"Physical" Video Game Preservation Makes No Sense, VG are Naturally Digital
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- "Physical" Video Game Preservation Makes No Sense, VG are Naturally Digital. I love game cartridges and game discs as much as anyone else, but I think gamers in their enjoyment of the aesthetics of these formats have started to become blind to the fundamental nature of what a video game is. With the recent news about stores starting to phase out DVD and Blu Ray sales, there has been a wave of talk about the need to "buy physical" and "physically" preserving games. This whole notion sounds romantic, but also cuts against the fundamental nature of what a video game is (hint: digital code / electronic automation). So as cool as the ultra expensive game carts and Sega Saturn discs you buy are, they are not any more "physical" than a hard drive filled with iso and rom files.
In this video, I also discuss my thoughts on what I would consider a true analog format which is printed media whether it is books, manga, or visual art. I go over why this type of media has a more tangible and real difference between its physical vs digital versions and why I think these formats have been able to buck the digitization trend, versus games which are now up to 90% digital sales. I also discuss my thoughts on game manuals and the physical printed media included in a lot of these physical releases and how, in my opinion, it is more of a selling point in many cases than the actual game discs (printed booklets are truly analog after all).
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I think preservation is more about keeping games available than actually physically possessing them. Preservationists don’t want publishers holding all of their games behind subscription services in the future like Nintendo does with their switch online service.
In the real world they can't though. Rom dumps exist.
I dislike how Sony does that as well with certain emulated games like Resident Evil 1 on their PS Premium service. Microsoft does it to a very small extent. That Space Jam tie-in game was GamePass only for a limited time. GoldenEye is technically the same, but you get a digital copy if you own Rare Replay digitally.
I hate how switch locks their virtual console behind an overpriced piece of crap Switch online BOOSTER PASS. When I see that crap, I just turn on my Retrocade emulator that I bought of of Amazon for the same exact price as BOOSTER ASS, but I'll just download every single Booster pass game and more & I'll never have to worry about yearly subs just to play classics like Super Metroid & Streets of Rage 2.
Oh yes absolutely, and i agree with that for sure. But I do think there is still this marketing angle a lot of people push on when it comes to selling physical copies of games at higher prices, or how some gamers feel guilty or something for buying digital versions of games.
Basically, we do it ourselves.
And if you wanna keep your childhood copy of krustys super fun house too then the more the merrier.
This is how I feel too. By the time physical availability becomes a problem for a platform, I’m usually good sailing the high seas for what I want.
yes exactly sean, and i think this is what we see happen every time ha. Imagine you spent hundreds of dollars on physical ps3 games thinking it would be the only way to play them in the future, and now jailbreaking a ps3 is a cakewalk and sony have given up even stopping people ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground
You are half right and half wrong because when we talk about physical media in video games we don't talk about just any physical edition of a game but one that actually includes the game in it.
I like buying physical but i didn't bother buying the physical edition of Gran Turismo 7 because you need to be online to play it. So having a physical version is pointless.
I have the physical version of GT 1-2-3-4 etc. You can play them offline and even now almost 30 years since PS1 came out i still put those discs in my console and play them. That has value for me that i can still do that decades later.
You can say "how long will those physical media last" because your kid destroyed some of yours but mine seem that will probably go until i die. So what more do i want?
Sure you can now emulate those games as well BUT will it have been really that easy if we didn't have physical media? I am not sure how many will be playing GT7 30 years later or even if it will be possible.
You yourself said that the best way to preserve stuff is by making copies and putting them on SSD's , hard drives, servers, USB sticks, memory cards etc. Guess what all that stuff is? Yes they are Physical media. Physical media is needed for things to exists.
And that is why a physical release of a game helps that. Because there is no better way to make sure that game will exist by releasing millions of copies of it in the hands of millions of people all around the world. A digital only release has the game only on 2-3 servers and some consoles if the users don't delete data after playing.
Much more risky for that game.
You also forget that games became more recognized and many want to preserve them now. But in the old days of gaming when we had cartridges etc no one was thinking about preserving the legacy of gaming. If we had digital services from the start then very little from that era will exist. You wouldn't have the thousands of Roms of NES and SNES etc games.
We have them now because they had physical media and people could later find that media and pull the roms out of them.
You also forget about streaming. This digital era leads to just streaming and owning nothing. You can't pull anything out of streaming and cloud gaming etc. You don't have the digital data at all.
You say what purpose does a DVD serve but DVD movies have now saved our ability to see the films as original released after studios started deleting or changing scenes for their modern sensitivities.
then mine as well sail the seas all the time. the thing is sailing can be risky with viruses.
@@TheElectricUnderground Jailbreaking and emulating used to be very easy back then because console drm was in an infant state. Now not so much. We can barely emulate a PS4 console and only early Playstation 5 consoles have been jailbroken.
