If you ever need to know why we’ll happily cover Star Wars Galaxies emulators and not Ultima Online emulators here on Massively Overpowered, the reason is very simple: SWG is dead. UO is not. And that tells you quite a bit about the different sorts of emulation and how fans can approach it, but we’re going to need a few more words to cover all of that. But before we dive wholly into that, let’s talk about Mystery Science Theater 3000. One of the interesting aspects of MST3k fandom is that there has been a sentiment around for ages, frequently put forth by the creators themselves, that fans should keep circulating the tapes of old episodes. Yes, this is for a long-running series that will also happily sell you its two-hour-long episodes in multiple formats and offer others on Netflix or Hulu, along with offering some for free on YouTube. The creators outright encourage fans to just pass along and copy some of the show’s most beloved episodes. Why? Because that’s the only way those episodes will ever be seen again. See, MST3k deals in a lot of bad movies, frequently bad old movies, and many of these movies wind up with ambiguous copyright snarls. Many others wind up with rights holders who don’t like the fact that the movies are being roundly mocked by a guy and three cheaply made robot puppets and are thus reluctant to sign off on later distribution. Still others realize that they can now ask for a lot more… [Read full story]
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