I only buy physical but I agree that hackers are doing the real long-term preservation. Aesthetics and resale value are excellent reasons to go physical and convincing people that aesthetics are the reason to go physical will actually help preserve the value of the games for collectors in the very long-term. It’s also currently still relatively convenient to play physical games thanks to stuff like Analogue so for now I am happy collecting physical. It’s like stamp collecting on steroids to me, but ultimately it could turn into mere stamp collecting, which is a thing.
Digital preservation is only as good as the medium that it is stored on. If you're not allowed to save the game on your own storage media because of DRM, then that is the biggest barrier. We know that jailbreaking/piracy exists, but the point is that we want to advocate for legal/legitimate practices, so everyone can preserve their games, not just tech nerds.
I do want to correct you slightly, I have personally swapped PS3 drives and they work fine. The check is performed between the drive and the daughter board that is attached to it. If you swapped the drive for your nephew without also swapping those boards, then that is why it didn't work. On your other points, I like things like Retron that dump files in order to extend the life of the physicals. The problem for me is not preservation so much as the lack of ownership rights in the current era. Currently if you want to preserve anything and protect your investment, buying digitally directly from the publishers/manufacturers is the #1 way to ensure that you will fail at either of those things. If companies just sold me the files it would be a different story.
some good points raised in here. I also find the best kind of preservation a person can do in modern times is a solid digital archive with a good backup routine to prevent data loss.
Theres a problem that no game collector thought would be a thing that is recently showing up with Dreamcast and other old enough games, when they are near to 25 years old the CDs themselves are starting to physically root therefore all information in it gets lost or corrupted. Literally holes start showing up
I've always said these things would happen sooner or later with all this stuff... They are manufactured material items, and older products, they will be 100% gone someday unfortunately.. We are lucky to be able to preserve things as long as we can now, I just wish things didn't break down so fast and that time didn't go by so fast... A year as an adult collector passes extremely fast and if you have a huge collection you find you are always cleaning and maintaining it and yeah time just goes way too fast to be a collector... it sucks
I had one of my 3DS game cards, that of Puzzle & Dragons Z + PAD Super Mario Bros. Edition, suddenly stop working on me, despite there being no physical defects I can see. Flash memory, like what the Switch also uses, can also get elements'd like discs can.
Physical games prevents the 3 major gaming companies from owning a monopoly on their digital store fronts. If the only option is to buy Nintendo games from their Eshop and they wipe out the 2nd hand market completely then that means Nintendo can raise their prices and their is nothing I can do about it. There are many games that you can get for dirt cheap now at your local GameStop or Ebay that still sell for 50-60 if you buy the digital copy. Cloud gaming is the end game and eventually you won't even be able to download the game because it will be streamed to you.
The gaming console model is starting to become dated. Consoles at the end of the day are locked down PCs with no ability to buy games from alternative storefronts which is why I switched over to PC.
@@mistabrown830 Nintendo would be the exception because of their exclusive IP's. You can't play Mario or Zelda on your PC unless you emulate the Switch. I think that Nintendo will end up winning the console war this generation. TOTK alone sold more than 19 million copies. Nintendo's exclusives always sell really well. You can also preserve your Nintendo Switch games and back them up through emulation and dumping the rom files to your PC. The patches and updates can even be preserved as well. I'm just carious, why didn't you just switch to a Steam Deck instead because that way you can play your PC games on the go or hook it up to your big screen TV. Steam Deck while not as powerful as a high end gaming PC, is powerful enough for most gamers. Unless you are a power user which most people are not a Steam Deck will satisfy most gamers and you can also hook it up to your big screen TV as a bonus.
drm has been on physical discs in many different forms for a very long time, i remember the old 3.5 and 5 inch floppy discs had some interesting methods on them. plus if you lost the manual well you were often completely stuffed because they often included a secret code to access your game. annother problem is that physical is often unfortunately region locked as well. i know pc, limit what discs can play in certain regions.
At the end, the only real way to keep preserving data is to keep replicating the data. No media really lasts forever, and you also have to make sure you didn’t get a bad one out of the batch, sort of like I did with my Pulp Fiction DVD breaking down even when older DVDs I own are not, why? It was likely a flawed item on the manufacturing line.
Physical will always be better but they both have its pros' and cons'. They both can co exist together and both have their own benefits and uses. Me preferring physical over digital has nothing to do with my investment in physical. Physical will be around forever while digital, one the license is up can be taking off the digital store and or internet and those are facts.
I buy physical games because I don't waste my data cap on streaming anything. Once I'm done with a game I'll never touch it again. And once the new gen comes out the old goes in the trash
I do see where you are coming from in terms of preserving games, but I feel like when collector's say they want to preserve physical games, what they meant to say is to preserve the classic gaming experience more than the games themselves. I mean keeping them in good condition is nice, however, the main question is how long before they crap out on us.
Physical and only physical isn’t itself the full scope of preservation, but having working, physical copies is part of it. The true end goal is decentralized, publicly accessible archives from which to, both digitally and/or physically, be able to rent, borrow (and optionally buy) a copy free of drm with the ability to engage with the piece of software in the most faithfully reproduced way we originally engaged in. The most common example of this is a library and its books and ebooks. That is a far flung future riddled with legal issues that need to be solved first. Until we have reached said point in the future (something we have to work towards), the next best thing we can is complete consumer control over purchased. This means having a hard copy of the software physically available to you, not attached to any specific (online, server bound) account, that you share, borrow and optionally sell on to other people. From a digital perspective it means the ability to make backups of your software (both physical and digital) that can be used in order/as a substitute to the original copy, to engage with the software, in the event the original comes to harm (for physical copies that means disc rot, for digital copies that can mean archaic forms of drm). So in short, yes, exclusively physical preservation is not preservation in full, but it’s definitely an important part of it.
I know I'm 3 years late here, but there a couple misconceptions here. 1. Buying a game digitally isn't "essentially like buying a license" as you put it. That's literally what it is. Try to buy a digital game and actually read the first few paragraphs of the EULA. It says it point blank that you are buying a license that lets you access the game files. You do not own the game, and if the company you bought it from loses the game files or goes out of business then your license is worthless. 2. I think most people who are adamant about buying physical games are doing so because they want to actually own their games and avoid the scenario from point 1. I don't think that most people are doing so with the intention of the game lasting forever. They just want to actually own the thing that they paid money for. This is just an assumption though.
A few years back I started downloading cracked versions of games I already own ( bought legally). These are my digital backups. Then, I plan to transfer all the games over to a new HDD (or whatever the best storage is) every 10-15yrs. Preserving games I love.
I definitely agree with the idea why I like physical games is an aesthetic thing, and digital preservation is the better long-term solution. The moral high ground thing I think comes from lack of experience with jailbreaking, and the narrative that game companies want to promote: “emulation is bad”.
I stopped buying physical games around 2015 or 2016 with only a couple exceptions. There are a several reasons why. What is a videogame at it's most minimal and simple form? Just a bunch of ones and zeros; digital. Physical is just a vessel to get those ones and zeros to your console or PC. I can build my collection on PC through Steam and emulation and have everything in one place pseudo-permanently. I just have to occasionally upgrade my storage (HDD-->SSD-->NVME SSD, etc.). I also realized that buying physical is just a form of commodity fetishism. It's just an inanimate object that takes up space. The joy of a videogame should come from the experience of actually playing it (and later the nostalgia and memories you formed). I don't want a gaming room full of shelves of videogames. Everything I want is on my PC (I also have a PS5 for recent exclusives) and it's super convenient. I also don't have any nostalgia for playing games on original inferior hardware with often old uncomfortable controllers (I also do not have a CRT, nor do I want one). This hardware is often falling apart and faulty now. Emulation, PC, and digital rips are the best way to preserve games. No one's collection is going to match a full rom set for a system. Everything is recorded in those digital sets as long as they are stored somewhere; they can then be uploaded and shared. Emulation also breathes new life into old games with enhanced graphics, quality of life improvements, and the ability for mods. My biggest concern going forward is digital store competition (no console maker monopoly on digital games), and digital rights like refundability and maybe renting/trading. Steam has their 2 hour full refund guarantee which is an excellent move to protect gamers from trash games and false advertising. All digital store fronts should offer this at a minimum. Services like Gamepass kinda of act like a modern rental store; but I would like to see non-subscription based rentals.
I think physical will always be more secure do to the control you have over the object, but I would never say that its some how immoral to buy digital. Its just security vs convenience.
True, but nowadays most game discs contain only part of the full product and require updates or patches to function. Some just contain data that prompts a download of the entire game online. It will end up being the future regardless.
@@TheElectricUnderground The 7th generation was the last one that allowed all games to be played off the disc versus a mandatory download. The value of a physical copy pretty much dropped with the 8th gen onwards in my opinion.
I want freedom to bring my games to my friends, to borrow them out or trade them in, to gift them as a present, to own and play them whenever I want on my own terms, and to sell them when hell breaks loose. This is only possible with true ownership having physical media. Also, I love cartridges because they live much longer than discs, load faster, and the cart slot never dies, unlike a disc drive. When I transfered my downloads from Wii to Wii U, I lost games like NES Yoshi's Cookie (licensing reason) and WiiWare ToriBash: Violence Perfected (regional reason) and WiiWare LostWinds (compatibility reason) They simply took them away from me. If I could rewind time, I would buy all my Wii, Wii U, and Switch games physical instead of going digital-only. For example, I downloaded Thimbleweed Park and Undertale but I should have saved that money to put it towards the retail release. Downloads are ok for mediocre and bad games, but great games should always be physical. I trust in myself to preserve my games better than any company out there, so never renting/leasing/"purchasing" digital licenses again.
100% on point in everything you say -- especially about the Mister. I feel like I'm going nuts hearing the way people talk about FPGA emulation but it is clearly just giving people "permission" to emulate stuff who look down on that for some reason. Two more reasons physical "preservation" is a joke now -- patches (especially day-one patches that hugely change the game) and online features. Though the second one is a pretty tough challenge for any kind of preservation at all, digital or physical.
I wouldn't say people should only stick with one and not the other. But I do think there are a few arguments in favour of physical. The first and foremost is the preservation of investment. I know that if everything suddenly went sideways, my Saturn & Super Famicom collections could keep me afloat for a couple of months. If I'm all digital, I'm never seeing that money again. This is especially salient in shmups, because they're the most consistently valuable titles on any retro platform. Those Japan-only ShotTriggers titles on Switch with 2500-5000 unit print runs are guaranteed to shoot up in price, because both shmup and Nintendo collectors are fanatics. Esp.Ra.De is already going for $90-100. Closer to the main point about preservation, the other argument in favour of physical comes out of book studies. Academics learn a TON about cultures and knowledge production from physical texts. The text is more than the words, the medium and material also impart meaning and become constitutive of 'the thing.' Aside from scholarly concerns, those reasons are why a 17th century edition of Cervantes has tremendous value even though Don Quixote is public domain and only a google search away for free. There's a particular element of the experience of the thing itself, its time, place and materiality which becomes lost when transmitted to an abstracted medium. The same applies to games, comics, etc. Slotting in an NES cart, or opening a Saturn jewel case and seeing the instruction booklet in there while trying not to lose the spine card, is a part of the totality of the experience of what the 'game' is. How much value one places on that part of the experience is going to be very individual, but I don't think it's insignificant. I think there's a very clear connection between emulation and physical retro sales exploding.
Some really great points! I definitely agree with the re-sale ability of physical games being a nice advantage for the owner :-) In the case of an owner needing to sell their physical copies, that's an interesting scenario because the owner also has the option to retain the games by making digital backups or buying the cheaper digital version, which sort of changes the nature of the physical copies. Rather than being pure items of utility, I think these days they are more like a collectible physical artifact. For example on the Shottrigger releases, if you were planning to resell them for max value in the future, you'd probably want to keep them sealed and not play them, which is kind of funny and ironic.