Hot take, preserving them both digitally and physically is the best outcome for everyone :D
Facts
As long as you get to stick it to the communist "ownership bad" fuh - hag - ggots and the identity politics moralists when they suddenly decide entertainment is "problematic" since it doesn't fit their warped worldview.
yes except there is no such thing as preserving them physically is my point. It's all digital. A licensed DVD is no more physical than an iso on a hard drive. Both are just digital information stored in the memory of media. Also if you really want to preserve a game, an m-disc is absolutely going to outlast the retail disc. So ripping or downloading games (either one) and putting them on multiple m-discs is much better for preservation than just having the basic retail discs sitting in plastic cases.
@@TheElectricUndergroundTrue, but there is value in preserving the original hardware, the artwork, manuals, is still an important thing to preserve!
@@TheElectricUnderground You hardly see M-Discs being made because you hardly see people with blu ray disc drives in their computers.
Time to write a small novel because this is something that is important to me.
Physical games come with consumer right protections. The First Sale Doctrine in the US gives you rights over that product you purchased. Not only do you preserve and fully own the product in it's current state/version (digital patches server side and often forces patches before and after release.) but you can legally sell or trade that product for the rest of your life. Not the case with digital. For example in the current state/version physical product, you could play God of War on PS5 in 60fps before an official patch was made for it, but only if you had the physical disc. The digital version was patched before and after release where you could not until an official patch was applied. Patches do not always improve games. Also, physical products cannot be forcefully patched or censored.
Even if you buy digital and then backup roms, if your account is ever taken from you/banned, or that game is pulled from the store/your account due to licensing or some issue with the game (games based on IP's or with licensed music often get pulled due to these reasons) then you can not LEGALLY possess those roms anymore and are technically breaking the law by having them. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure if there is a law that gives protection to digital only backups. There are little to no laws protecting the customer from abuse from copyright or IP holders toward their purchased digital products (such as removing content, removing purchased DLC, removing games entirely from the store/accounts). Even though most games are installed on disc systems due to read speed limitations (switch games are not due to low read speed design straight from the cart) all of that data still exists in it's current state on the disc/cartridge itself and can be installed to multiple platforms or passed down to multiple owners for their own devices.
Now games that require online connections or are not complete on the disc or cart and require downloads to even complete the package the customer purchased are a different story and should always be pushed back against.
Emulators have been legally established as legal and physical products can always be used with readers to play them if necessary, or can be backed up at any time. Also tech is constantly evolving where third parties are able to emulate older hardware exactly even in physical form (such as FPGA hardware).
I've accepted the loss of manuals, though some games still do have them. But I will never give full digital control to publishers or platforms. You'll really see prices go insane and less customer rights than ever.
None of this matters unfortunately because if you bought a physical copy of something like Wildstar on PC you still got your game stolen from you. Like Mark said, the game is digital no matter what, the law gives you the right to do what you want with the executable on the disc, and it will install the game... but the actual digital game won't be playable.
@@TherinThimble-rs3se Wildstar was an MMO, an always online game. You never owned any of it as it required servers from the makers to even play and THEY held your data hostage. When physical media was given up by PC customers, they lost control of the entirety of it and have no rights to their purchases as a whole. Customer rights have been taken from PC gamers because they allowed it. Programs like Steam tricked PC players with convenience until it was too late. Now there's multiple launcher "exclusivity" forcing players to download to play games they don't even own and are just renting 😂 There are still a few PC games released physically, but others have seen what PC has lost and do not want it to also happen to their platforms.
@@shaggysweetness You can have digital games without DRM. There are ways to have older versions of games, digitally, without DRM, in your control. There is also... you know... piracy.
@@SLAMTUCKER Very few give that option, and there's no way to legally "sell" or "give away" digital games like from GOG after you've purchased them. The simple fact of the matter is that all purchases made digital give you little to no protection as a customer by law and still has legal control over whatever you do with it due to that. Of course piracy is always there but we're speaking in the legal sense. If there's ever full digital only control and no physical options, you can bet every company will hammer down on every single site hosting them way more than they do now.
@@shaggysweetness Why would they hammer down way more all of a sudden even though we are probably past 90% digital sales? Not to mention on PC it is probably close to 99%. Piracy is going away not because of draconian shakedowns, but lack of interest. Not to mention with DRM free games there is literally nothing anyone can do about it (the same example Mark uses with reprinting books). Also as an FYI, you may be shocked at the numbers of totally DRM free games on Steam. The legal argument really falls apart too as just about every video on RUclips could technically be violating some stupid copyright law precedent somewhere. If you actually care about preservation pushing DRM free, open source, easily available digital titles, or failing that, hacked/modded/pirated versions are literally the only things that makes sense.
