime.
Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #8 on: May 06, 2017, 04:38:09 PM »
Perhaps this should be stickied. I don't know, but this sounds like the question is brought up quite a bit here.
"Better think awhile
Or I may never think again
If this were the last day of your life, my friend
Tell me, what do you think you would do then?"
~ Genesis (Undertow, 1978)

Re: Stance on PC-98 games?
« Reply #9 on: May 06, 2017, 09:55:01 PM »
Not really.

Amusement Makers (read: copyright holder)

ZUN owns the full rights over the PC-98 games, Amusement Makers just helped distribute them. Also keep in mind that they're a student group, not a game company.


I think I should also mention that trying to convince any japanese author to make their old games open source is pretty silly and a waste of time. Not only it's very unlikely to happen, the question is easily misinterpreted and ZUN probably doesn't even have the source code for any of these games anymore.