[For our first promoted blog for last week's Digital Distribution topic, pedrovay2003 breaks down, by platform, the reasons he isn't a fan of non-physical media. Want to see your own blog on the front page? Write a blog for this week's current topic, Downloadables! -- JRo]
I haven't been shy about showing my feelings for digital distribution on Destructoid. I think that most of the time, it sucks. Digital distribution is killing gaming, and people don't -- and probably won't -- realize that for a long time. Gamers nowadays are spoiled -- It's all about instant gratification, "now, now, now," like a broken record. No one thinks about the future of the industry, and what will and will not be playable because of things like digital distribution. As long as cool games come out right this very second, that's all that matters, no matter how "classic" they may have been considered to be in the future. This is, in a word, crap.
As a child of the NES era, I submit that digital distribution will eventually be the end of retro gaming and the backlog. Let's break this down by console, shall we? I've always been a fan of the best-to-worst model...
Sony (PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable)
The PS3 had a very rocky start, with a huge price tag and a disappointing lineup of launch titles. The system did, however, pick up in the coming years, and is now pretty much on par with the Xbox 360, its direct competitor. However, the two systems have vastly different downloadable games/content management. Sony's solution is, in my opinion, the better of the two.
When you download anything on the PS3 or PSP, it's logged in a gigantic list of every download you've ever so much as started. Downloadable content can then be downloaded onto a maximum of five different consoles through that same PSN ID. This is fantastic, considering fickle electronics can die at any moment. However, there's a glaring problem here: Unlike the 360 and the Wii, downloaded PS3 content absolutely cannot be transferred to external media for easy transportation, and neither can your PSN ID. Whenever you want to get your stuff on a different physical console, you are required to connect to the Internet and redownload everything
Right now, this won't be a problem for most people, the keywords being "right" and "now." What happens years from now when the PlayStation Network -- and every other online service, for that matter -- either goes away for good or evolves into something completely different than what we have today? Do you really think the PSN of the PS3 is going to be compatible with the PSN of the PS9? I sincerely doubt it. What will you do when you get together with friends to start talking about all the epic games from the glory days, but you can't go back to play what you missed? No physical media means a possibility of no replay value in the future at all. At least with the 360 and the Wii, you can copy your games to an external hard drive or SD card. (There are problems involved there, too, though, which I'll outline in a minute.) With the PS3, you're Internet connection is what pretty much determines how often you'll get to play your games. That's pretty unnerving, as far as I'm concerned.
Microsoft (Xbox 360)
I wish I could find the blog from the Destructoid user who had such a big problem with the Xbox 360's download service. See, when you download something to the 360, the content not only registers to your Gamertag, but to your actual, physical console as well. What this means is that if you take your hard drive, flash drive, etc. with your content on it and bring everything to a friend's house, you can't access anything unless you're -- once again -- online and logged in. Yet again, an active Internet connection is required to access the games you've already purchased. It's possible to transfer the licenses of your games from one console to the other, but that requires the console to be new (whatever that means), and can only be done every 121 days. So now you're actually being limited in terms of where you're allowed to bring your own games!
Normally this wouldn't be too terrible of a thing (presently, at least), but I think we all remember what the original model of the 360 was famous for. That console broke down for no reason so often that people were probably going through hell trying to figure out what was going on with their downloaded games when their new consoles arrived in the mail on a weekly basis. I don't understand how this was an issue -- Gamertags can be stored on external devices. Games and DLC can be stored on external devices. Yet you need a computer and a license transfer tool to be able to play your games when your console kicks the bucket? What happens when the 360 isn't supported anymore, or when this transfer tool becomes outdated to a point that it's not even usable with future hardware anymore? Sure, we can all assume that Microsoft has a plan already in motion to prevent problems from happening, but unless I can see it, then I don't believe it. Call me cynical, but gaming companies have given me reason to feel that way dozens of times this generation.
Nintendo (Wii, DSi, 3DS)
Oh, boy, here we go. Nintendo. I grew up with them, I love them, and I'm a huge fan of the Wii. But Mother of Mario, this company has no idea how anything related to the Internet works, downloadable content least of all.