There's a problem wtih phasing out CDs and Blu Rays: Streaming often does not offer the same quality.
Agreed!!
Streaming DO NOT offer the same quality, further more, I like owning my CD’s, 4K Blu-Rays and Games. Don’t get me wrong, I do have a digital library on iTunes, PS4 Pro and XBOX Series S, however I still like to import physical games from Playasia like the Japanese Shmups from M2.
By a wide margin. We're talking something like a 20-fold difference in bitrate if you compare streaming to blue-ray.
who said anything about streaming just hold the file somewhere on your pc all a cd/blue ray is just some phsyical structred that hold that data you could do the same with a baisc usb stick or hard drive
@@jd2792 where do you think you'll get "the file"? option a: from a blu ray? well duh, then you need blue rays. option b: from a streaming platform? good luck with that! ;) option c: buy a high quality download? apart from a tiny amount of music, they just don't offer that.
As a bit of a physical media “purist” you’ve offered some good food for thought here. I think for me, apart from all the nostalgic rituals involved, i just place a lot of value on being able to physically own a tangible object that represents a piece of media that I enjoy. I feel a greater sense of ownership and control over that object, even if at the end of the day it is just a container for digital content.
Plus you can sell or trade your physical games to get something back from your original investment.
Isn't being a physical media purist kinda inherently hostile to smaller studios who can't afford to release their games that way?
@@hahasamian8010 I’ll still buy digital if physical isnt an option, or stupid rare/expensive, but physical is always going to be my preference
Agreed, i feel the same. The Video might be right theoretically, but still the tangible games are just so much different than the official digital buys experience (Am not speaking of pirating)
Yeah but you just explain why YOU enjoy collecting not how it would work to preserve the media.
I think physical media can help us understand design choices and improve game design. A lot of design choices that gamers just take for granted were solutions to hardware limitations, storage limitations, or played to the hardware in some way that only becomes apparent when you play the physical game on its original hardware.
Levels facilitate bank-switching, which mitigates RAM bottlenecks; dithering creates a sfumato effect on CRT TVs; still-image dialogue sequences play to the graphical strengths of older Japanese computers; preventing players from returning to old areas reduces disc-swapping; etc. If we understand the reasons for these choices, I think we can better understand whether and to what extent these design choices make sense for newer games going forward. For example, a lot of newer retro games try to recreate the appearance of old Genesis games using dithering, but dithering doesn't create a sfumato effect on modern flat-screen displays and a scan-line filter doesn't fix the problem.
Another example: Ys I & II Chronicles prevents players from returning to Esteria after they enter Darm Tower because the original Ys also prevented players from doing that. But the original did that because the graphical data for Esteria was on a different disc than the graphical data for Darm Tower. Ys I & II Chronicles is all on one disc. So why not let players go back? Just design inertia?
Yes but I think you are missing the point about the original hardware being digital as well. Yes, older hardware had limitations that influenced the design of the games, but that doesn't make the games analog or "physical." Starcraft Brood War was made to run on windows 98 (which I love), but it doesn't make the game any less digital than starcraft 2 running on windows 7? So don't confusing what I am saying about media storage with playing games on original hardware. You can absolutely play Brood War on an old windows 98 computer if you want, but you don't have to actually use the licensed gamedisc at all. And if you want to preserve starcraft brood war into the future, just hoping the cheap original discs hold out won't work. In fact as time goes on and these licenses run out, you will need to play pirated copies on the original hardware. Original hardware is also digital.
I want a guarantee I can always play my games. With physical, I have that.
No, my discs aren't going to degrade. It's been 25 years and they're as good as new. It's called taking care of your things.
Agreed. Enjoyed the video, but having a tangible copy of something I can play will always override a faceless corporation being able to remote delete your access to something already purchased.
discs do degrade over time... look up disc rot. the only way to guarantee you always have access to your games is to have backups that you can play without needing an internet connection.
Some newer physical games you don't really have a guarantee as they require a server
People have been saying that crap for years now!!!! "All your game discs are gonna degrade and all your carts are gonna wear out,"
That's bull crap!! All you have to do is take care of your stuff and you'll be fine!!
@@wargameboy72 have backups and youll be even more fine lol
For me, physical media engenders more respect for the art and makes it feel less disposable. Like how with vinyl/CDs people would listen to full albums, while with digital music people mostly listen to the popular singles. With games it is less extreme, but I feel more of a pull to finish the physical games I have on my shelf as opposed to titles from the long list in my steam library.
