EmulationStation emulator frontend delisted from Amazon App Store, other emulators still available

EmulationStation Desktop Edition (or ES-DE) is an emulation frontend that was recently added to the Amazon App Store for Android. However, just over a week after landing on the Amazon App Store, the frontend has been pulled.

The news comes directly from ES-DE's website. Per the post, Amazon claims the app "facilitates [the] emulating and pirating of games from third-party sources without explicit authorization from those sources." ES-DE appealed the decision but says Amazon refused the appeal. As such, the emulator front-end is no longer available on the Amazon App Store.

This removal comes hot on the heels of news that Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the developers of Yuzu, a Nintendo Switch emulator.

ES-DE was released on the Amazon App Store earlier this month and was available for $5.39 (in the United States). Android users that purchased the app prior to its removal will still be able to download it from their purchase history in the Amazon App Store, but no new purchases can be made through Amazon. Additionally, the APK downloaded through Amazon may not receive any future updates.

Many users requested refunds from Amazon after hearing the news. ES-DE claims it has not received any money from Amazon as of this time.

ES-DE is still available for Android through the organization's Patreon. After signing up and paying $5.50 on ES-DE's Patreon, Patrons will gain access to a download link for the APK file. After receiving the APK file, Patrons are allowed to cancel their subscription to prevent any future payments. Even if the subscription is canceled, ES-DE says the APK will receive any and all future updates.

It should be noted that ES-DE is not an emulator. Rather, it is an emulator frontend. In essence, it acts as a graphical interface to access emulators and games a user installs and includes quality-of-life features like image scraping to capture game box art, controller input for navigation, and more. However, ES-DE did not ship with ROM files or any emulators pre-installed. It was solely up to the end user to install emulators and ROMs, should they choose to.

Amazon's claims against ES-DE are curious, considering several other emulators are still available on the Amazon App Store. These include Retroarch, which is a massive emulator frontend that has the ability to download "cores," or emulators, built in. In other words, Retroarch allows users to download cores directly in the app and provides the process to do this. There are several other emulators on the Amazon App Store, including PPSSPP (a PSP emulator) and DraStic (a Nintendo DS emulator). 

It should also be noted that Amazon allows the sale of hard drives stuffed full of retro game ROM files and emulators, some of which claim to have over 120,000 games pre-installed. Many of these hard drives are pre-installed with Batocera, a Linux distribution designed for emulation. Batocera uses Emulation Station as its frontend. Emulation Station is preinstalled on Batocera. 

Other hard drives sold on Amazon use Launchbox, another frontend used for emulators. There are dozens of these kinds of hard drives for sale on Amazon as of press time.

ES-DE is also available for free as an open-source application for Windows, macOS, and Linux computers. It is also available on the Steam Deck.