When you download a game or DLC pack to the Wii, DSi or 3DS, it's not registered to an account, profile or any other method of solid identification. The content is registered to the system. Period. End of explanation. I'm going to repeat that, just in case you haven't figured the problem out yet:
The content is registered to the system.
Do you know what this means, what's been confirmed by a bunch of gamers so far? If your system dies, or if the internal storage gets erased, or if something just happens to go wrong in any way, shape or form, your content is gone forever. It's just GONE. Even if you put everything on an SD card, if your memory is formatted, NOTHING on the card will work ever again. You will be forced to not only redownload everything, but you'll also have to rebuy it -- That's right, you're actually forced to pay for every one of your digital items a second time. No, I'm not making this up.
I thought Nintendo would have fixed this obvious problem with the 3DS, but they didn't -- They've already confirmed that 3DS downloads are linked to the system, and only some of them can be transferred. Not only that, but the ones that can be transferred have a limit attached to them, and I believe you even need to have two handhelds in the same place at the same time, which is unrealistic in most situations.
I don't think I really need to go into why this is bad for the future of gaming -- If you so much as hiccup you could lose everything, and this is actually a concern right now, let alone in the near or far future. I have absolutely no confidence that I'll be able to play downloaded Nintendo games in the future, and for that reason, I bought the Wii version of Super Mario All-Stars despite owning all the original games on the Virtual Console.
What about PC gaming?
Gaming on a PC is a bit of a mixed bag -- You've got retail games, digital games, retail games that require digital registration, DRM concerns, etc. etc. There's a lot to think about when gaming on a PC, but I think digital distribution is a bit better on the PC than on consoles. For this blog, I'll concentrate on Steam, since it's the most popular form of digital distribution on PCs.
With Steam, you have an account, all of your games are saved to your digital library, they can be downloaded any time you want on as many machines as you want to put them on, and you can play them offline (unless they have external DRM attached to them, a la Ubisoft). Sounds pretty awesome, and actually, it is. The problem with Steam, however, is when the Internet isn't available.
There are quite a few games that are sold on retail discs that actually require Steam to install and play them, effectively making the disc useless after it's "converted" into a digital copy using an infamous single-use serial number (Games for Windows Live is all about this, too). People in the military who are stationed overseas, for example, don't always have the luxury of being able to get online to activate games, let alone download huge files and updates. This may be more of a DRM issue, but it's also the way Steam and other digital services are built -- Retail discs become useless after they're registered online. If you don't have the Internet available to you, you can't even install Steam games, so you'd better live in a country where you can get cheap, constant Internet if you want to play them. However, Steam does a good job of making sure we'll be able to access our games in the future, and Valve has even stated that if they go under for some reason, Steam will be patched to allow all games to be played at all times, regardless of Internet connection, DRM, etc.
Now, there's still one service that is, in my opinion, far better than Steam: It's a little website known as Good Old Games. This site offers completely DRM-free digital copies of older games (and the occasional newer game, like The Witcher 2, which is made by the same company that started GOG). Not only is this good for people like me who hate DRM, but it's also great because you only need an Internet connection one time, and you can install that setup file on any number of computers. It's essentially the opposite of retail games that go into your digital Steam library -- You download a game from GOG and you can burn it to a disc, effectively turning a digital game into a "retail" game on physical media. In my opinion, this is the one and only surefire way of making sure we'll be able to play our digital downloads in the future.
I won't even get into other PC digital distribution services -- There are way too many to outline, some bad and some decent. I guess all I can say about them is to make sure you know what the future plans of companies are before you spend a bunch of money on something that you don't have a physical copy of, or something that turns digital after you buy it.
There are also two issues with digital distribution in general, no matter what your platform of choice is. The first one is the fact that once you buy something digital, it's yours forever. You can't sell, trade or even lend a game to anyone -- It usually stays tied to your account, and only you have access to it. Some services are a bit different, like Good Old Games, detailed above. But giving GOG games to friends when you're done with them pretty much ends up converting itself into piracy, since no one in their right mind would give anyone a setup file and then actually delete that file off their own computers. Everyone would be just making copies of games and giving them away for free. I love GOG and I hate DRM, but I still have no idea how that website actually makes money.
