Tobias BernardLike seriously, who uses all of these?
Cleo Menezes Jr. 🌵@tbernard Well they are emulators for different things. It makes sense that there are so many. I myself use PCSX2 to play PS2 games like God of War and etc. I was even thinking about testing this DuckStation.
I think there are one or the other that are for the same thing, it seems that there are two for Nintendo Switch.
I think there are one or the other that are for the same thing, it seems that there are two for Nintendo Switch.
Sonny@tbernard lol - I'm sorry to be the one saying this but you gravely underestimate the size of the retro gaming community 😃
Alexander Mikhaylenko@tbernard and that's why highscore is one app and not an app per platform as you were suggesting at some point ;)
@alexm I mean the problem is that they all look super messy and non-native.
If they were all nice GTK apps with good icons one app per console could be fine, at least to a point.
@tbernard because they are all
1. cross-platform
2. generally old
Emulators are also a kind of app where it's _really_ easy to fall into the feature creep trap. And worst thing, people _will_ actually use those features.
Highscore is able to avoid those only because standalone emulators are still a thing and I can point people there if they need something niche.
@tbernard however, if you're doing tool-assisted speedruns, for example, it's absolutely not enough and you _will_ need a messy standalone app.
@tbernard > Highscore is able to avoid those only because standalone emulators are still a thing and I can point people there if they need something niche.
I would also like to draw a parallel between this and Boxes being able to stay clean because virt-manager is a thing for other cases.
ailepet@hellpe @tbernard true, though RetroArch is more on the "options for everything regardless of whether they make sense or not" side. I mean features like debuggers, precise controller/region type selection tailored to the specific platform etc. RetroArch doesn't consistently have those either - well, it technically has some of them but whether they work varies heavily per core.
For example, this menu from Dolphin. What's available in RetroArch? Well, cheats are. The rest I don't think so?
kingRetroArch does have some features that are similar to the ones found in Dolphin, such as the ability to enable cheats, and access to a wide range of controller types. However, RetroArch does not have some of the more advanced features that are available in Dolphin, such as the ability to use a debugger, fast-forward, or use precise controller type selection. Additionally, the availability and functionality of certain features in RetroArch can vary greatly depending on the specific core being used.
Maksym Hazevych 
@tbernard I keep thinking that at some point, we should consider splitting "Apps" and "Games" in their own listings, like the Google Play Store already does
@tbernard (and emulators would go into "Apps" obviously, a game should be something that is "playable" out of the box)
@hellpe I mean then you're not actually solving anything though, other than keeping the games category clean, are you?
@tbernard Indeed, it solves the "Games" category being cluttered with emulators, which are technically not games per se. However, we could face a situation where a lot, or even the majority of apps in Flathub turn out to be games, which gives us the opposite issue: Flathub being cluttered with "not apps". But I guess we're far away from that situation yet, contrary to the Play Store obviously.
@hellpe Well the problem is, these aren't even really games, they're super nerdy apps that are literally useless unless you know how to pirate retro games.
But yes, I agree that they're way too prominent on Flathub at the moment.
leimon@tbernard @hellpe Seems to me that there should just be a category for Emulation. Because their use isn't even exclusively for gaming. Flathub also hosts Bottles (see, https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.usebottles.bottles) Which is a really nice way to somewhat sandbox and use Windows applications under Linux.
@delight_aug @tbernard I did discover retro gaming through these (indeed super nerdy) apps myself, however I agree with Tobias that the way they're featured among all other games makes for a bad user experience on an app store such as Flathub.
(for those curious about these emulators, I can suggest you this historical perspective: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9a48z3/the-story-of-nesticle-the-ambitious-emulator-that-redefined-retro-gaming)
re:fi.64 