I was a physical collector and wanted to always save my NES and Genesis games for my kids to play. But my wife hates the clutter of so many different systems and TVs and wires and pieces to fix things and clean old hardware, so I eventually sold all my old stuff and went all digital. I made a ton of money and cleared up a lot of space. Another bonus for digital is that if my copy gets corrupted from radiation or I lose my sd card or whatever its on I can always redownload it or get it from my back up drive. I fought it for a long time and Im actually happy she talked me into it because it makes life much easier all digital.
Great topic and answers. I think one thing that needs to be remembered as part of the preservation push that is often forgotten is manuals, artbooks and the like though. This is less important for modern games which don't really have manuals and have decent digital guides but in the case of Switch games they actually have no e-manuals outside of rare browser based ones (SEGA do it often - it also means we can archive) and it can lead to some ports being harder than the originals just from no official source of controls or mechanics being left behind. Interestingly older games tend to be well treated since the Arcade Archives have manuals integrated into the software (so I know Japanese Fatal Fury has different controls) and Konami's Castlevania release is decent as well.
Good points made on physical media and the merits of digital. Another thing to consider about optical media in particular is the possibility of disc rot. I haven't experienced it myself but have heard the stories of hundreds of movies in a DVD or Blu ray collection going bad, for doing nothing more than sitting on a shelf. Between natural disaster, loss, theft or the hardware wearing out on it's own I can start to see the value of digital.
yeah BS i have disc thats almost 30 years old and not one of them is '' rotting '' ive never seen a disc rot in my entire life unless your storing it where mold ect is growing on it its all a load of BS
Previously I would have agreed with you, particulally being a collector of CAVE merch but after getting an RGH 360 and copying all my games to it I think it’s great. To launch all the games from the dash with no disc swapping I’m over the moon with it!. Edit.. I think I posted too soon I think we are in agreement . All Consoles should have the option to rip your own games to the hdd. I think m2 had the answer after all with battle Garegga. Digital codes with preorder goodies, books, CDs etc .
As long as the disc is in good condition there are tech persons who can rip the game data and try to make them work companies can't keep games online and digital deletion is easy but gamediscs are better games on storage HDD or SSD you can lose whole librarys of games with Discs only part or 1 game to lose at a time build better preservation i am all for it but unless better viable ways have the discs, HDD and SSD all can fail but hopefully some survive have LP, VHS, audiocassets, DVD, Blu-ray,....
I just always assumed the focus on physical as preservation was to 1: prevent publishers from having an excuse to go purely digital (or if they do, you create a market space for something like Limited Run Games) and 2: use those physical copies could be used to create digital versions to preserve outside the control of the developers/publishers. If anybody really thought that just sticking the cartridge/disc on the shelf or in a vault somewhere was a service to preservation, I find that baffling.
DUDE I went through the EXACT same process with vinyl lmao. I only use my U-turn Orbit like once every couple months for friends now. My 1000’s of cds are still going strong tho. Also, you definitely gave me a new perspective with the preservation argument. It seems like a good idea to be leaning into rather than away from digital media right now
@@TheElectricUnderground , I am kind of divided on digital media myself. I would prefer physical copies of games, but the disc/cartridge rot argument is indeed real, as well as the increasing rarity of replacement parts, let alone quality replacement parts (which is why companies that make video games need to be required by NUMEROUS laws worldwide to make their older technology not only region free, but also license free, after, say, 10 years, or the end of the life span of a video game system, whichever, comes first, so that their games can be preserved, and allow useful quality of life mods to said video games, systems, accessories, and such, as well as reasonable additional content to be released on special, as well as officially licensed, editions of video games, as well as officially licensing all independent games and accessories for all video game systems, or they can face fines, imprisonment for a whole host of crimes, massive layoffs, blacklisting from the entire video game industry, and the liquidation of their companies if they do not comply), the potential environmental impact of old technology, scalpers like DKOldies artificially inflating prices of retro video games, systems, and accessories, the issue of parts degradation, the issue of increasing difficulty of finding replacement parts, as well as repairs, to video game systems, as well as video game accessories, and the phasing out of CD/DVD drives, all kind of make it difficult for a video game player that is on a budget to have access to retro video games, as well as retro video game consoles. Conversely, finding adequate, let alone high quality, PC counterparts to retro video games, let alone dealing with the potential accidental, or intentional, erasure of saved digital date media, the digital media being taken as hostage by agenda peddling employees of video game/PC game companies, as well as service providers, e.g., Nintendo, Sega, Atari, Microsoft, Sony, Steam, GOG, etc., and difficulties of some features being transferred from one version of a game to another version of a game (or a game that is playable on one retro video game system totally cannot be played on a PC, like the Zapper based games for the NES/FDS, or the R.O.B. games that are on the NES/FDS, like Gyromite, for examples), can complicate things (which is kind of why I am disappointed in the Steam version of Chrono Trigger removing one feature that is still a NDS exclusive, that is, the two-player Battle Dungeon), and those things, as well as simply wanting a physical copy of a game, and/or several versions of said game, for the sake of curiosity, as well as video game, video game accessory, and video game system preservation, and archiving, kind of make it difficult for both sides of the debate. The only positive that I have for a digital library is that it is easier to carry around a digital library than it is to carry around a physical library, as well as more accessories, games, and such, for retro video game systems. Were it not for that, then I would fully support a physical copy of a video game, as well as original video game systems and video game accessories, outright.
I bought a digital version of MVC2 for ps3 years ago and my ps3 ended up breaking, so when I got another ps3 I had to search through years of my previous downloads because PSN no longer carried the game on the store. Good thing I was still able to get it back.
PSN is fickle it has problems sorting the licences and can easy block games people can't install/play a game because you have a game licence of the demo same shit with DLC between PS4 and PS5 games abd remember the account hack how easy Sony can Block it with all your licences perminantly it happend nearly to me all because of a link in the PSchatroom and Sony mistakes me of placing them while i fell victom to it even did not know the link was unsafe i thought unsafe links get removed by secure software before it shows up in chat but sony concern is only theyre wallet not the safety of our accounts and licences
If preservation is your primary concern I'd say dumping roms to the internet and emulation would be the key. Not physical media. Super Mario Bros 3 ain't going no where because its all over the internet at this point. I love owning physical copies of my games but it is an aesthetic thing for me as well. Addendum: The temp ban for talking about the pi is one of the most smooth brained things I've ever heard. lol
Yeah I agree! I have physical copies of my retro games and I have roms of my retro games on my computer, so it’s already preserved for me. I just have the physical copies of my retro games for my personal enjoyment and it’s my guilty pleasure
Digital (SSD's) are also prone to failure, it is just based on how many times you write to it. Granted you have to write to it a shit ton before you have a high probability of failure. If you write only a couple times to an SSD, your SSD will last much longer. The reason failure is based on the writes it because the physical transistors can only handle so many changes of state. That is why an SSD seems to become smaller over time, it literally is becoming smaller the more your use it. SSD's degrade and it is intelligently sectioning off portions of the SSD that no longer work. Physical games are being stored digitally on every piece of "physical" cartridge. It's not like physical cartridges aren't also just a bunch of 1's and 0's. Comparing the probability of failure for new storage devices storing the same data as an original physical cartridge is an interesting question. But, like you said, it doesn't matter if the cartridge is still storing the data if you can't read the data because the transferring of data is the failure point. I think that the best option is owning a game that is not linked to the account, anyone can launch and play the game (on pc). GOG is a website that does just that for pc games. However, then what if your computer or storage fails or you accidentally delete it? THEN, cloud based owning is superior because you just re-download the game. Yeah, you're relying on a service but why does it matter? The service will not last forever, but neither will you. The service could even outlive you. You're not going to exist forever, maybe your concern is for someone else in the future to be able to play the game in your place (like your kids or friends when you die?) Another interesting contrast is the game files you have (on pc) has to relate to the OS you are using. So are digital games best to have on Windows or Mac? Linux? Preservation is definitely spreading data to other people (fail safes). Keep your game small as well (easy to transfer between computers). Electronics are storing your game files and electronics are hard to keep safe and permanent, just like anything else.
Real preservation is rooted within the source code documentations of the games on a company level. Of course games are being preserved, but in documents, not in retail in physical or digital license form..
I know this is an older video, but I just wanted say well done. I identify my self as a gamer that prefers physical copies over digital, but after watching this I completely agree, in regards to preservation, digital is the way to go. Unfortunately, there is so much that can happen to a physical collection and the cost to rebuild or replace those pieces can be painfully expensive or time consuming versus just re-downloading titles from a back up source. In regards to jail breaking and hacking being the future, I can see that. As long as you have companies like Sony that restrict or no longer allow access to previously available titles, people are going to come up with ways to get around that BS. All that being said though, I still prefer playing physical games. There's just something about walking over to my shelf of titles and looking at the cases, deciding how I want to spend the night gaming. You just don't get that when you're looking at a text list of titles. With the way game consoles are going, constantly needing updates, doing security checks to make sure you have a legit copy of the game, not being backwards compatible with titles you own for the previous model, etc. has really put me off from buying new consoles, my "newest" console I own is a ps3. Do I wish I can play the new games? Sometimes, but I'm not going to be supporting game console companies that I feel are going away from my ideals as a gamer. These companies make billions and billions of dollars because of consumers like us, and if we continue to feed the machine (buying new consoles), they'll continue doing the jank shit they're doing now. I'm cool with what I have. I have enough games to last me awhile. Great video Mark.
Glad you enjoyed the vid!!! It sounds like we are on the same page for a lot of these concerns! One thing that I will say is that death battery or not, I do recommend checking out the ps4 because the m2 shot trigger ports are easily worth buying the console for, that s pretty much all I use my ps4 for ha.
[I’m only about halfway through the video] Digital is king for game preservation in the way that you mean it. Bit for bit reproductions that can be put into the cloud and copied without limit are in theory immortal, even if the experience they provide is an approximation of the original. When people talk about preservation, they generally use is to mean preservation of their ability to play their games in a specific way. It’s preserving a cultural attachment. Very few people buy games thinking on the time scale you are (even if they have a fuzzy idea of it being available to them forever). We haven’t had a sufficiently serious development where physical degradation has ruined the games we bought (this will probably start changing - maybe it already has with stuff like Atari carts?). You’re using the same word to express related but very different goals - most people who are attached to physical games aren’t particularly concerned about whether games they aren’t interested a preserved, they’re concerned about having their purchases available to them. (I also think legality or the perceived authenticity of the game one is playing matters to some people even if it’s just a matter of pride in ownership) I DO think the move to digital puts up some roadblocks to real lasting preservation. Digital games libraries don’t have the collector’s appeal physical games do, and lack of interest and ease of disposal mean that people’s preservations of their own collection changes (I don’t need/can’t keep this on my console, and can always just download it later..). You already see cases where DSiWare games seem to have vanished - the store is down, they’re not popular, and in my experience it’s generally much harder to find a console with a specific digital game on it than a physical copy of a specific game. The actual act of preservation may be easier, but availability of the item to preserve might actually be harder at the edge cases. Anecdotally, I find that pirates go for CD FLAC rips over web FLAC downloads when both are available. What do you know of the difficulty of backing up a physical game versus a digital game, and if there’s any implications about replaying them from the backup? Physical games may have preservation value if they end up being easier for people to preserve - if it’s more convenient to rip a DVD than extract files from a hard drive that matters as most gaming preservation seems to be fan-driven.
Hey thanks for tuning in! So ripping physical versus digital games is an extremely similar process in most cases. Once you jailbreak the hardware, your able to export the digital game just like you would your game rip. The point you bring up about people referring to preservation as more of a short term mentality of accessibility is interesting, but as I mentioned I don t think physically owning the disc offers that much future protection, even in the short term. For example, on the switch, if your console gets banned and blocked from firmware updates, you won t be able to play newer games on it even if you buy the physical carts. Also, if a game is pulled or something, Sony could drop a firmware update to block a game from being played, and so even if you have the physical disc it would still not work without a jailbreak, which would allow for the digital version to work anyway. There are also just the Every day risks of damage that can happen to physical copies, like my poor tekken 7 disc.