Another issue with digital distribution in general is how companies just seem to like randomly taking games down. Remember the Turtles in Time: Reshelled debacle that happened recently? People kept asking why so many complaints were coming in that the game was removed from the PS Store and Xbox LIVE Arcade since it was panned by critics, but they completely missed the point. If I were to plug my SNES into my TV right now and pop a cartridge in (oh, say, Turtles in Time), it would run without a problem, albeit probably needing to be washed inside and out first. How will you be able to play digital games you missed out on in the future? Bandwidth and storage space costs money, and that's not something that all companies will be willing to deal with for the rest of the gaming industry's lifespan. If you don't download a game on the PSN to get it into your list of past downloads, you're SOL when you want to go back and play something you missed. This completely destroys any chance of going back and reliving childhood memories, or just getting to revisit an epic game that left a huge impression on you years ago. Cartridges, discs and other physical media, however, absolutely guarantee that you'll be able to play these games for years and years as long as you have a working machine to play them on.
Digital distribution may be fine as a method of adding content to existing disc-based games, but I don't like what the future holds in terms of full games going completely digital without any retail counterparts. Call me an old codger, call me stuck in the past, call me what you will -- But I stand by my belief that we won't be able to revisit our libraries in the future. The only way we'll be able to play our old games is through hacking, like the Homebrew Channel on the Wii, or cracking games, like on the PC. The fact that we can do these things is nice, but the fact that we may end up relying on them, not so much.
And that, my friends, is what scares me most of all about gaming.
Contest:
7:30 PM on 07.18.2011 | 
Take the example of Turtles in Time, and switch it around: A game is released on disc with no digital distribution. At the time, it receives no attention, as the marketing was shoddy, there was a low number of initial copies, a few glaring glitches, etc. Any number of problems could foil a game's initial launch. But then someone discovers it years later and raves about it. Eventually it gains a cult following and finds it's way into the hands of the editor of a major news company. He gives it some good press. Unfortunately, the company that made the game went under years ago, and the other company that bought them doesn't want to risk releasing this old, glitchy game (a VERY plausible even, that last part). Now the game will never get the release it deserves. Maybe if digital distribution hadn't been outlawed by our benevolent leader pedrovay2003, the game could have made it's way to the hands of some more people (note: that wasn't a dig at you, just an example explaining why the company wouldn't try digital distribution).
And as for the riskiness of losing a downloaded game when your data is wiped.. the same can happen to disks caught in a housefire or robbery. I still can't play Homeworld 2 online after installing it at a friend's house, a problem which Steam would have avoided, had HW2 been released on it.
So neither system is perfect. Your description of GOG is very interesting though... but again, that isn't perfect either.
I can definitely see where you're coming from with your example of physical games, but I still think your proposed situation would be better than the direction we're currently headed in. In your scenario, at least there are some copies out there for people to get their hands on, sell second-hand and give others the chance to experience. With digital distribution, once it's gone, it's gone forever, and no matter how much someone raves about the game in the future, NOBODY will get to try it.
I absolutely do see what you're saying, though. I think digital distribution and retail can exist very harmoniously, but that's not going to be the gaming world we live in very soon. And if I had to choose one or the other, it'd always be retail over digital.
I suppose I'd be willing to pay extra to get a physical/digital copy combo, but I doubt that's going to happen. It would cost alot more money for devs. Especially digital only devs.
I've often thought about this, and I can't see a company ever caring. The future, as of now, is fucked.
Excellent blog.
Front Page?
I agree completely with your thoughts about companies. I really don't think companies care all that much about longevity.
I have a fucking Kinect which means I need a fucking mountain of space. I have ATT (because it's cheap and so am I) which means my router is plugged in to my phone adapter. My Xbox is no where near my router without stretching my ethernet chord all the way across my house. Even the optional media update needs to be online for me to be able to play .AVI files.
However, you forgot the most egregious of issues. Indie games will not work at all without internet connections because they aren't ESRB rated. Doesn't matter which system they are downloaded on. You can not play an indie game without connection.
