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Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

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Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#11

Post by Y_Y »

proc0 wrote: post #7

I think it's silly that the conversation on preserving games revolves around hardware. The hardware is irrelevant. It's about the right to create digital backup for personal use. Whether the game is downloaded or burned on a disc, it's just software. The main problem used to be about piracy, but I think now it's really about making games as a service (even if they're not online for gameplay) because it allows more fo…

Wouldn't it be nice if the Library of Congress or the Bodleian or some other prestigous clouty institution could demand that these published artworks be given to them as an unencumbered copy? I know that such a thing might have to include server code and some agreements on runtime environment, but I don't see that as insuperable.

This is culture and it's part of our patrimony. The privilege of getting to publish thinga and having copyright protection ought to include responsibilities to the society too.

Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#13

Post by kouteiheika »

wiktor-k wrote: post #5
hombre_fatal wrote: post #3

With physical games, you're tied to how long your console and cartridge physically last. With digital games, you're tied to how long the console's e-store lasts, which is guaranteed to be sunset. Eventually I couldn't justify buying the console version of a game that I was willing to play on Steam.

> Eventually I couldn't justify buying the console version of a game that I was willing to play on Steam. I do that too but doesn't the same rule apply to Steam, too? (that is if it goes down, you can't download the games anymore?).

That's true, but in general it's easy to archive games from Steam and (as long as the publisher doesn't use any 3rd-party DRM) they're trivial to crack.

I buy my games from Steam because of the convenience and to support the developers, but if, say, Gaben kicks the bucket and Steam suddenly closes/turns evil I can just as easily pirate all of my games back. So from a game preservation standpoint Steam isn't that bad compared to the locked down consoles and their walled gardens.

Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#14

Post by dtagames »

Y_Y wrote: post #11
proc0 wrote: post #7

I think it's silly that the conversation on preserving games revolves around hardware. The hardware is irrelevant. It's about the right to create digital backup for personal use. Whether the game is downloaded or burned on a disc, it's just software. The main problem used to be about piracy, but I think now it's really about making games as a service (even if they're not online for gameplay) because it allows more fo…

Wouldn't it be nice if the Library of Congress or the Bodleian or some other prestigous clouty institution could demand that these published artworks be given to them as an unencumbered copy? I know that such a thing might have to include server code and some agreements on runtime environment, but I don't see that as insuperable. This is culture and it's part of our patrimony. The privilege of getting to publish thin…

The problem is the cost and knowledge base required to keep servers running. A game server is a big proprietary ball of spaghetti with hundreds of API endpoints and only the people who built it really know how it works[0]. It's expensive to keep those folks around and expensive to pay for the cloud services and SaaS tools they need to do their jobs.

All software has a "lifecycle" and has to be turned off at some point because no one is willing to pay the costs of keeping it running (with hosting and client changes as ongoing moving targets). We see this even with games that have sales! So ones that don't have sales are not likely to attract anyone to pay for such staff.

[0] Source: I spent 2 years inside a studio owned by "big gaming."

Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#15

Post by mcphage »

It's an imperfect solution to a real problem—Nintendo wants to use cartridges instead of discs for some good reasons, some not-so-good reasons—but the costs per cartridge are too high for cartridges big enough to hold modern games.

But you can look at it as a transferable license to otherwise digital games, and that's not bad. A console with entirely (or almost entirely) digital games would have no used game market, and that sucks both for sellers (which I don't do), and buyers (which I happily do).

It would be nice if there was some legal protection for the buyer that, by selling a physical license, that Nintendo be required to make the download itself available for some time period > 20 years.

Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#16

Post by jsheard »

I get that Switch 2 games need faster storage, and that makes the traditional model of running games directly from the cart prohibitively expensive, but they could have just copied the Xbox/Playstation model of shipping physical games on slow media (Blurays in their case) and then having a mandatory installation step which copies the data to the fast internal SSD before you start playing. That way you're not entirely dependent on online services to play a physical game.

Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#18

Post by 2mlWQbCK »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #8
wiktor-k wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually I couldn't justify buying the console version of a game that I was willing to play on Steam. I do that too but doesn't the same rule apply to Steam, too? (that is if it goes down, you can't download the games anymore?).

Steam is always given an exception in these conversations because they’ve generally behaved - but that can easily change overnight from a black swan event.

Some future manager will look at a graph and think monetization can be improved X% while only losing an estimated Y% of users. It is guaranteed to happen. Question is only if most in the current generation will outlive free access to their entire Steam library or not.

Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#19

Post by mystified5016 »

mysteria wrote: post #6

In the computer games industry pretty much everything has been download only for some time as the assets are too large for DVD and BD never caught on for PC. Places like GOG provide unrestricted offline installers but the majority are provided via a storefront like Epic or Steam. The worst case scenario for preservationists is for games to become a streaming service via cloud gaming, which publishers may like since i…

Fortunately for everyone, all of the "stream games as a service" initiatives failed completely. Consumers aren't really interested due to obvious drawbacks, and vendors aren't interested in provisioning enough or good enough hardware to solve those drawbacks.

Re: Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening but inevitable

#20

Post by proc0 »

Y_Y wrote: post #11
proc0 wrote: post #7

I think it's silly that the conversation on preserving games revolves around hardware. The hardware is irrelevant. It's about the right to create digital backup for personal use. Whether the game is downloaded or burned on a disc, it's just software. The main problem used to be about piracy, but I think now it's really about making games as a service (even if they're not online for gameplay) because it allows more fo…

Wouldn't it be nice if the Library of Congress or the Bodleian or some other prestigous clouty institution could demand that these published artworks be given to them as an unencumbered copy? I know that such a thing might have to include server code and some agreements on runtime environment, but I don't see that as insuperable. This is culture and it's part of our patrimony. The privilege of getting to publish thin…

Yes that would be nice. It could definitely be a non-profit and get a lot of support. Then they could grant access to past games that are no longer on the market. Ideally anyone can just make their own backups without publishing the copy. I still think there are solutions to allow this but companies want games a service to make more money.
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