This video talks the truth, the truth hurts! Lol I've been buying alot of 4k blu rays recently and the fact they will rot away in 20 years hurts me. I think I've spent £1000 on 4k blu rays so I'm in a good situation to slow down, I think I will only buy my favourites from now on. The best way for me to keep my high quality 4k blu rays is for me to probably put them all on a SSD of some kind in the near future. That would be smart for me to do at some point, the scary thing is I found disc rot on a 10 year old dvd I had and it stopped working half way through the film then I ended up buying that same film on blu ray. My game collection is very small and I will continue to buy both physical and digital. Digital does seem like the safest option as long as I don't lose access to my account, when it comes to 4k blu rays it make me happy to know I have the best versions of the films, I wonder if 4k films on the Xbox store are comparable to my physical 4k films because I know Xbox does sell movies at a decent price
I buy physical mostly because if I don’t like it I can re sell it, I played ikaruga and got the hyper gun edition because that was the only one available. It’s a cool game but after 5 hours of sitting down and playing it I might resell it, cool thing is a game like that is a bit pricey so I can even get about $30 extra
I agree on the merits of digital over physical, I still see no reason to buy a drm-filled software that prevent user from accessing them. Digital PS4 games, at least in my region, require constant internet connection to be played, and the PSN in my region lack a lot of digital games, M2 games are only available in Japan's PSN store for example. Only when the software is drm-free, or like pirated ROMs downloaded over the web, do I think it is truly advantageous over physical.
Great video that weighs all the aspects and breaks down a lot of false arguments, Mark. As someone who emulates arcade games mainly, but pursues the original hardware experience wherever reasonable when it comes to home gaming (sans flash cards and everdrives), for me personally, preservation extends to the game experience itself, not just preserving the software. CRTs, original consoles, original controllers, etc. And yeah, one day I'm going to have to face the fact that the physical media in my collection is going to expire. It's a scary thought, but I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it.
Not if the companies are forced to allow people to reverse engineer their technology for such things, or else face imprisonment and the dissolution of their companies...I would literally force them by law to allow people to do those things, as if we have laws that preserve buildings that meet certain requirements, or old battlefield or ruin sites, then physical media should also not be exempt from those sorts of laws, to say nothing of the arts and music as well. I would also strip companies, creators, corporations, people, including lawyers, the military forces, and governments from laying claims to copyright things, as they need to all be considered as fair use, common use, and creative use, and YAHWEH EL ELOHIM also gave humankind these gifts, thus said gifts technically belong to Him, as He made them exist in the first place.
I agree with everything you said in this video but to add to the conversation, I do believe physical preservation is valid HISTORICAL. My son was born during the PS3 generation and his first console was the switch. Being able to show him the old consoles with their original controllers/hardware/software played on a CRT blew his mind. Showing him a film on a VHS was so alien to him he couldn’t even comprehend it. Physical conservation is a valid pursuit to illustrate the change or time and technology. I also believe that the problems with no physical media has a lot to do with how game companies treat their legacy customers like how the wii lost all of its account purchases if it died and the fact that virtual console purchases did not move forward. It’s frustrating in a world where consoles are more and more like PCs where I can buy a game and play it indefinitely even as hardware and software evolves yet if I buy a digital version of Super Mario on my wii I can’t continue to play it as consoles change. Also, the copyright system in the United States is almost completely run by Disney where copyrighted material essentially NEVER goes Creative Commons and the way publishers make awful deals with companies that will hamstring them when they want to do a rerelease so you end up with Quake without Trent Reznor’s soundtrack essentially butchering the game or Sonic 3 never being rereleased over some music hypothetically produced by an artists that has passed away.
I totally agree with you and I would like to add: 1) Fiscal media like CD's, DVD's and blue ray formats, tend to degrade itself. The aluminum coating that covers the thing chemical layer (everything we get to fiscally interact with is chemical, but the composition of this information preserving layer, changes over time) is degradable; so all those discs are going to die. 2) the unconscious reason why th Mr is acceptable and not the software emulation is: people pays for the former and not the later. We are wired up to experience more satisfaction for paying, because at some level it gives a sense of legality + the fact that by paying for something, people feels entitled to point the blame toward somebody else, if whatever fails or is not correct at the end. Since a long time ago the money stopped being a medium to be the end. In a different order if ideas, I observe your evolution as a content creator. You are great bro. Keep it real. Edit: excuse my english, I am self taught.
As if gaming companies are willing to rerelease old games in digital format. There will always be games that you will have to steal in order to obtain digital copies of. And digital stores will also not always be around, they will shut down. So in my opinion, there is no sure fire way to preserve anything, digital or physical.
Seeing the crazy artificial price hikes in the retro games space makes emulation even more important than ever before. Physical purists can keep their dead ass cartridges and I'll keep not spending 3k on games I can emulate.
@@TheElectricUnderground for old new and current and not only games except our wallets and monthly checks and earnings but shops never decrease once price climbs it only may have some cents off because experation date
The preservation argument has never really made sense to me, if someone doesn't buy a physical copy it won't cease to exist the copy is still there and will probably just be collected by someone else, people aren't throwing these unsold copies of games out (generally speaking). None if this matters as long as a single person dumps the game online only then it's truly preserved. You bring this up already but physical copies might not last as long as digital copies either, I've never had a CD game stop working but a few of mine are seemingly getting close to failing, I can only hope they outlast me, but I'm doubtful future generations will be able to enjoy them. I buy expensive CD games and music and I know it's a possible risk of wasting money on something that won't last, however I have dumped a few music CDs that I'm not aware were previously preserved, so there's that at least.
It would make more sense if it were going to some kind of museum but yeah if it's just in your study then I don't see how anything is really being preserved.
For me the digital vs physical is really who's responsibility it is people who are argue for physical only are probably of the hardcore collector rather than the company who should be the one to make it more widespread available whether it be physical or digital gaming itself should be available for all and not just for the hardcore
I still play my games from 30 years ago, no game has stopped working and the only consoles that stopped working actually stopped back in the day! Digital is a scam for me. I still look at my 2000ish items in my collection, pick one and play like when I was 6 10 14 16 20 25 30 etc years old and they all still play like a charm. No accounts or DRM, just pure pick up and play:)
Digital is usually a scam, but when there actually is a newer title that I want on my PC, well, unfortunately, most companies will not, or cannot, offer affordable physical copy options, plus the CD/DVD drives in computers are intentionally being phased out. Maybe having a physical SD device that is not unlike modern Switch games would be a happy medium?
Emulation and digital backups are the future of video game preservation. Especially with new "physical" copies requiring a dozen patches and an initial install that isnt even included on the disc,
Physical games are unsustainable. They require mining non-renewable resources to manufacture and ship. This is a no brainer topic. PC games figured this out ages ago.
Wrong. Hard drives for your downloads require more non-renewable resources, as does your internet and the huge servers storing/hosting your stuff that drain energy and pollute 24/7.
Discs rot, thats one point that drove me away from them. Vinyl suffer too, if you play them often enough. But if they stand in your Shelf they will preserve better than CDs. If i buy a record i go Vinyl for the collectors purpose and digital to actual day to day listening.
yeah, the whole diehard physical thing I've thought is pretty silly for a long time. I like physical games for the collection aspect, but I'm under no illusions that it's preserving anything or the whole digital game removal paranoia. Also, I don't remember if you mentioned this since the video is really long, but with how things are now, a day 1 physical copy of a game isn't even the full experience. Many games get many updates and stuff over time, so it's like that disc you have, if you wanna play it in the future, that itself is a likely a severely gimped version of the game.
You preserve the experience of playing the game like it was intended. Emulation is the best way to actually preserve a game though. Also I'll say this, sure over time physical games degrade and eventually become unusable. But out of all the 3ds and wii games I bought, I only have access to the physical ones because I never had all of them downloaded at once
We are doing what we can and able its perserving for a future that protects, respects,honor the past so preservation gets perfect if by then nothing remains then peservation is a lost cause but even extening its life is worth it it increases its sentimental value if nothing else once gone no memorys no storige mediums it no longer exists nearly the same as never existed in the first place
Didn't finish the video yet but I had the urge to comment :p No point buying physical now a days when most of the content still needs a patch If the entire game isn't on the disc I'd rather buy digital Best time to own physical was before the PS3 and XBOX 360 But even with those old consoles the optical drives are going and you won't even be able to play physical games Thankfully there are option such as HD Loader for the PS2 and ODE for the Saturn and Dreamcast Just to add I love owning games I enjoy because I view games as a work of art and having it in my library makes me happy lol
Agreed. Buy physical if you want to, maybe for input lag or to play it on a crt, that's cool man. But I'm down for all digital. The amount of plastic in the ocean at this time is pretty absurd. How much more shit do we need? In a few thousand years if humans are still around they'll be eating bits of our CDs that are in whatever mutated fish they had for dinner.
I known this video wasn't really about vinyl but I wanted to point out one reason why vinyls often sound better than CDs. When mixed properly CDs will infact sound better than Vinyl, but the problem is most modern albums are not mixed well. Most modern albums are brickwalled, favoring louder sound at a cost of "space" in the music. You can't do this on vinyl very well because the needle will literally jump out place due to the wider groove. Modern albums on vinyl usually get a different/better mix than the CD/MP3 version. Vinyls can force a tasteful restraint on mixing.
i buy physical because i can sell the games once i am done with them, can't do that digitally. digital buy for me is a waste of good money ( i mostly end up playing for free buying physical games especially shmups)
Oh, I'm gonna get salty on this one, despite not watching the video, which probably has some points addressed, that contradict mine, but this is my opinion and my sole opinion only. I can understand, that people want physical releases just because they are massive collectors, but it's pointless buying something physical, when you can either buy it digitally, without worrying about either spending too much money or so you don't lose your games. But games are better preserved in digital form with re-releases or ROMs of games from companies, that are no longer around, making certain games abandonware, if no one holds the rights to these. But another thing, that pisses me off, are games specifically made for the older hardware, that don't get any digital releases for no reason, the biggest culprit I'd say being NG:DEV.Team, which after bad sales of Neo XYX decided to make their next two games Neo Geo only, and they said Gunlord X is to be the last "remaster" or something along those lines, which I can easily is say they want shitloads of money. 600 bucks for a game, that's under an hour long is scummy as all hell. They effectively made Razion and Kraut Buster lost media, that cannot be preserved online, unless someone would give their copy away, so they could be emulated.
Wondering if your opinion has changed any, seeing as the ps4 and PS5 have a cmos battery which will eventually die, leaving the systems unable to play digital games in the event the system cannot call out to the server to sync the systems’s internal clock. Seems piracy and emulation is the only way to truly preserve games.
I do both physical and digital depending on what I want to do and whether I can find a good price for either. I will say for the record though that hooking up an N64 to a modern TV really isn't all that difficult. I'm not even that tech savvy, but I bought the right adapter and can play it at ease. Not all N64 games are/will be available on Switch marketplace so I think it's still a valid way to play.
My Xbox 360's disc drive failed after a few years as well. And even though I was being careful with the discs, they still got scratches on them. Physical discs are a fragile medium, and the hardware required to run them are proprietary and fragile as well. This makes physical copies absolutely terrible for long-term preservation. Rest of the comment is in a Pastebin: aby4ZxqM
I say indulge in all of it. I love physical, but know hardware is temporary. I also know that digital is temporary once servers die. I do both and also emulate because I've been priced out of the higher end of the hobby. I love video games, so why should I limit that love with self imposed limits. It would be like saying I can only watch a movie if it's on film. Life is short, don't waste it on trivialities.