The same is true of games... media changes. If you want to play old media, you may have to retain the old console, but one of the truly nice things about digital distribution is that a lot of that old media is now readily and easily available to consumers. We don't have to spend the time hunting for that old console and a physical copy of the game. While spending the time to do so would result in being able to play the media "forever" (or as long as the console didn't break) - for most people it's just nicer to have convenience.
I'm currently playing Beyond Good and Evil HD... a digital remake of the original game. I never had a PS2 and while my 60GB unit is backward compatible, it's just easier to spend $9.99 for the digital version than to go hunting for the original (which would only work in my 60GB and not on my slim unit). While digitial games may not be compatible with the PS9... they likely will be compatible with the PS4 and likely the PS5.
The vast majority of gamers (and audiophiles) will simply have the old hardware if they want to play that specific media. For the most part though, the consumer is motivated more by convenience and won't miss the lack of a hard copy once digital distribution becomes the norm. (and digital form is still simply a format... if you own that console with the downloaded games - you'll likely always be able to play them)
I'd tend to agree with that last part, but there have been problems with digital items being used on more than one platform in the past. Hell, I think that's going on RIGHT NOW with trying to use DSi downloads on the 3DS. It may be harder to track down the original retail releases and hardware, but at least you're always guaranteed to have them work.
The thing is, everything on the disc is digital. The delivery method is unimportant as games can be stored and saved into hard drives like they can discs.
The thing is tho, your oldies will never die as long as hackers crackers and the internet stay alive. Which is to say forever.
And I contend anyone to argue the "if the internet goes away" scenario, because lets face it. If the internet is gone, there is something much more fucking scary happening in the world than your games.
Lots of people think about the future of the industry, like you for example :)
I think digital distribution has much higher chances of compatibility than physical distribution, as CD's cam change into DVD's and DVD's can change into bluray's...and cartridges change; physical distribution has less compatibility. See I can't use my PSP UMD's for my Vita, but I CAN use my digital PSP games that I bought from the PS store on my vita! And they are actually all enhanced for the vita in terms of gameplay and graphics. Sony is thinking about the present and future of digital distribution.
Great article though!
When Ikaruga was released on the Gamecube (I didn't have a Dreamcast) I couldn't find it anywhere in any store. When I went online to for it, I only found used copies with no manual, case etc. Just the disc in the sleeve and new copies sold for insane amounts of money ($60). I did eventually managed to find it at a local Blockbuster. It had the case, but no manual.
Now that Ikaruga is out on XBLA, ANYONE with an 360 and internet access can buy the game for a set price and experience the game in awesome HD.
All these download only games will be ripped and emulated by the time the online infrastructure renders them unplayable. IE people were playing SMario All-Stars on there zsnes emulators WAYYYY before nintendo dropped an overpriced Wii disc out there. I'm sure I'll be playing After Burner Climax, Bionic Commando Re-Armed and Dead Nation on a PC emulator or some custom Linux box long after they've been removed from the PSN store.
I think you make some good points here - people SHOULD consider what a digital world means to their ability to collect games, and to how we think about such things.
However, in some ways, you're fighting the tide, for not too much real gain. Here's an example of what I mean. A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about stategy games, and went to go dig up my old copy of Gladius for the Xbox. Gladius was one of the platform's tragically under-appreciated SRPG gems. (I would love an HD remake - Lucasarts, are you listening?)
Anyway, I dug the old console out, looked all over the place for my controllers, and batteries to put in them. Found the right cables. Found the disc, plugged it in, and was transported back to a glorious moment in SRPG gaming. For about 10 minutes. The loading times started to get longer and longer, and eventually led to disc-read errors and crashes. It's not the disc - I tried a variety of other games, with similar results.
I last boxed up my Xbox maybe a year ago, at which time it was still running Guilty Gear pretty well! And it's possible some game repair genius can breathe another year or two of life into it. But facts are, it's an old piece of hardware, and hardware degrades. Same held true for older consoles (we fondly remember blowing into the game slot and endlessly clicking NES cartridges up and down until they boot correctly, but come on, you don't want to spend your time doing that). Cassette tapes get unspooled or stretched out. Records scratch. Things decay.
