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RubberWhistleHistle on 16 September 2015
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spemanig said:
RubberWhistleHistle said:

this is precisely the problem with this system that spemanig is advocating. We have to give up our power to own something forever and put WAY too much trust in the developer to keep these games available. 

Also, what happens when a company takes a shit and they shut down servers, and the games are lost forever? 


You'd still own the game forever. Do you have any understanding of how digital games work? It isn't some imaginary IOU. It's 2015. Just because you can't touch something doesn't mean it isn't yours.

That wouldn't happen. There's too much money to be lost for that to happen. If, say, Valve went bankrupt tomorrow, Steam wouldn't just end. Someone would buy Steam and continue making the profits off that marketplace.

I know digital seems like this new and scary abstract frontier where content seems imaginary, and you can't touch the stuff you own so it doesn't seem real at first. I promise you, it is real.

Roms, a form of digital game media, preserves old games as we speak. If the gaming apocolypse really did happen to one of these companies, and it won't, they'd be what preserves those games too.

But basing consumer fears on an absurd gaming apocolypse is, well, absurd.

bolded: ok well, that is all well and good if EVERYTHING runs completely smoothly and there are no hiccups or problems at all starting from now until 20 years from now.

which we know is hardly ever the case. ill provide some examples. first of all, what if your console suddenly stops working and there is no way to retrieve the data on the console? all the sudden, you didnt just lose a piece of hardware, but an entire library of possibly 80+ games that you have to figure out how to get again. and what about the scenario where, you are  born in 2015, and in 2035, youd like to explore what kinds of games a (hypothetical) all digital PS4 had. again, we have to put trust into publishers to keep these games available for us and future generations. a user eariler mentioned pokemon stadium. if the N64 were all digital, would he be able to still get that game? maybe not.

also, what if the rights to some obscure niche games is not feasible? would they take on the cost of this upkeep just so a couple people can download the game a month? what about when a remaster (oh God, no!!) of an old game is coming out? would you put it past them to keep the older version still available? i wouldn't! again, way too much trust is put into publishers to do the right thing when we could reclaim our power by buying physical products and keeping them.

there are so many problems with this system you are talking about in so many aspects, and i have yet to see you properly address them. all you have said is that, "well if you download it you have it. badda bing badda boom, simple as dat" well, real life isnt that simple.