I don't think it's possible to argue the opposite, and I've yet to meet anyone who has tried to make the argument for physical media being conservational, it was always intended to only last the lifetime of the hardware generation. Which is also why I think consoles are trash.
A lot of Nintendo's recent handhelds and consoles pair the internal memory with the motherboard so unless you hacked your system and dumped the content of that internal memory before it corrupted you may be screwed. Unfortunately this can render the system completely useless for both physical and digital games. DRM free digital backups of games that can be played on emulators or dumped into flash carts to play on original hardware is going to outlast physical games, especially the newer ones that are incomplete on physical or on newer carts like 3DS and Switch which have shorter lifespans than a NES or SNES cart.
The biggest issue I see with physical v. digital is that, within the bounds of the law and what the corporations permit, physical games are the closest you get to true preservation. If the corporations have their way and maintain complete control over what they release, digital only puts us entirely at their mercy - in terms of pricing, in terms of ownership rights, in terms of games being able to be taken away on a whim. What do I do on my legally bought console with my legally bought games and media if the license expires and I lose access to them? I just threw money away. That's a very good short-term reason to prefer physical media. And it's not because physical media is inherently better for games. In fact, I'd say digital distribution is the optimal choice for games - I don't see how you can dispute that. The problems with digital aren't with the medium itself. The problems revolve entirely around licensing, pricing, services and copyright law. EVERYTHING goes digital on a long enough timeframe. There is zero question at this point that an emulator with an 8bitdo SNES controller is going to be a better (or at least "good enough") SNES experience for anyone who doesn't already have all the hardware and equipment necessary to enjoy the original cartridges. This is digital where you have a copy of the ROM and you can play it by any means you see fit. I would argue physical is better in the short-term when you want to be able to share, sell or hold onto a game whether or not the services keep them up on their storefront. Giving up physical is giving up one of the last vestiges of power we have as consumers. And - if consoles go all-digital, it's likely they're going to start pushing cloud-based gaming really, really hard. I am a-okay with digital purchases that are stored on my local device and where access to those games can't be taken away from me. Since few services really do that - I'm not aware of a service except for GoG where I genuinely own what I purchase without strings attached - I accept that what I purchase digitally could be yoinked away from me if my account ever gets flagged, justified or not. That's why I buy digital almost exclusively during sales, or when the game doesn't cost that much to begin with. The real arguments should be had with the companies putting out this content - it shouldn't be between people who prefer physical or digital, although for the people who prefer physical, if they aren't ripping and backing up their media and getting their hands on devices like the MiSTer? They're just fooling themselves. Everything dies eventually, and the failure rates of old machines are going to increase exponentially going forward. An NES cartridge that's well-maintained may well outlive most of us. There's no way that's true for the NES hardware in the majority of cases.
Yeah disk rot and save battery dying inside of cartridges yes it's going to be physical copies will eventually fail too but at the same time when you have games like Scott Pilgrim that get removed from digital storefronts yeah video game preservation is a very hard thing so yeah I all I can say is pick your poison
25:00 That is not an issue as Nintendo switch game cards have the required firmware update on them, all you need to do is simply follow the prompt and press Update, it will update the console to the required firmware from the cartridge without any internet, PlayStation does this with discs as well.
I have my PS 1 games on blue flash drives to save shelf space. On my shelf are some main line PS 2 games and here's my thing - I got the PS 1 blue game flash drives because of backwards compatible issues with PS 2 forward and I wanted to let PS 1 be it's own thing. I do own a PS 2 and 3. This is mainly for game software issues. This is why I own a PS mini a 2 , and a 3.
Excellent points presented. Preservation is even easier when it comes to PC games since PC itself is an open platform and all that's really required to play a game is access to the files and *maybe* a crack for any existing DRM (assuming this is in the future in the highly unlikely scenario that Steam goes away), to say nothing of DRM-free games from services like GOG. I've come to accept the all-digital future and welcome it for all the ways it can make preservation of games easier. It's already done a world of good for legacy titles on older systems- I never thought I'd get to play Magic Knight Rayearth or Burning Rangers given how expensive they've gotten over the years, but Saturn emulation is in a great place and the internet never forgets once something's been archived for the masses. Physical games are still great, and like you, I think they have the same kind of aesthetic appeal as vinyl records and whatnot, but it's clear that it's not a sustainable model and it can sometimes be costly in the case of import games. Plus, there's just so much room for activities without having to worry about a physical collection taking up all that space. :^)
this is what I keep telling people about vinyl. digital is better, hands down. vinyl in theory can be great but there are way too many variables and it's extremely expensive. even then, I doubt the benefits are all that tangible, anyway. and all the people singing the praises of vinyl never seem to have a good hifi setup to begin with, either! If you get a high quality FLAC or high bitrate VBR mp3 I dare anybody to do the pepsi challenge and claim that the digital is inferior to the vinyl.
- I don't buy into always having to purchase physical games to "own them" What exactly does one own when they purchase a digital copy? Pirating software is the best way of preserving it.
To me, I think the main pros with physical could in theory exist with digital, but unfortunately it doesn't. Main example here is selling your own copies... You unfortunately can't sell your digital copies (at least usually)... It is against terms of services in almost everywhere. In my opinion, you should have the right to convert games from your library and sell them as games, in Steam marketplace even... I think that is one of the main differences, if you can't sell the game once you don't want it anymore, then digital copies should be cheaper, because that was the whole advantage of physical... But I agree that it's funny in a way, cause it should in theory be kinda all the same... Who knows, one day the EU will actually force some kind of regulation of that sort.
As long as my Switch SD card keeps working, I don’t see how I would not have the game anymore. Would be nice if I could back it up on my pc though. I would prefer having everything digital on Switch because it saves me from playing the same game all the time, because I don’t want to change the game all the time. Also digital is easier to import, not import tax, no waiting for the mail etc.. It is a shame that game stores will probably disappear though.
Most modern games on the PlayStation 4 required day one patches. You are still going to be screwed what's Sony' shuts down the servers. I agree with you 100% true preservation is emulation.
People will dump it and archive them, if companies don't preserve them, the community will. Just look at what happened with the Satellaview games on the SNES.
Damn! this is what I needed to hear after all. I am now on the edge of getting rid of my physical game and start going to digital-only. but still, these old consoles and game discs are really hard to get rid off. I know that I am not gonna plug and play them ever again. but these look cool to display as a decoration of my childhood. I am more of a minimalist type, I can remove other physical things from my life but video games are the hardest thing to let go for me. but these are too much to keep all. I think I should keep the game that I really really like to display as an aesthetic purpose and get rid of the rest and then start fully digital life with PS5.
Atari games and consoles still work today as they did back in 1977. So i dont take physical degradation seriously, obviously if you store any electronic in unfavorable enviroments, then yeah they can get messed up. But I'm not againts emulation, i have both physical and roms, just in case. Now digital games have the same ammount of risks as physical ones, a game can be taken down due to legal reasons, server issues, company cease to exist or you could lose your account for many reasons, therefore you lose acces to games you bought. Not even emulation is safe, none of these companies want any of these rom sites to exist, they've been trying for years to take them down, its not a matter of if but when will it happen. That's why im downloading all the games i want before then. And finally future game releases will all be digital, sales will be a thing of the past, games will be locked to more specific launchers, more anti consumer measures will be taken to get the most money out of us, all of them will have some form of DRM but will be much worse and all games will be early acces but will have to pay $60 just to play a buggy incomplete game and wait for a 1 year or 2 to get the final version.
Excellent video. It's infuriating how people demonize digital media to such an extent, even though both formats have their caveats. One important thing I hope is discussed more often is the amount of plastic waste physical media produces. I've collected games for years mainly for aesthetic purposes , but I've gotten to a comfortable point where I don't need more stuff. I don't wanna trash the planet because of such a trivial form of greed (and also, for the people that clamor manuals in today's day and age, grow the fuck up, you wanna let a tree live or not look obvious stuff over the internet??) In all seriousness, physical media is becoming increasingly unnecessary in today's world. Retiring physical media and limiting physical matter in gaming to consoles and the controllers would be the best way off for the future.
Huh, i actually expected mentioning of DDP campaign And the most ridiculous stuff is piracy and emulation being more reliable than actual original hardware
All the people talking about disc rot, but disc rot is basically a meme. Sure it can happen if your discs are treated badly or stored in absurd conditions... like rainforest humidity and temperatures. But for the average person who keeps their discs in their house it won't happen until far after you die. Hard drives also have rot as well. With this mentality the only acceptable media will be carved in diamond tablets.
There’s also the unlikely and unfortunate case where you get the bad disc out of the batch when it comes to manufacturing. It does happen, and it’s an unlucky lottery draw when you do. There’s also some discs that are flawed in their design, such as the GameCube disc for Metal Gear Solid or some of the double layer Wii discs, although the double layer Wii discs might also be a warning that the Wii’s laser or lens might be wearing down
Later on you carry some good arguments. I know the difference between owning a digital game copy and owning the right to use a service. That is something many people get horribly wrong when they only subscribe to a service and think they own the games attached to that service. People can be that dumb. Right?
There are always cracks for them. If it's popular, there will be a crack. I actually had to do this for Transformers Devastation, as a year or two after I bought it, it was delisted from steam (Hasbro licensing issue). It's going to be more of a problem for multiplayer only (or centric games), as they will need servers.
Good thing I'm mostly a retro gamer. Particularly 6th gen. Plus the switch mostly has all the content on the cartridge. Some packs and bundles have downloads as well, but at least there is data on that cartridge. It isn't just a key to unlock the content.
PSN is fickle it has problems sorting the licences and can easy block games people can't install/play a game because you have a game licence of the demo same shit with DLC between PS4 and PS5 games abd remember the account hack how easy Sony can Block it with all your licences perminantly it happend nearly to me all because of a link in the PSchatroom and Sony mistakes me of placing them while i fell victom to it even did not know the link was unsafe i thought unsafe links get removed by secure software before it shows up in chat but sony concern is only theyre wallet not the safety of our accounts and licences
I only buy physical but I agree that hackers are doing the real long-term preservation. Aesthetics and resale value are excellent reasons to go physical and convincing people that aesthetics are the reason to go physical will actually help preserve the value of the games for collectors in the very long-term. It’s also currently still relatively convenient to play physical games thanks to stuff like Analogue so for now I am happy collecting physical. It’s like stamp collecting on steroids to me, but ultimately it could turn into mere stamp collecting, which is a thing.
Digital preservation is only as good as the medium that it is stored on. If you're not allowed to save the game on your own storage media because of DRM, then that is the biggest barrier. We know that jailbreaking/piracy exists, but the point is that we want to advocate for legal/legitimate practices, so everyone can preserve their games, not just tech nerds.
I do want to correct you slightly, I have personally swapped PS3 drives and they work fine. The check is performed between the drive and the daughter board that is attached to it. If you swapped the drive for your nephew without also swapping those boards, then that is why it didn't work. On your other points, I like things like Retron that dump files in order to extend the life of the physicals. The problem for me is not preservation so much as the lack of ownership rights in the current era. Currently if you want to preserve anything and protect your investment, buying digitally directly from the publishers/manufacturers is the #1 way to ensure that you will fail at either of those things. If companies just sold me the files it would be a different story.
some good points raised in here. I also find the best kind of preservation a person can do in modern times is a solid digital archive with a good backup routine to prevent data loss.
Theres a problem that no game collector thought would be a thing that is recently showing up with Dreamcast and other old enough games, when they are near to 25 years old the CDs themselves are starting to physically root therefore all information in it gets lost or corrupted.
Literally holes start showing up
It's called disc rot. And yes it's real especially older cdbased stuff. Blu-rays are apparently disc rot free.
I've always said these things would happen sooner or later with all this stuff...
They are manufactured material items, and older products, they will be 100% gone someday unfortunately..
We are lucky to be able to preserve things as long as we can now, I just wish things didn't break down so fast and that time didn't go by so fast...