The kind of permanence you are thinking of with physical media is largely illusory; only a small number of people will be able to keep these items pristine enough to ensure that they work long after their natural life cycle has expired.
Think about DOS based games; for a while, if you got a newer Windows system, you were SOL on those games, unless you had an older machine around on life-support just to play them. Until homebrew patches and emulation arrived to help matters, anyway.
I think the larger issue is, as the world of games expands over time, what IS an effective way to archive all of these wonderful gems so that they don't get lost? And frankly, I think that emulation is really going to be the only viable method. GOG is a wonderful example of how we can resucitate old titles and get them into the hands of young and old gamers in a friendly way. And you'll notice they don't need physical media to do it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those guys who's trying to eliminate the good old Game Shelf; I love having a real physical library of games to browse through. I love lending them to people, too. I just have to bow to the reality that those copies won't last forever, either - nothing does. If we want to keep games archived and available long into the future, I think we'll need newer tech, not older, to do it.
This is not to say that old classics won't be rereleased. Some of them will. But on the other hand, showing my friend an obscure JRPG on the Sega CD (like Vay) is going to require that I 'pirate' the CD's ISO from a torrent site and then load up GENS.
And to be honest, I'm okay with that if there's no other options. Some games are just going to be difficult to find legitimately. The three Megaman Legend games on PS1 actually can't be rereleased in any form in North America thanks to contractual issues with the voice actors, and it'd cost me well over a hundred and fifty bucks to pick up the set on eBay used. If I was one of the fussy types who needed the game new, I'd be looking at over a thousand dollars for the three.
I'm not spending either of those for the lead up to Megaman Legends 3 (if it ever gets released), but you can bet I'll be refreshing myself on the games after this length of time.
Congrats on the front page promotion, by the way.
I think this console gen in particular is going to suck going back to in the future. How many games were released these past 6 years that were completely broken, incomplete, or nerfed outright? What will people do when there is nowhere to download patches, DLC, and content unlocks? Imagine someone 10 years from now trying to play New Vegas without any of the patches because no one is hosting them anymore.
Honestly, though, I think retro gaming mike just die in the future because today's gaming landscape is one of disposable experiences. I can count on one hand the number of games on my PS3 that I feel I'll want to play in the future, and on two hands that of every system this gen. Almost everything made today is utterly passionless, cookie cutter experiences made to be thrown away the second the sequel comes out less than 2 years later.
Personally, I don't think this generation will inspire any of the retro goodness every previous generation has generated. This whole gen feels wholly disposable, meant to be forgotten so that consumers will always be focused on whats next, rather than whats now and whats past. I think that poses a greater threat to the future of retro gaming, there really is just less experiences worth remembering.
All of which is precisely what makes the PC the ultimate retro gaming machine. Modders, hackers, and emulator coders are the ones keeping retro gaming alive. Clearly, its up to us, the gamers, to preserve this hobby of ours. The publishers aren't gonna give a rat's ass either way.
Hit the nail on the head. We have to step up and assume the role of caretaker for the medium. It is abundantly clear now that the big publishers couldn't care less about gaming outside of their ability to milk it for all its worth.
you can even make as many copies as you want, it's never been so easy to make sure that you have eternal access to your games than it is now.
Bankruptcy.
I'm talking about good old fashion "the company went out of business and their IPs were ripped apart into millions of pieces." Sure, 10, 20 years for now its a safe bet that Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Steam will be around. But what about Atari, the poster boy for financial troubles in the industry? Or Nippon Ichi, which is forced to crank out Disgaea games because nothing else sells? Or how about Sega, which did so poorly it ended up merging with Sammy Corporation? When those companies go down, theres little chance of anyone ever picking up the pieces just to keep trying to a non-selling game/franchise. If that happens, say good bye to your digitally distributed copies of Atari, Nippon Ichi and Sega games and say hello to DRM lock outs.
