Emulator frontend Emulation-Station has been removed from the Amazon Appstore, less than a week after its launch. The reasoning for the app's removal, is, according to Amazon, Emulation-Station, "facilitates emulating and pirating of games from third-party sources without explicit authorization from those sources", despite Emulation-Station merely acting as a frontend, and not actually including any emulators in the app.

The development team behind ES-DE has instead decided to go ahead with self-publishing the APK for the Android version of their frontend. In order to get the app now, you'll need to join Emulation-Station's Patreon, for $5.50 USD a month. You'll then be given access to the Android APK that you can install on your device. The devs note that you can cancel Patreon support after a month, and still keep the app and get future updates for it.

This is the second time in the past week that an emulator has been targeted specifically for "facilitating piracy", following Nintendo's lawsuit against the Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator. If you did happen to purchase ES-DE from the Amazon Appstore, you can at least still install it, however the developers urge anyone who made the purchase to get the app refunded, as Amazon will not be paying the developers because the emulator frontend is "illegal".

News 2024-02-28: Amazon has decided to remove ES-DE from their Appstore because "The app facilitates emulating and pirating of games from third-party sources without explicit authorization from those sources." Everyone that knows anything about emulation knows that this is not true, and especially not for a frontend that does not ship with any games or any emulators. We have attempted to appeal this decision but Amazon has refused to reinstate the store entry.

Therefore we have decided to self-publish the APK instead of relying on any app stores. As a first step you can join our Patreon to receive a download link to the APK. Note that this is NOT a subscription, you can turn off recurring payments at any time and you will still receive future APK updates. But if you do choose to support the project long term in these difficult times then it's much appreciated. I have worked four years on ES-DE without making any money from it, and it's almost like a second job now. Supporting us financially instead of pirating the app is a way to make sure development will continue and that ES-DE has a future long term.



Please spread the word of what has happened and if you did buy the app from the Amazon Appstore then ask them for a refund and don't hesitate to criticize them for their decision. We have not yet received any money from amazon and due to them claiming that ES-DE is illegal we doubt that will change. Anyway, it seems like you can still install the app from the Amazon Appstore app if you have bought it, but there will obviously be no further updates published there.

Source

 

[tech3475]

I have not tried to install any recently, but will try later when get a chance. But from what I am reading online, there will be issues for some. Also maybe you have not got the new FW yet, they push it out in waves, not all at once.
View attachment 423052

I just checked and my stick is on 7.6.6.9.

 

[BigOnYa]

I just checked and my stick is on 7.6.6.9.

Ok cool, let's hope it still works from here on out.

 

[tech3475]

Ok cool, let's hope it still works from here on out.

As I said, from what I understand the change only seems to affect installed apps which use ADB on the device itself e.g. clear cache or to bypass the stock Home Screen by detecting the home button command, not ADB for things like side loading from a remote system.

The latter would make little sense without reworking Fire Stick development (think Xbox Dev Mode), since you need to use ADB to install and debug applications.

I doubt we'll see side loading killed of completely until Amazon ditch Fire OS entirely:
https://www.aftvnews.com/amazon-job-listing-confirms-that-fire-tv-is-dropping-android-based-fire-os/

 

[stanleyopar2000]

"Facilitates piracy" eh?

Sounds fucking identical to the Yuzu filling of....

"Facilitates Piracy...at a colossal scale"

We know who was responsible and pressured Amazon.

 

[TomSwitch]

Even if they were continuing to allow emulators on their app store, disabling sideloading would still be reason enough to avoid Amazon electronics. They're just glorified Chinese products sold at a markup anyway.

Actually they were a way of getting cheap Chinese products with quality assurance. Quality is no longer an issue with Chinese branded product so this is no longer the case and you can just buy Chinese product with good quality assurance at about the same price and no Amazon restrictions and inferior Android experience. You will miss Amazon exclusive features that are only available on Fire OS device.

Fire OS is a bad choice for general Android tablet use. ES being remove is a non issue for the majority of people who owns Fire tablet.

 

[SaulFabre]

f*ck Nintendo altogether.

 

[smf]

"Facilitates piracy" eh?

Sounds fucking identical to the Yuzu filling of....

"Facilitates Piracy...at a colossal scale"

We know who was responsible and pressured Amazon.

I don't know that, but nintendo's lawyers have thankfully finally woken up.

 

[realtimesave]

I got the apk.

 

[Bobsy]

I got the apk.

From Patreon? I got it from there because I felt that after all that time of enjoying ES, I could give them that couple of bucks.

 

[auntnadia]

Amazon doing the scene a favour by forcing people to support the developers directly. It’s quite a noble act when you think about it.

 

[Sundree]

In between this and Nintendo's lawsuit against Yuzu, I highly doubt this little "war on emulation" that corporations are trying to wage is going to net positive results for them, especially if it's going to be anything like the war on drugs. lol

In the current year we're in, loading up something like Retroarch and getting a few ROMs to play is easier and more accessible than it's ever been before. If someone really wants to play a copy of NARC on the NES, they're going to do it.

 

[Ducolamia]

With all the bootleg Chinese handhelds with poorly-dumped roms on Amazon, they decided to go after an ORGANIZER? Keep in mind that Retroarch is on the Amazon store, but an ORGANIZER for emulators is absolutely a priority. LOL
What kills me is that paid Emulators and Frontends have existed for years on the Google playstore, but both draw a line at this.

 

[a_username_that_isnt_cool]

Wait, if you have to pay for Patreon for the APK, will pirates pirate the emulator that "facilitates piracy"??? this is such a non gamer moment

 

[Ondrashek06]

With all the bootleg Chinese handhelds with poorly-dumped roms on Amazon, they decided to go after an ORGANIZER? Keep in mind that Retroarch is on the Amazon store, but an ORGANIZER for emulators is absolutely a priority. LOL
What kills me is that paid Emulators and Frontends have existed for years on the Google playstore, but both draw a line at this.

And not only on amazon... I've even seen them being sold in a brick and mortar store.

 

[SylverReZ]

I wonder if Amazon are going to take off those HDMI emulation devices for having a bunch of illegal ROMs on a microSD card? Probably not but who knows what the outcome will bring.

 

[ELY_M]

The internet facilitates piracy let’s ban that. Where you at Nintendo?

I agree 100%!!!!!!!!! you can not control what other people do internet.

Nintendo is bunch of WHINER!!!!!!!!!

Post automatically merged: Mar 16, 2024

also Amazon is WORST platform to sell anything on.

look up return refund fraud.....

 

[Lamcza]

so what should i do if i buy it on amaozn i kinda still have it on the list to dowload but there is no more updates i guess ?

 

[Maximo101]

so what should i do if i buy it on amaozn i kinda still have it on the list to dowload but there is no more updates i guess ?

Is that a photo of Randy Johnson? Looks like he shaved his mustache...

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Amazon App Store sucks anyway.
Play Store has no problem with emulators, just publish your stuff there.

 

[Lamcza]

Amazon App Store sucks anyway.
Play Store has no problem with emulators, just publish your stuff there.

they have some other issues on playstore i think ;P now they are posting on patreon but is there any anytypiracy system over there :X?