A year as an adult collector passes extremely fast and if you have a huge collection you find you are always cleaning and maintaining it and yeah time just goes way too fast to be a collector... it sucks
I had one of my 3DS game cards, that of Puzzle & Dragons Z + PAD Super Mario Bros. Edition, suddenly stop working on me, despite there being no physical defects I can see.
Flash memory, like what the Switch also uses, can also get elements'd like discs can.
Buying physical is preserving my investment. I can resell a physical copy. I cannot resell a digital copy.
Unless your buying Nintendo games older video games are dirt cheap if someone is willing to pay $100+ for an old game that is their problem.
Physical games prevents the 3 major gaming companies from owning a monopoly on their digital store fronts. If the only option is to buy Nintendo games from their Eshop and they wipe out the 2nd hand market completely then that means Nintendo can raise their prices and their is nothing I can do about it. There are many games that you can get for dirt cheap now at your local GameStop or Ebay that still sell for 50-60 if you buy the digital copy. Cloud gaming is the end game and eventually you won't even be able to download the game because it will be streamed to you.
The gaming console model is starting to become dated. Consoles at the end of the day are locked down PCs with no ability to buy games from alternative storefronts which is why I switched over to PC.
@@mistabrown830
Nintendo would be the exception because of their exclusive IP's. You can't play Mario or Zelda on your PC unless you emulate the Switch. I think that Nintendo will end up winning the console war this generation. TOTK alone sold more than 19 million copies. Nintendo's exclusives always sell really well. You can also preserve your Nintendo Switch games and back them up through emulation and dumping the rom files to your PC. The patches and updates can even be preserved as well. I'm just carious, why didn't you just switch to a Steam Deck instead because that way you can play your PC games on the go or hook it up to your big screen TV. Steam Deck while not as powerful as a high end gaming PC, is powerful enough for most gamers. Unless you are a power user which most people are not a Steam Deck will satisfy most gamers and you can also hook it up to your big screen TV as a bonus.
drm has been on physical discs in many different forms for a very long time, i remember the old 3.5 and 5 inch floppy discs had some interesting methods on them. plus if you lost the manual well you were often completely stuffed because they often included a secret code to access your game.
annother problem is that physical is often unfortunately region locked as well. i know pc, limit what discs can play in certain regions.
At the end, the only real way to keep preserving data is to keep replicating the data. No media really lasts forever, and you also have to make sure you didn’t get a bad one out of the batch, sort of like I did with my Pulp Fiction DVD breaking down even when older DVDs I own are not, why? It was likely a flawed item on the manufacturing line.
Physical will always be better but they both have its pros' and cons'. They both can co exist together and both have their own benefits and uses. Me preferring physical over digital has nothing to do with my investment in physical.
Physical will be around forever while digital, one the license is up can be taking off the digital store and or internet and those are facts.
I buy physical games because I don't waste my data cap on streaming anything. Once I'm done with a game I'll never touch it again. And once the new gen comes out the old goes in the trash
Preserving the ISO/ROM files of the game is the most important, then you can put onto a disc or another hard-drive to your hearts content.
I do see where you are coming from in terms of preserving games, but I feel like when collector's say they want to preserve physical games, what they meant to say is to preserve the classic gaming experience more than the games themselves. I mean keeping them in good condition is nice, however, the main question is how long before they crap out on us.
Physical and only physical isn’t itself the full scope of preservation, but having working, physical copies is part of it.
The true end goal is decentralized, publicly accessible archives from which to, both digitally and/or physically, be able to rent, borrow (and optionally buy) a copy free of drm with the ability to engage with the piece of software in the most faithfully reproduced way we originally engaged in. The most common example of this is a library and its books and ebooks.
That is a far flung future riddled with legal issues that need to be solved first.
Until we have reached said point in the future (something we have to work towards), the next best thing we can is complete consumer control over purchased.
This means having a hard copy of the software physically available to you, not attached to any specific (online, server bound) account, that you share, borrow and optionally sell on to other people.
From a digital perspective it means the ability to make backups of your software (both physical and digital) that can be used in order/as a substitute to the original copy, to engage with the software, in the event the original comes to harm (for physical copies that means disc rot, for digital copies that can mean archaic forms of drm).
So in short, yes, exclusively physical preservation is not preservation in full, but it’s definitely an important part of it.
I know I'm 3 years late here, but there a couple misconceptions here.
1. Buying a game digitally isn't "essentially like buying a license" as you put it. That's literally what it is. Try to buy a digital game and actually read the first few paragraphs of the EULA. It says it point blank that you are buying a license that lets you access the game files. You do not own the game, and if the company you bought it from loses the game files or goes out of business then your license is worthless.
2. I think most people who are adamant about buying physical games are doing so because they want to actually own their games and avoid the scenario from point 1. I don't think that most people are doing so with the intention of the game lasting forever. They just want to actually own the thing that they paid money for. This is just an assumption though.
You are assuming correctly.
A few years back I started downloading cracked versions of games I already own ( bought legally).
These are my digital backups.
Then, I plan to transfer all the games over to a new HDD (or whatever the best storage is) every 10-15yrs. Preserving games I love.
I definitely agree with the idea why I like physical games is an aesthetic thing, and digital preservation is the better long-term solution.
The moral high ground thing I think comes from lack of experience with jailbreaking, and the narrative that game companies want to promote: “emulation is bad”.
The Switch cartridges typically have the firmware paket needed to run the game, baked on the cartridge, so that should be a non issue
I stopped buying physical games around 2015 or 2016 with only a couple exceptions. There are a several reasons why. What is a videogame at it's most minimal and simple form? Just a bunch of ones and zeros; digital. Physical is just a vessel to get those ones and zeros to your console or PC. I can build my collection on PC through Steam and emulation and have everything in one place pseudo-permanently. I just have to occasionally upgrade my storage (HDD-->SSD-->NVME SSD, etc.). I also realized that buying physical is just a form of commodity fetishism. It's just an inanimate object that takes up space. The joy of a videogame should come from the experience of actually playing it (and later the nostalgia and memories you formed). I don't want a gaming room full of shelves of videogames. Everything I want is on my PC (I also have a PS5 for recent exclusives) and it's super convenient. I also don't have any nostalgia for playing games on original inferior hardware with often old uncomfortable controllers (I also do not have a CRT, nor do I want one). This hardware is often falling apart and faulty now. Emulation, PC, and digital rips are the best way to preserve games. No one's collection is going to match a full rom set for a system. Everything is recorded in those digital sets as long as they are stored somewhere; they can then be uploaded and shared. Emulation also breathes new life into old games with enhanced graphics, quality of life improvements, and the ability for mods.
My biggest concern going forward is digital store competition (no console maker monopoly on digital games), and digital rights like refundability and maybe renting/trading. Steam has their 2 hour full refund guarantee which is an excellent move to protect gamers from trash games and false advertising. All digital store fronts should offer this at a minimum. Services like Gamepass kinda of act like a modern rental store; but I would like to see non-subscription based rentals.
I think physical will always be more secure do to the control you have over the object, but I would never say that its some how immoral to buy digital. Its just security vs convenience.
Hardware and physical media fetishization, and the idea of legality=morality all need to go
True, but nowadays most game discs contain only part of the full product and require updates or patches to function. Some just contain data that prompts a download of the entire game online. It will end up being the future regardless.
yes, this is a bummer but also very true
@@TheElectricUnderground The 7th generation was the last one that allowed all games to be played off the disc versus a mandatory download. The value of a physical copy pretty much dropped with the 8th gen onwards in my opinion.
I want freedom
to bring my games to my friends,
to borrow them out or trade them in,
to gift them as a present,
to own and play them whenever I want on my own terms,
and to sell them when hell breaks loose.
This is only possible with true ownership having physical media.
Also, I love cartridges because they live much longer than discs, load faster, and the cart slot never dies, unlike a disc drive.
When I transfered my downloads from Wii to Wii U, I lost games like NES Yoshi's Cookie (licensing reason) and WiiWare ToriBash: Violence Perfected (regional reason) and WiiWare LostWinds (compatibility reason)
They simply took them away from me.
If I could rewind time, I would buy all my Wii, Wii U, and Switch games physical instead of going digital-only.
For example, I downloaded Thimbleweed Park and Undertale but I should have saved that money to put it towards the retail release. Downloads are ok for mediocre and bad games, but great games should always be physical.
I trust in myself to preserve my games better than any company out there, so never renting/leasing/"purchasing" digital licenses again.
100% on point in everything you say -- especially about the Mister. I feel like I'm going nuts hearing the way people talk about FPGA emulation but it is clearly just giving people "permission" to emulate stuff who look down on that for some reason. Two more reasons physical "preservation" is a joke now -- patches (especially day-one patches that hugely change the game) and online features. Though the second one is a pretty tough challenge for any kind of preservation at all, digital or physical.
Ha yes I like the mister but it is so funny that it s basically tricking people who complain about software emulation into suddenly liking emulation
I wouldn't say people should only stick with one and not the other. But I do think there are a few arguments in favour of physical. The first and foremost is the preservation of investment. I know that if everything suddenly went sideways, my Saturn & Super Famicom collections could keep me afloat for a couple of months. If I'm all digital, I'm never seeing that money again.
This is especially salient in shmups, because they're the most consistently valuable titles on any retro platform. Those Japan-only ShotTriggers titles on Switch with 2500-5000 unit print runs are guaranteed to shoot up in price, because both shmup and Nintendo collectors are fanatics. Esp.Ra.De is already going for $90-100.
Closer to the main point about preservation, the other argument in favour of physical comes out of book studies. Academics learn a TON about cultures and knowledge production from physical texts. The text is more than the words, the medium and material also impart meaning and become constitutive of 'the thing.' Aside from scholarly concerns, those reasons are why a 17th century edition of Cervantes has tremendous value even though Don Quixote is public domain and only a google search away for free. There's a particular element of the experience of the thing itself, its time, place and materiality which becomes lost when transmitted to an abstracted medium.
The same applies to games, comics, etc. Slotting in an NES cart, or opening a Saturn jewel case and seeing the instruction booklet in there while trying not to lose the spine card, is a part of the totality of the experience of what the 'game' is. How much value one places on that part of the experience is going to be very individual, but I don't think it's insignificant. I think there's a very clear connection between emulation and physical retro sales exploding.
Some really great points! I definitely agree with the re-sale ability of physical games being a nice advantage for the owner :-) In the case of an owner needing to sell their physical copies, that's an interesting scenario because the owner also has the option to retain the games by making digital backups or buying the cheaper digital version, which sort of changes the nature of the physical copies. Rather than being pure items of utility, I think these days they are more like a collectible physical artifact. For example on the Shottrigger releases, if you were planning to resell them for max value in the future, you'd probably want to keep them sealed and not play them, which is kind of funny and ironic.
As someone who tried to dump a load of Saturn and Dreamcast Shmup - I can tell you right now that no one is actually buying them at those prices
I was a physical collector and wanted to always save my NES and Genesis games for my kids to play. But my wife hates the clutter of so many different systems and TVs and wires and pieces to fix things and clean old hardware, so I eventually sold all my old stuff and went all digital. I made a ton of money and cleared up a lot of space. Another bonus for digital is that if my copy gets corrupted from radiation or I lose my sd card or whatever its on I can always redownload it or get it from my back up drive.
I fought it for a long time and Im actually happy she talked me into it because it makes life much easier all digital.
I mean, if you want hardware-accurate emulation, there are emulators like higan. Or if you want extreme accuracy, Analouge's FPGA work or the MiSTer.
Great topic and answers. I think one thing that needs to be remembered as part of the preservation push that is often forgotten is manuals, artbooks and the like though.
This is less important for modern games which don't really have manuals and have decent digital guides but in the case of Switch games they actually have no e-manuals outside of rare browser based ones (SEGA do it often - it also means we can archive) and it can lead to some ports being harder than the originals just from no official source of controls or mechanics being left behind.