- In 1985, 20 megs (0.02 gigs) was the norm for new hard drives
- In 1990, 100 megs (0.1 gigs) was the norm for new hard drives
- In 1995, 2-3 gigs was the norm for new hard drives
- In 2000, 20-40 gigs was the norm for new hard drives
- In 2005, 120-250 gigs was the norm for new hard drives
- In 2010, we saw the first 1000 gigabyte hard drives
- In 2015, when we can expect to emulate DVD games (6 gig), we'll be looking at 10,000 gigabyte hard drives as the norm
- In 2020, when we can expect to emulate BluRay Games (50 gig), we'll probably be looking at 100,000 gigabyte hard drives as the norm
Of course, internet speed being what it is, major cities can probably expect reasonable jumps in speed as well. As strange as it seems to our 2011 minds, one day downloading a collection of every PS3 ISO is going to be no stranger than downloading a collection of SNES ROMs is right now.
The future could be amazing, or it could be a load of shit. It'll probably be a lot of both.
Digital distribution seems way better in nearly every conceivable way than physical copies. You make the argument that old games would no longer be supported and you would not be able to download them? But what about the countless retro games that are rereleased through downloadable distribution only? Would it even be possible for these companies to rerelease retro games with such ease without digital distribution?
Are you proposing that, for instance, Nintendo should have shipped physical copies of excitebike to 3DS owners? How many people do you think played physical copies of excite bike this year? Doesn't digital distribution offer a huge chance for us to enjoy retro games even more, moreso than locking us out of them?
The future seems ok to me, or at least videogames is one of my areas of least worry
The problem is that you're not going to get a lot of people talking about the problem of download-only games disappearing forever until it actually happens to more than just the occasional title. Then they'll start complaining, and the publishers will rerelease the occasional, with gaming media excitedly declaring "______ is finally available again!"
Really, the only saving grace is what a number of people have already mentioned: emulation and piracy. In a few years, Sony and MS may not think I should be allowed to re-download titles I've already paid for, but I'll be of a slightly different opinion.
Publishers are starting to take advantage of their customers with digital distribution. EA will force gamers to buy any game published by them through Origins and they will charge you FULL retail price to do so. They are saving a ton of money and unlike Valve they will not pass those saving onto the consumer. Buy from you local store, get a physical copy you actually own, and you support your local economy.
Publishers are starting to take advantage of their customers with digital distribution. EA will force gamers to buy any game published by them through Origins and they will charge you FULL retail price to do so. They are saving a ton of money and unlike Valve they will not pass those saving onto the consumer. Buy from your local store, get a physical copy you actually own, and you support your local economy.
While that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game was getting erased from history, I bought Ducktales on NES. Capcom and Disney aren't working together anymore ; I don't think I'll see Ducktales reedited in my lifetime. Good thing I can get the NES cart of it. I'm pretty sure Mega Man 9 and 10 are going to be reedited on every console network service in the future, but damn it sucks I paid for them on my Wii.
Every medium has standards that go out of style and remain unsupported. People can still get a Delorean these days, luckily, but the parts to fix them are crazy expensive and, eventually, they will run out. Then you will have to have them custom made each time.
Also, what's to stop people from re-releasing old downloadable games on new consoles in the future? That's become an huge trend lately, just look at all the HD rereleases coming on precious physical discs,and it's a trend that happens across all forms of media. If there's a game that enough people care about, you will still be able to play it. No one is going to lament the loss of Turtles in Time: Reshelled.
Look at the arcade scene. There are only a finite number of CRT screens for those things, and people have cannibalized cabinets in order to fix others. When all those parts run out, eventually arcade cabinets will be restricted to museums and no where else. But the people running MAIM are keeping old arcade games alive, and the same will be true for any games you actually care about in the future. There will be an emulator running Journey, and Braid, if for some reason you can't download them on PS4 or Steam. Stop being old and grumpy, and just play your games.
Other than that, nice article. Certainly some good food for thought.
People who are passionate about games always find a way to catalog and distribute them. Some slip through and are lost.. just like with physical media but the majority of popular or not so popular games can be found if you're willing to take the time to find them.
Time will tell.. but I for one welcome our new digital overlords.