After ten years of trying, the Delta retro gaming emulator finally hit No.1 on the iOS download charts in late April 2024. For its developers, it was a moment of triumph, of course, but it came after many years of butting heads against Apple in a bid to both comply with and understand its rules on emulators in the App Store.
Emulators are becoming more popular nowadays, particularly for mobile gaming. There is always a desire to revisit retro games, of course. Titles like Pac-Man and Tetris have remained popular for decades, and you can explore platforms as diverse as OldGameShelf, Games Nostalgia, and Hello Millions to experience all types of classic-style games and entertainment.
Yet, the rise in emulators is interesting for a couple of reasons. There are legal hurdles for developers to consider, as well as the individual rules of the Apple and Google App Stores. There are also technical challenges, which can also crop up from Apple’s esoteric rules.
Legality is in a gray area
First, let’s discuss the legal challenges. You would take it as a given that Nintendo wouldn’t be happy should you create an emulator that offers free Super Mario games in the App Store. Both Nintendo and Sony have pursued developers in the courts, but the results were not always as clear cut as you might assume. In a nutshell, we can sum up the legal status as: Emulators are perfectly legal, but downloading certain game files may breach copyright laws.
So, how does an emulator like Delta, which hit 3.8 million downloads in just two weeks, get around the law and Apple’s policies? Technically, Delta does not offer any games; it simply provides the means to play them, suggesting that you source your own game ROMs. Legally speaking, you should “own” those game files to use on the emulator, but, well, you can guess that it does not work that way in practice.
Now, there are other problems – Apple-centric problems – that stop developers from creating emulators for the App Store. One of those issues revolves around JIT Recompilation. We won’t get bogged down on the technical details of JIT Recompilation, but it’s enough to say that it is a software optimizer that helps the emulators deliver a more polished performance. Ars Technica published a report on this recently, suggesting that Apple’s ban on JIT Recompilers and similar software functions meant there was a ceiling for emulators.
Retro games are more compatible
In short, retro games – i.e., those that have less demand on the device – are usually fine, but newer games – anything from the late 1990s onwards (think of GameCubes and Wiis) – don’t tend to work out. YouTubers have demonstrated the performance problems of emulators without JIT Recompilation on top-tier devices like iPhone 15 Pro, and the results have been shabby, to say the least.
Of course, Apple is constantly tweaking its rules. One of the major influencers of those rule changes is coming from the European Union. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) has been responsible for many of the changes to Apple’s Walled Garden approach to the App Store, among other things, and the upshot has been a relaxing of rules. It is no coincidence that the rise of emulators has coincided with the enforcement of the DMA.
But it feels right that emulators concentrate on classics from the 1980s and 1990s. We spoke of legal action there, and you can understand that game publishers are more willing to litigate when more modern titles are accessed via emulators. Ubisoft wouldn’t be too happy if people started playing Assassin’s Creed content on emulators. However, publishers are turning a blind eye to many of the older games; indeed, some of the creators are no longer in business. And, with changes to the App Store rules, it seems to be a boom time for retro gaming emulators.