Interestingly older games tend to be well treated since the Arcade Archives have manuals integrated into the software (so I know Japanese Fatal Fury has different controls) and Konami's Castlevania release is decent as well.
Good points made on physical media and the merits of digital.
Another thing to consider about optical media in particular is the possibility of disc rot. I haven't experienced it myself but have heard the stories of hundreds of movies in a DVD or Blu ray collection going bad, for doing nothing more than sitting on a shelf.
Between natural disaster, loss, theft or the hardware wearing out on it's own I can start to see the value of digital.
yeah BS i have disc thats almost 30 years old and not one of them is '' rotting '' ive never seen a disc rot in my entire life unless your storing it where mold ect is growing on it its all a load of BS
Previously I would have agreed with you, particulally being a collector of CAVE merch
but after getting an RGH 360 and copying all my games to it I think it’s great. To launch all the games from the dash with no disc swapping I’m over the moon with it!.
Edit..
I think I posted too soon I think we are in agreement . All Consoles should have the option to rip your own games to the hdd.
I think m2 had the answer after all with battle Garegga. Digital codes with preorder goodies, books, CDs etc .
As long as the disc is in good condition there are tech persons who can rip the game data and try to make them work companies can't keep games online and digital deletion is easy but gamediscs are better games on storage HDD or SSD you can lose whole librarys of games with Discs only part or 1 game to lose at a time build better preservation i am all for it but unless better viable ways have the discs, HDD and SSD all can fail but hopefully some survive have LP, VHS, audiocassets, DVD, Blu-ray,....
I just always assumed the focus on physical as preservation was to 1: prevent publishers from having an excuse to go purely digital (or if they do, you create a market space for something like Limited Run Games) and 2: use those physical copies could be used to create digital versions to preserve outside the control of the developers/publishers. If anybody really thought that just sticking the cartridge/disc on the shelf or in a vault somewhere was a service to preservation, I find that baffling.
DUDE I went through the EXACT same process with vinyl lmao. I only use my U-turn Orbit like once every couple months for friends now. My 1000’s of cds are still going strong tho. Also, you definitely gave me a new perspective with the preservation argument. It seems like a good idea to be leaning into rather than away from digital media right now
Yeah I started buying CDs again lol. I just got the new underoath album voyerist, so fantastic
@@TheElectricUnderground , I am kind of divided on digital media myself. I would prefer physical copies of games, but the disc/cartridge rot argument is indeed real, as well as the increasing rarity of replacement parts, let alone quality replacement parts (which is why companies that make video games need to be required by NUMEROUS laws worldwide to make their older technology not only region free, but also license free, after, say, 10 years, or the end of the life span of a video game system, whichever, comes first, so that their games can be preserved, and allow useful quality of life mods to said video games, systems, accessories, and such, as well as reasonable additional content to be released on special, as well as officially licensed, editions of video games, as well as officially licensing all independent games and accessories for all video game systems, or they can face fines, imprisonment for a whole host of crimes, massive layoffs, blacklisting from the entire video game industry, and the liquidation of their companies if they do not comply), the potential environmental impact of old technology, scalpers like DKOldies artificially inflating prices of retro video games, systems, and accessories, the issue of parts degradation, the issue of increasing difficulty of finding replacement parts, as well as repairs, to video game systems, as well as video game accessories, and the phasing out of CD/DVD drives, all kind of make it difficult for a video game player that is on a budget to have access to retro video games, as well as retro video game consoles. Conversely, finding adequate, let alone high quality, PC counterparts to retro video games, let alone dealing with the potential accidental, or intentional, erasure of saved digital date media, the digital media being taken as hostage by agenda peddling employees of video game/PC game companies, as well as service providers, e.g., Nintendo, Sega, Atari, Microsoft, Sony, Steam, GOG, etc., and difficulties of some features being transferred from one version of a game to another version of a game (or a game that is playable on one retro video game system totally cannot be played on a PC, like the Zapper based games for the NES/FDS, or the R.O.B. games that are on the NES/FDS, like Gyromite, for examples), can complicate things (which is kind of why I am disappointed in the Steam version of Chrono Trigger removing one feature that is still a NDS exclusive, that is, the two-player Battle Dungeon), and those things, as well as simply wanting a physical copy of a game, and/or several versions of said game, for the sake of curiosity, as well as video game, video game accessory, and video game system preservation, and archiving, kind of make it difficult for both sides of the debate. The only positive that I have for a digital library is that it is easier to carry around a digital library than it is to carry around a physical library, as well as more accessories, games, and such, for retro video game systems. Were it not for that, then I would fully support a physical copy of a video game, as well as original video game systems and video game accessories, outright.
I bought a digital version of MVC2 for ps3 years ago and my ps3 ended up breaking, so when I got another ps3 I had to search through years of my previous downloads because PSN no longer carried the game on the store. Good thing I was still able to get it back.
PSN is fickle it has problems sorting the licences and can easy block games people can't install/play a game because you have a game licence of the demo same shit with DLC between PS4 and PS5 games abd remember the account hack how easy Sony can Block it with all your licences perminantly it happend nearly to me all because of a link in the PSchatroom and Sony mistakes me of placing them while i fell victom to it even did not know the link was unsafe i thought unsafe links get removed by secure software before it shows up in chat but sony concern is only theyre wallet not the safety of our accounts and licences
1. I ain't reading that. 2. You failed English in highschool. @@Kimvanloocke
@@notbutz9737 I did not get English at school!!!! Maybe 2 lessons French I do not like puctuations because sometimes its guesswork whats correct
If preservation is your primary concern I'd say dumping roms to the internet and emulation would be the key. Not physical media. Super Mario Bros 3 ain't going no where because its all over the internet at this point. I love owning physical copies of my games but it is an aesthetic thing for me as well.
Addendum: The temp ban for talking about the pi is one of the most smooth brained things I've ever heard. lol
Yeah I agree! I have physical copies of my retro games and I have roms of my retro games on my computer, so it’s already preserved for me. I just have the physical copies of my retro games for my personal enjoyment and it’s my guilty pleasure
Digital (SSD's) are also prone to failure, it is just based on how many times you write to it. Granted you have to write to it a shit ton before you have a high probability of failure. If you write only a couple times to an SSD, your SSD will last much longer. The reason failure is based on the writes it because the physical transistors can only handle so many changes of state. That is why an SSD seems to become smaller over time, it literally is becoming smaller the more your use it. SSD's degrade and it is intelligently sectioning off portions of the SSD that no longer work.
Physical games are being stored digitally on every piece of "physical" cartridge. It's not like physical cartridges aren't also just a bunch of 1's and 0's. Comparing the probability of failure for new storage devices storing the same data as an original physical cartridge is an interesting question. But, like you said, it doesn't matter if the cartridge is still storing the data if you can't read the data because the transferring of data is the failure point.
I think that the best option is owning a game that is not linked to the account, anyone can launch and play the game (on pc). GOG is a website that does just that for pc games. However, then what if your computer or storage fails or you accidentally delete it? THEN, cloud based owning is superior because you just re-download the game. Yeah, you're relying on a service but why does it matter? The service will not last forever, but neither will you. The service could even outlive you. You're not going to exist forever, maybe your concern is for someone else in the future to be able to play the game in your place (like your kids or friends when you die?)
Another interesting contrast is the game files you have (on pc) has to relate to the OS you are using. So are digital games best to have on Windows or Mac? Linux?
Preservation is definitely spreading data to other people (fail safes). Keep your game small as well (easy to transfer between computers). Electronics are storing your game files and electronics are hard to keep safe and permanent, just like anything else.
Real preservation is rooted within the source code documentations of the games on a company level.
Of course games are being preserved, but in documents, not in retail in physical or digital license form..
Very true!!!! Rip all the lost source code over the years
I know this is an older video, but I just wanted say well done. I identify my self as a gamer that prefers physical copies over digital, but after watching this I completely agree, in regards to preservation, digital is the way to go. Unfortunately, there is so much that can happen to a physical collection and the cost to rebuild or replace those pieces can be painfully expensive or time consuming versus just re-downloading titles from a back up source. In regards to jail breaking and hacking being the future, I can see that. As long as you have companies like Sony that restrict or no longer allow access to previously available titles, people are going to come up with ways to get around that BS. All that being said though, I still prefer playing physical games. There's just something about walking over to my shelf of titles and looking at the cases, deciding how I want to spend the night gaming. You just don't get that when you're looking at a text list of titles. With the way game consoles are going, constantly needing updates, doing security checks to make sure you have a legit copy of the game, not being backwards compatible with titles you own for the previous model, etc. has really put me off from buying new consoles, my "newest" console I own is a ps3. Do I wish I can play the new games? Sometimes, but I'm not going to be supporting game console companies that I feel are going away from my ideals as a gamer. These companies make billions and billions of dollars because of consumers like us, and if we continue to feed the machine (buying new consoles), they'll continue doing the jank shit they're doing now. I'm cool with what I have. I have enough games to last me awhile. Great video Mark.
Glad you enjoyed the vid!!! It sounds like we are on the same page for a lot of these concerns! One thing that I will say is that death battery or not, I do recommend checking out the ps4 because the m2 shot trigger ports are easily worth buying the console for, that s pretty much all I use my ps4 for ha.
[I’m only about halfway through the video]
Digital is king for game preservation in the way that you mean it. Bit for bit reproductions that can be put into the cloud and copied without limit are in theory immortal, even if the experience they provide is an approximation of the original.
When people talk about preservation, they generally use is to mean preservation of their ability to play their games in a specific way. It’s preserving a cultural attachment. Very few people buy games thinking on the time scale you are (even if they have a fuzzy idea of it being available to them forever). We haven’t had a sufficiently serious development where physical degradation has ruined the games we bought (this will probably start changing - maybe it already has with stuff like Atari carts?). You’re using the same word to express related but very different goals - most people who are attached to physical games aren’t particularly concerned about whether games they aren’t interested a preserved, they’re concerned about having their purchases available to them. (I also think legality or the perceived authenticity of the game one is playing matters to some people even if it’s just a matter of pride in ownership)
I DO think the move to digital puts up some roadblocks to real lasting preservation. Digital games libraries don’t have the collector’s appeal physical games do, and lack of interest and ease of disposal mean that people’s preservations of their own collection changes (I don’t need/can’t keep this on my console, and can always just download it later..). You already see cases where DSiWare games seem to have vanished - the store is down, they’re not popular, and in my experience it’s generally much harder to find a console with a specific digital game on it than a physical copy of a specific game. The actual act of preservation may be easier, but availability of the item to preserve might actually be harder at the edge cases.
Anecdotally, I find that pirates go for CD FLAC rips over web FLAC downloads when both are available. What do you know of the difficulty of backing up a physical game versus a digital game, and if there’s any implications about replaying them from the backup? Physical games may have preservation value if they end up being easier for people to preserve - if it’s more convenient to rip a DVD than extract files from a hard drive that matters as most gaming preservation seems to be fan-driven.
Hey thanks for tuning in! So ripping physical versus digital games is an extremely similar process in most cases. Once you jailbreak the hardware, your able to export the digital game just like you would your game rip.
The point you bring up about people referring to preservation as more of a short term mentality of accessibility is interesting, but as I mentioned I don t think physically owning the disc offers that much future protection, even in the short term. For example, on the switch, if your console gets banned and blocked from firmware updates, you won t be able to play newer games on it even if you buy the physical carts. Also, if a game is pulled or something, Sony could drop a firmware update to block a game from being played, and so even if you have the physical disc it would still not work without a jailbreak, which would allow for the digital version to work anyway. There are also just the Every day risks of damage that can happen to physical copies, like my poor tekken 7 disc.
