Honestly, piracy for retro consoles is morally correct. Unless you're a collector, physical copies offer users no actual benefit beside "the experience," and only serve to wear down cartridge slot pins/plastic and CD drive lasers/belts.

The original developers are getting no money from retro sales, and people are scalping/overcharging retro games like crazy these days. In nearly all cases, the original publisher/developer no longer even offers these games for sales anymore. No proof of offering for sale means no moral claim to a lost sale. If you want to actually play a retro game, it is totally morally correct to just download it.

Of course it goes without saying, if by some miracle you can still purchse the game from the original developer or publisher, please do so. The developers deserve to get paid for their work, Joe Schmuck doesn't deserve to charge $900 USD for Panzer Dragoon Saga (good game, but not for that price).

Also, sidenote, I find a Dreamcast owner complaining about too much choice because of piracy to be highly ironic considering the Dreamcast lost developer support due to fears of lost sales caused by piracy lol.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Know what's funny? The Sims 2 for PC is officially abandonware. It's not for sale on Origin, despite EA still holding all the rights. You can't "legally" get it anywhere BUT from previous owners.