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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

#61

Post by autoexec »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #42
kllrnohj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brand name 64GB microSDXC UHS-I cards are $10 retail. Figure Nintendo can get the actual flash storage directly much cheaper than that, probably more like $3-5. That hardly seems like a meaningful cost saving measure for a physical game, especially on a console that's pushing upwards of $80 as the game price.

> Figure Nintendo can get the actual flash storage directly much cheaper than that, probably more like $3-5 Not necessarily. Nintendo’s variant is built by Macronix under their XtraROM service; a variant of NAND flash designed to be a reliable Mask ROM substitute (including only being writable once, automatic repair afterwards, etc). Officially, their chips are rated to last 20 years at 85 degrees Celsius, which is i…

People's 3DS games are already being found to be unplayable after sitting on the shelf and switch games will meet the same fate. Nintendo has been failing both paying customers and preservationists for a very long time now. Piracy will again be the only way people will have to play many Nintendo switch titles. In other cases, people will have to wait for nintendo to release a limited selection of overpriced (and sometimes edited/censored) versions of certain older games on whatever future platform they're currently pushing.

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

#62

Post by autoexec »

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…

> 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 agree. It should be a requirement to receive copyright protection. The US Copyright Office should also make those copies available for download on their servers the moment that the work enters the public domain.

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

#63

Post by autoexec »

jerf wrote: post #39
lelag wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point about PC going digital-only as Nintendo is a fascinating counter-example. While they offer digital downloads on the eShop, their pricing actively discourages it. Case in point: I just bought my kid a new first-party Switch game. Physical copy on Amazon was ~25% cheaper than the identical digital version on Nintendo's own eShop. Even my 9-year-old noted how illogical it seems, the physical version re…

And physical, at least to date, retains resell value as well. If you want to play an expensive Nintendo release that effectively never goes down in retail value, it's reasonably safe to buy it, play it, and resell it if you don't want it indefinitely. Nintendo never lowering their prices helps anchor the value high even in the resell market most of the time. I haven't read enough about this to know if the gamekey wil…

> And physical, at least to date, retains resell value as well.

That stopping being true as soon as the DS line started and they switched to flash memory that will degrade over time when they don't have power. People's DS games are already failing. The same will happen to switch games. Only a few hardcore collectors are going to pay money for a cartridge that doesn't let you play the game anymore.

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

#64

Post by autoexec »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #29
mystified5016 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imo if Gamepass is allowed to survive, it's end game is a tier, or maybe included at no extra cost with some limitations, a cloud gaming component. Gamepass is the biggest threat in turning games into subscriptions, and unfortunately a growing subset of people will only play games on Gamepass. We've dodged Gamepass exclusives for now, but for how long?

Game pass doesn't seem terribly popular. Xbox in general isn't doing very well compared to the other consoles. I think they'll keep pushing for games as a service though. It's too tempting to keep all that control out of the hands of players.

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

#65

Post by autoexec »

kouteiheika wrote: post #13
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?).

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…

> 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.

I'd recommend pirating copies now to keep as backups while it's still easy. You can't be sure you'll be able to find copies of less popular games in the future, having the control over our own computers to do things like run unauthorized software is being threatened all the time, the ever expanding surveillance over our lives makes it increasingly risky to do anything legally questionable, and the copyright regime is only getting more powerful. I don't think piracy is going to die out any time soon, but I do suspect it's only going to get more difficult as we're increasingly controlled and spied on.

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

#66

Post by autoexec »

addoo wrote: post #31
YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Plays are ephemeral and should really be enjoyed in the now. Even if you can perfectly preserve a play, and the means to perform it, tastes change so quickly in theatre that a play that’s entertaining today might not be enjoyable even a year later.” - you, in the 1620s, probably.

Now imagine that the play cannot be altered (game build), it can only be performed on a specifically shaped stage (hardware requirements), actors can only be replaced by lookalikes (‘remaster’ tweaks), it can only be performed with a full theatre (online requirements), and the playwright retains the only copy of the play (source code). Then you start to approach the problem that is gaming.

People have been altering plays for ages without much issue (just look at the mod community), emulating and porting plays to different stages, and even reverse engineering their own copies of the script.

The only real catch has been online stuff and even that is sometimes worked around or recreated. It's not an impossible task to solve the problem of making games playable into the future, but it'll probably require legislation to force game companies to preserve their game and server code to allow for it.

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

#67

Post by autoexec »

kelsey978126 wrote: post #12

Hot take: when a game is not able to be preserved, it is not worthy of preservation efforts. When it's not worthy of being saved for the future is it even worth playing today? My answer is no.

I feel similarly, but at the same time there will come a point where there won't be any games being made that aren't designed to be unplayable after a certain amount of time.

I expect that far more people will suck it up and pay whatever they have to in order to play whatever games they're allowed to today rather than abandon playing video games entirely. I think game companies are counting on that too.

If you're counting on gamers to vote will their wallets in order to save video games I think you're going to be extremely disappointed.

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

#68

Post by ferbivore »

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…

All games with a budget over $10m will be online-only gacha soon enough because it would be fiscally irresponsible to do anything else. The only reason you can still "buy" large games - to whatever extent you still can, you're mostly leasing games if you don't pirate them anyway - is irrationality and inertia on the part of publishers, which I doubt will last forever under shareholder pressure.

A lot of games are already nearly impossible to preserve because they use DRM and anti-cheat systems that only a handful of people in the world could crack. Maybe in the future more people will learn, but I think it's more likely the opposite will happen and these people will be fully outcompeted by DRM providers.

I wish there was a way to prevent this, but I don't see it. You would have to outlaw SaaS in general. I mean, that sounds like utopia to me, but there's no chance any country would go for it.

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

#69

Post by trinsic2 »

dtagames wrote: post #14
Y_Y wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poin…

> 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.

You mean SAAS has a life cycle.

Software itself can be run by people willing to keep it running.

The whole "software should be turned off" comment is you trying to change perception about what software is.

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

#70

Post by dmwilcox »

I guess I'm the odd duck with a switch that has never been online. It sounds like the switch2 isn't for me.

Sad but I don't want another device that wants to be more than it is, I basically want an updated version of my gameboy from the 90s and that's it. No downloads, no network, no social, just a game you can quietly play anywhere when you have a bit of time, no nonsense

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