This video talks the truth, the truth hurts! Lol I've been buying alot of 4k blu rays recently and the fact they will rot away in 20 years hurts me. I think I've spent £1000 on 4k blu rays so I'm in a good situation to slow down, I think I will only buy my favourites from now on. The best way for me to keep my high quality 4k blu rays is for me to probably put them all on a SSD of some kind in the near future. That would be smart for me to do at some point, the scary thing is I found disc rot on a 10 year old dvd I had and it stopped working half way through the film then I ended up buying that same film on blu ray. My game collection is very small and I will continue to buy both physical and digital. Digital does seem like the safest option as long as I don't lose access to my account, when it comes to 4k blu rays it make me happy to know I have the best versions of the films, I wonder if 4k films on the Xbox store are comparable to my physical 4k films because I know Xbox does sell movies at a decent price
I buy physical mostly because if I don’t like it I can re sell it, I played ikaruga and got the hyper gun edition because that was the only one available. It’s a cool game but after 5 hours of sitting down and playing it I might resell it, cool thing is a game like that is a bit pricey so I can even get about $30 extra
Yeah resell is the best aspect of physical for sure!! Resell a digital copy and the fbi are showing up ha
I agree on the merits of digital over physical, I still see no reason to buy a drm-filled software that prevent user from accessing them. Digital PS4 games, at least in my region, require constant internet connection to be played, and the PSN in my region lack a lot of digital games, M2 games are only available in Japan's PSN store for example.
Only when the software is drm-free, or like pirated ROMs downloaded over the web, do I think it is truly advantageous over physical.
Fortunate for you, plenty of people encounter situation where they aren't connected
Great video that weighs all the aspects and breaks down a lot of false arguments, Mark. As someone who emulates arcade games mainly, but pursues the original hardware experience wherever reasonable when it comes to home gaming (sans flash cards and everdrives), for me personally, preservation extends to the game experience itself, not just preserving the software. CRTs, original consoles, original controllers, etc. And yeah, one day I'm going to have to face the fact that the physical media in my collection is going to expire. It's a scary thought, but I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it.
Thanks my dude!
Not if the companies are forced to allow people to reverse engineer their technology for such things, or else face imprisonment and the dissolution of their companies...I would literally force them by law to allow people to do those things, as if we have laws that preserve buildings that meet certain requirements, or old battlefield or ruin sites, then physical media should also not be exempt from those sorts of laws, to say nothing of the arts and music as well. I would also strip companies, creators, corporations, people, including lawyers, the military forces, and governments from laying claims to copyright things, as they need to all be considered as fair use, common use, and creative use, and YAHWEH EL ELOHIM also gave humankind these gifts, thus said gifts technically belong to Him, as He made them exist in the first place.
I agree with everything you said in this video but to add to the conversation, I do believe physical preservation is valid HISTORICAL.
My son was born during the PS3 generation and his first console was the switch. Being able to show him the old consoles with their original controllers/hardware/software played on a CRT blew his mind. Showing him a film on a VHS was so alien to him he couldn’t even comprehend it. Physical conservation is a valid pursuit to illustrate the change or time and technology.
I also believe that the problems with no physical media has a lot to do with how game companies treat their legacy customers like how the wii lost all of its account purchases if it died and the fact that virtual console purchases did not move forward. It’s frustrating in a world where consoles are more and more like PCs where I can buy a game and play it indefinitely even as hardware and software evolves yet if I buy a digital version of Super Mario on my wii I can’t continue to play it as consoles change.
Also, the copyright system in the United States is almost completely run by Disney where copyrighted material essentially NEVER goes Creative Commons and the way publishers make awful deals with companies that will hamstring them when they want to do a rerelease so you end up with Quake without Trent Reznor’s soundtrack essentially butchering the game or Sonic 3 never being rereleased over some music hypothetically produced by an artists that has passed away.
I totally agree with you and I would like to add:
1) Fiscal media like CD's, DVD's and blue ray formats, tend to degrade itself. The aluminum coating that covers the thing chemical layer (everything we get to fiscally interact with is chemical, but the composition of this information preserving layer, changes over time) is degradable; so all those discs are going to die.
2) the unconscious reason why th Mr is acceptable and not the software emulation is: people pays for the former and not the later. We are wired up to experience more satisfaction for paying, because at some level it gives a sense of legality + the fact that by paying for something, people feels entitled to point the blame toward somebody else, if whatever fails or is not correct at the end. Since a long time ago the money stopped being a medium to be the end.
In a different order if ideas, I observe your evolution as a content creator. You are great bro. Keep it real.
Edit: excuse my english, I am self taught.
As if gaming companies are willing to rerelease old games in digital format. There will always be games that you will have to steal in order to obtain digital copies of. And digital stores will also not always be around, they will shut down. So in my opinion, there is no sure fire way to preserve anything, digital or physical.
Actually if you’re going to preserve, you’re going to replicate the data over and over again.
Seeing the crazy artificial price hikes in the retro games space makes emulation even more important than ever before. Physical purists can keep their dead ass cartridges and I'll keep not spending 3k on games I can emulate.
Yeah the price inflation right now is crazy!
@@TheElectricUnderground for old new and current and not only games except our wallets and monthly checks and earnings but shops never decrease once price climbs it only may have some cents off because experation date
The preservation argument has never really made sense to me, if someone doesn't buy a physical copy it won't cease to exist the copy is still there and will probably just be collected by someone else, people aren't throwing these unsold copies of games out (generally speaking). None if this matters as long as a single person dumps the game online only then it's truly preserved.
You bring this up already but physical copies might not last as long as digital copies either, I've never had a CD game stop working but a few of mine are seemingly getting close to failing, I can only hope they outlast me, but I'm doubtful future generations will be able to enjoy them.
I buy expensive CD games and music and I know it's a possible risk of wasting money on something that won't last, however I have dumped a few music CDs that I'm not aware were previously preserved, so there's that at least.
It would make more sense if it were going to some kind of museum but yeah if it's just in your study then I don't see how anything is really being preserved.
For me the digital vs physical is really who's responsibility it is people who are argue for physical only are probably of the hardcore collector rather than the company who should be the one to make it more widespread available whether it be physical or digital gaming itself should be available for all and not just for the hardcore
I still play my games from 30 years ago, no game has stopped working and the only consoles that stopped working actually stopped back in the day! Digital is a scam for me. I still look at my 2000ish items in my collection, pick one and play like when I was 6 10 14 16 20 25 30 etc years old and they all still play like a charm. No accounts or DRM, just pure pick up and play:)
Digital is usually a scam, but when there actually is a newer title that I want on my PC, well, unfortunately, most companies will not, or cannot, offer affordable physical copy options, plus the CD/DVD drives in computers are intentionally being phased out. Maybe having a physical SD device that is not unlike modern Switch games would be a happy medium?
comparing physical game & digital download to vinyl & cd, doesn't make any sense, CD is still physical media
use itune & zune for comparison
Emulation and digital backups are the future of video game preservation. Especially with new "physical" copies requiring a dozen patches and an initial install that isnt even included on the disc,
Physical games are unsustainable. They require mining non-renewable resources to manufacture and ship. This is a no brainer topic. PC games figured this out ages ago.
Wrong. Hard drives for your downloads require more non-renewable resources, as does your internet and the huge servers storing/hosting your stuff that drain energy and pollute 24/7.
Discs rot, thats one point that drove me away from them. Vinyl suffer too, if you play them often enough. But if they stand in your Shelf they will preserve better than CDs. If i buy a record i go Vinyl for the collectors purpose and digital to actual day to day listening.
And nowadays lot of artistes "offer" you the digital copy when buying the vinyl release.
Digital is the best way to preserve any media. Physical has benefits like reselling but preservation isn't a benefit
Yes agreed!
I mean, digital could have reselling like with Steam keys, but digital seems to be designed to prevent reselling, for maximum profit.
yeah, the whole diehard physical thing I've thought is pretty silly for a long time. I like physical games for the collection aspect, but I'm under no illusions that it's preserving anything or the whole digital game removal paranoia. Also, I don't remember if you mentioned this since the video is really long, but with how things are now, a day 1 physical copy of a game isn't even the full experience. Many games get many updates and stuff over time, so it's like that disc you have, if you wanna play it in the future, that itself is a likely a severely gimped version of the game.
You preserve the experience of playing the game like it was intended. Emulation is the best way to actually preserve a game though.
Also I'll say this, sure over time physical games degrade and eventually become unusable. But out of all the 3ds and wii games I bought, I only have access to the physical ones because I never had all of them downloaded at once
We are doing what we can and able its perserving for a future that protects, respects,honor the past so preservation gets perfect if by then nothing remains then peservation is a lost cause but even extening its life is worth it it increases its sentimental value if nothing else once gone no memorys no storige mediums it no longer exists nearly the same as never existed in the first place
Didn't finish the video yet but I had the urge to comment :p
No point buying physical now a days when most of the content still needs a patch
If the entire game isn't on the disc I'd rather buy digital
Best time to own physical was before the PS3 and XBOX 360
But even with those old consoles the optical drives are going and you won't even be able to play physical games
Thankfully there are option such as HD Loader for the PS2 and ODE for the Saturn and Dreamcast
Just to add I love owning games I enjoy because I view games as a work of art and having it in my library makes me happy lol
Agreed. Buy physical if you want to, maybe for input lag or to play it on a crt, that's cool man. But I'm down for all digital. The amount of plastic in the ocean at this time is pretty absurd. How much more shit do we need? In a few thousand years if humans are still around they'll be eating bits of our CDs that are in whatever mutated fish they had for dinner.
I known this video wasn't really about vinyl but I wanted to point out one reason why vinyls often sound better than CDs. When mixed properly CDs will infact sound better than Vinyl, but the problem is most modern albums are not mixed well. Most modern albums are brickwalled, favoring louder sound at a cost of "space" in the music. You can't do this on vinyl very well because the needle will literally jump out place due to the wider groove. Modern albums on vinyl usually get a different/better mix than the CD/MP3 version. Vinyls can force a tasteful restraint on mixing.
That is super cool to know! I didn't know that!
i buy physical because i can sell the games once i am done with them, can't do that digitally. digital buy for me is a waste of good money ( i mostly end up playing for free buying physical games especially shmups)
Oh, I'm gonna get salty on this one, despite not watching the video, which probably has some points addressed, that contradict mine, but this is my opinion and my sole opinion only.
I can understand, that people want physical releases just because they are massive collectors, but it's pointless buying something physical, when you can either buy it digitally, without worrying about either spending too much money or so you don't lose your games. But games are better preserved in digital form with re-releases or ROMs of games from companies, that are no longer around, making certain games abandonware, if no one holds the rights to these.
But another thing, that pisses me off, are games specifically made for the older hardware, that don't get any digital releases for no reason, the biggest culprit I'd say being NG:DEV.Team, which after bad sales of Neo XYX decided to make their next two games Neo Geo only, and they said Gunlord X is to be the last "remaster" or something along those lines, which I can easily is say they want shitloads of money. 600 bucks for a game, that's under an hour long is scummy as all hell. They effectively made Razion and Kraut Buster lost media, that cannot be preserved online, unless someone would give their copy away, so they could be emulated.
Wondering if your opinion has changed any, seeing as the ps4 and PS5 have a cmos battery which will eventually die, leaving the systems unable to play digital games in the event the system cannot call out to the server to sync the systems’s internal clock. Seems piracy and emulation is the only way to truly preserve games.
Oh stay tuned because I talk about this very topic later on in the vid! I do come to that conclusion at the end :-)
That has been fixed.
Sony got backfired for it.
I do both physical and digital depending on what I want to do and whether I can find a good price for either. I will say for the record though that hooking up an N64 to a modern TV really isn't all that difficult. I'm not even that tech savvy, but I bought the right adapter and can play it at ease. Not all N64 games are/will be available on Switch marketplace so I think it's still a valid way to play.
Wii u e shop and nintendo online serves enter chat:
I buy physical when I can because I like the box art and for resale value
My Xbox 360's disc drive failed after a few years as well. And even though I was being careful with the discs, they still got scratches on them. Physical discs are a fragile medium, and the hardware required to run them are proprietary and fragile as well. This makes physical copies absolutely terrible for long-term preservation.
Rest of the comment is in a Pastebin: aby4ZxqM
I say indulge in all of it. I love physical, but know hardware is temporary. I also know that digital is temporary once servers die. I do both and also emulate because I've been priced out of the higher end of the hobby. I love video games, so why should I limit that love with self imposed limits. It would be like saying I can only watch a movie if it's on film. Life is short, don't waste it on trivialities.
Yes exactly!! You see the big picture :-D
I don't think it's possible to argue the opposite, and I've yet to meet anyone who has tried to make the argument for physical media being conservational, it was always intended to only last the lifetime of the hardware generation. Which is also why I think consoles are trash.
A lot of Nintendo's recent handhelds and consoles pair the internal memory with the motherboard so unless you hacked your system and dumped the content of that internal memory before it corrupted you may be screwed. Unfortunately this can render the system completely useless for both physical and digital games.
DRM free digital backups of games that can be played on emulators or dumped into flash carts to play on original hardware is going to outlast physical games, especially the newer ones that are incomplete on physical or on newer carts like 3DS and Switch which have shorter lifespans than a NES or SNES cart.
This is a really good topic to debate on twitter 😁
Ha I can imagine the chaos X-D
The biggest issue I see with physical v. digital is that, within the bounds of the law and what the corporations permit, physical games are the closest you get to true preservation. If the corporations have their way and maintain complete control over what they release, digital only puts us entirely at their mercy - in terms of pricing, in terms of ownership rights, in terms of games being able to be taken away on a whim. What do I do on my legally bought console with my legally bought games and media if the license expires and I lose access to them? I just threw money away. That's a very good short-term reason to prefer physical media.
And it's not because physical media is inherently better for games. In fact, I'd say digital distribution is the optimal choice for games - I don't see how you can dispute that. The problems with digital aren't with the medium itself. The problems revolve entirely around licensing, pricing, services and copyright law.
EVERYTHING goes digital on a long enough timeframe. There is zero question at this point that an emulator with an 8bitdo SNES controller is going to be a better (or at least "good enough") SNES experience for anyone who doesn't already have all the hardware and equipment necessary to enjoy the original cartridges. This is digital where you have a copy of the ROM and you can play it by any means you see fit.
I would argue physical is better in the short-term when you want to be able to share, sell or hold onto a game whether or not the services keep them up on their storefront. Giving up physical is giving up one of the last vestiges of power we have as consumers. And - if consoles go all-digital, it's likely they're going to start pushing cloud-based gaming really, really hard.
I am a-okay with digital purchases that are stored on my local device and where access to those games can't be taken away from me. Since few services really do that - I'm not aware of a service except for GoG where I genuinely own what I purchase without strings attached - I accept that what I purchase digitally could be yoinked away from me if my account ever gets flagged, justified or not. That's why I buy digital almost exclusively during sales, or when the game doesn't cost that much to begin with.
The real arguments should be had with the companies putting out this content - it shouldn't be between people who prefer physical or digital, although for the people who prefer physical, if they aren't ripping and backing up their media and getting their hands on devices like the MiSTer? They're just fooling themselves. Everything dies eventually, and the failure rates of old machines are going to increase exponentially going forward. An NES cartridge that's well-maintained may well outlive most of us. There's no way that's true for the NES hardware in the majority of cases.
Yeah disk rot and save battery dying inside of cartridges yes it's going to be physical copies will eventually fail too but at the same time when you have games like Scott Pilgrim that get removed from digital storefronts yeah video game preservation is a very hard thing so yeah I all I can say is pick your poison
The true answer is the ugly one of digital backups and hacked consoles ha
25:00 That is not an issue as Nintendo switch game cards have the required firmware update on them, all you need to do is simply follow the prompt and press Update, it will update the console to the required firmware from the cartridge without any internet, PlayStation does this with discs as well.
You are so right regarding this subject. As much as I hate to admit it 😒
yeah I know, rough times!
I have my PS 1 games on blue flash drives to save shelf space. On my shelf are some main line PS 2 games and here's my thing -
I got the PS 1 blue game flash drives because of backwards compatible issues with PS 2 forward and I wanted to let PS 1 be it's own thing.
I do own a PS 2 and 3.
This is mainly for game software issues.
This is why I own a PS mini a 2 , and a 3.
Excellent points presented. Preservation is even easier when it comes to PC games since PC itself is an open platform and all that's really required to play a game is access to the files and *maybe* a crack for any existing DRM (assuming this is in the future in the highly unlikely scenario that Steam goes away), to say nothing of DRM-free games from services like GOG.
I've come to accept the all-digital future and welcome it for all the ways it can make preservation of games easier. It's already done a world of good for legacy titles on older systems- I never thought I'd get to play Magic Knight Rayearth or Burning Rangers given how expensive they've gotten over the years, but Saturn emulation is in a great place and the internet never forgets once something's been archived for the masses. Physical games are still great, and like you, I think they have the same kind of aesthetic appeal as vinyl records and whatnot, but it's clear that it's not a sustainable model and it can sometimes be costly in the case of import games.
Plus, there's just so much room for activities without having to worry about a physical collection taking up all that space. :^)
Yes exactly!! The physical space point is also really important these days too!
this is what I keep telling people about vinyl. digital is better, hands down. vinyl in theory can be great but there are way too many variables and it's extremely expensive. even then, I doubt the benefits are all that tangible, anyway. and all the people singing the praises of vinyl never seem to have a good hifi setup to begin with, either! If you get a high quality FLAC or high bitrate VBR mp3 I dare anybody to do the pepsi challenge and claim that the digital is inferior to the vinyl.
@Zee Lieb Exactly, all of this is subjective
- I don't buy into always having to purchase physical games to "own them"
What exactly does one own when they purchase a digital copy?
Pirating software is the best way of preserving it.
Do you still collect CDs? I'll still get them on occasion, to be honest. Same with blu ray discs.
To me, I think the main pros with physical could in theory exist with digital, but unfortunately it doesn't.
Main example here is selling your own copies... You unfortunately can't sell your digital copies (at least usually)... It is against terms of services in almost everywhere. In my opinion, you should have the right to convert games from your library and sell them as games, in Steam marketplace even... I think that is one of the main differences, if you can't sell the game once you don't want it anymore, then digital copies should be cheaper, because that was the whole advantage of physical... But I agree that it's funny in a way, cause it should in theory be kinda all the same... Who knows, one day the EU will actually force some kind of regulation of that sort.
If there is no physical media, the risk is that the game will be in the "cloud" and it will not be possible to jailbreak and run the game locally
As long as my Switch SD card keeps working, I don’t see how I would not have the game anymore. Would be nice if I could back it up on my pc though.
I would prefer having everything digital on Switch because it saves me from playing the same game all the time, because I don’t want to change the game all the time.
Also digital is easier to import, not import tax, no waiting for the mail etc..
It is a shame that game stores will probably disappear though.
i collected Disk untill i got robed, all my collection stolen. im digital now
I got robbed too.
I play 6 different game in one day and quick resume feels right with digital games. Cant be switching disc all the time thats insane
15:00 4 yrs later and completely right on this point.
Most modern games on the PlayStation 4 required day one patches. You are still going to be screwed what's Sony' shuts down the servers. I agree with you 100% true preservation is emulation.
People will dump it and archive them, if companies don't preserve them, the community will. Just look at what happened with the Satellaview games on the SNES.
Damn! this is what I needed to hear after all.
I am now on the edge of getting rid of my physical game and start going to digital-only.
but still, these old consoles and game discs are really hard to get rid off. I know that I am not gonna plug and play them ever again. but these look cool to display as a decoration of my childhood. I am more of a minimalist type, I can remove other physical things from my life but video games are the hardest thing to let go for me. but these are too much to keep all.
I think I should keep the game that I really really like to display as an aesthetic purpose and get rid of the rest and then start fully digital life with PS5.
Yes exactly the same here ha.
Atari games and consoles still work today as they did back in 1977. So i dont take physical degradation seriously, obviously if you store any electronic in unfavorable enviroments, then yeah they can get messed up. But I'm not againts emulation, i have both physical and roms, just in case. Now digital games have the same ammount of risks as physical ones, a game can be taken down due to legal reasons, server issues, company cease to exist or you could lose your account for many reasons, therefore you lose acces to games you bought. Not even emulation is safe, none of these companies want any of these rom sites to exist, they've been trying for years to take them down, its not a matter of if but when will it happen. That's why im downloading all the games i want before then. And finally future game releases will all be digital, sales will be a thing of the past, games will be locked to more specific launchers, more anti consumer measures will be taken to get the most money out of us, all of them will have some form of DRM but will be much worse and all games will be early acces but will have to pay $60 just to play a buggy incomplete game and wait for a 1 year or 2 to get the final version.
The Sega Dreamcast Still Works too
Excellent video. It's infuriating how people demonize digital media to such an extent, even though both formats have their caveats.
One important thing I hope is discussed more often is the amount of plastic waste physical media produces. I've collected games for years mainly for aesthetic purposes , but I've gotten to a comfortable point where I don't need more stuff. I don't wanna trash the planet because of such a trivial form of greed (and also, for the people that clamor manuals in today's day and age, grow the fuck up, you wanna let a tree live or not look obvious stuff over the internet??)
In all seriousness, physical media is becoming increasingly unnecessary in today's world. Retiring physical media and limiting physical matter in gaming to consoles and the controllers would be the best way off for the future.
What they don't understand is, having the Digital File is also ownership. It's not the same as digital licences, that are temporary.
Huh, i actually expected mentioning of DDP campaign
And the most ridiculous stuff is piracy and emulation being more reliable than actual original hardware
All the people talking about disc rot, but disc rot is basically a meme. Sure it can happen if your discs are treated badly or stored in absurd conditions... like rainforest humidity and temperatures. But for the average person who keeps their discs in their house it won't happen until far after you die.
Hard drives also have rot as well. With this mentality the only acceptable media will be carved in diamond tablets.
There’s also the unlikely and unfortunate case where you get the bad disc out of the batch when it comes to manufacturing. It does happen, and it’s an unlucky lottery draw when you do. There’s also some discs that are flawed in their design, such as the GameCube disc for Metal Gear Solid or some of the double layer Wii discs, although the double layer Wii discs might also be a warning that the Wii’s laser or lens might be wearing down
I love adam koralick I watch his videos allot
M disc literally last a 1000 years.
Later on you carry some good arguments. I know the difference between owning a digital game copy and owning the right to use a service. That is something many people get horribly wrong when they only subscribe to a service and think they own the games attached to that service. People can be that dumb. Right?
Many games (even physical copies) since late 2000s require Internet activation. So it's meaningless for the most part.
There are always cracks for them. If it's popular, there will be a crack. I actually had to do this for Transformers Devastation, as a year or two after I bought it, it was delisted from steam (Hasbro licensing issue). It's going to be more of a problem for multiplayer only (or centric games), as they will need servers.
Good thing I'm mostly a retro gamer. Particularly 6th gen. Plus the switch mostly has all the content on the cartridge. Some packs and bundles have downloads as well, but at least there is data on that cartridge. It isn't just a key to unlock the content.
Very wise words.
Compact disc is king!
PSN is fickle it has problems sorting the licences and can easy block games people can't install/play a game because you have a game licence of the demo same shit with DLC between PS4 and PS5 games abd remember the account hack how easy Sony can Block it with all your licences perminantly it happend nearly to me all because of a link in the PSchatroom and Sony mistakes me of placing them while i fell victom to it even did not know the link was unsafe i thought unsafe links get removed by secure software before it shows up in chat but sony concern is only theyre wallet not the safety of our accounts and licences