I absolutely agree actually. With physical art like paintings, books, and even vinyl to a degree, there is a special tangible value you can feel. With video games however, that sort of effect is lost on me because it's basically like buying an ipod with songs preloaded on it. The ipod is cool and everything, but there is no actual human touch to the circuitry or tangible feeling to the game at all. You don't interact with the physical container at all other than plugging it in. Also I find the video game grading thing hilariously stupid. People are spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars for what is essentially a really fresh label lol. They actually have 0 idea what the integrity of the circuity of the cart is at all. You could spend thousands of dollars on a cart that is a breath away from failing, and spend a couple of bucks on a cart with a ripped label but a board that will last decades.
@@TheElectricUnderground Disagree. Many people fondly remember the tangible quality of the cartridge, the snap it makes in the console, the fun of flipping through the manual, the authenticity of holding the console’s original controller and playing it on a real CRT TV. The digital games of today can’t duplicate this experience, especially for those nostalgic for that vintage form. Besides, a shelf full of authentic games and boxes looks cool-not so much that game list on Steam.
Someone already made a chart on this, especially the latter part. They found that most people on Steam just play the same popular games all the time. What's intriguing is that people do buy games, but never even start them or complete them in the first place which is already an extremely small minority. It makes sense since you'd often see profiles of people who have over 300 games, yet never played. But look at their hours on CS:GO, GTA V, DOTA2, etc, and they are in the thousands.
@@TheElectricUnderground You’re still overlooking the other elements, from the CRT TV to the original controller to the all-important manual. And again, most people display their physical games whenever they can. Games, from a collector’s standpoint, is all about the tangible.
digital is better since you dont waste physical space in your home, then you run out of space to put things.
I have to dissagree here, not with the fact that physical games have that much more value then digital games, but more with the fact that just because books are not digital means they are much different than video games.
Media is just the storage of information. Wether it is a story stored in a book, a game stored in silocon chips, or music stored on a vynel record, all of them are just information stored in some type of medium. The only difference between analog and digital media is just that digital media stores its information as a stream of 1s and 0s. This means that something like vinyl records or movies on film, are also analog media.
All of these methods of storing information require some sort of processing in order for you to understand it. For a physical book, this would be that you need to both know how to read, and be able to understand the language it is written in. Even for a painting which is also just a way of storing information, you still need to know what you are looking at to be able to understand it. Now, the processing you need to do to understand the information in a book or a painting is quite minimal compared to most other media, it is something that most people can do without any extra tools as long as you have learned how to do it. But for almost everything else, including a bunch of analog media, you need some sort of machine to process the information for you in order for you to understand it.
Just because something is stored on analog media doesn't make it different. A book is still going degrade, just like any PS1 game will and both will be destroyed just as easely in a house fire. Both are also useless if you don't can't process their information, a book written in Polish is just as much of a paperweight to me as an NES game without a way to play it.
Digital media is also stored physically somewhere, just like with a book or a vinyl. Even if they are extremly tiny, the 1s and 0s are still stored in the physical world, whether it is in semi-conductors, the polycarbonate layer of a CD or in punched cards like from the 1960s. They all take up physical space just like any other media, and has a storage limit. Also while a lot of mediums that store digital data can be rewritten, like hard drives, SD cards and CD-RW, almost all physical games troughout the years was printed on non-rewritable mediums, just like with a book, a mask-rom chip of a Gameboy game cannot be changed after it has been flashed, and a CD Saturn game cannot be changed after it was pressed. The only instance of games being printed on rewritable media that i know of is with the Famicom Disc system and some older PCs.
I also think that reading a digital book vs a physical book isn't that much different as playing a physical game vs a digital one. In both cases you are still accessing and consuming the exact same information. The only thing that is different is the things surrounding you consuming the information, like you having to turn a page in a physical book or you having to insert a disc to play a physical game.
On another note I also personally think that collectors talking about "preserving" games to be stupid as hell. Since all physical medium degrade over time, that means that only way to preserve the information in that medium is to copy it. I do collect games myself, however just by having my games sitting on a shelf i am not preserving jack shit. This goes just as much for collectors of books or anything else. Unless you are actively making copies of what you own, nothing is being preserved.
This take completely ignores the history of the novel as an artistic medium. The novel doesn't exist without the physical codex and also without the Gutenberg press.There is not a direct equivalence with a traditional book versus a digital copy, these are different forms. It is not just "information" stored differently.
You can see this difference accross generations, digital immigrants of a certain age and their "Gutenberg" minds (minds literally formed through the codex) versus digital natives born more recently.
The physical form of the book, the codex, entails a completely different phenomenology. For games this is not the case because it is true that the physical medium in this case is just a storage device. It doesn't affect how you play or experience them. Reading an analogue book versus reading it via a screen with always on Internet connectivity is not an identical experience. You cannot have true immersion in a text via a screen. The novel traditionally is designed to be self contained, to be understood within itself.
@@seagullphilosopher2173 Why can i not have "true" immersion when reading a digital book? I have read tons of both digital and physical books troughout my life, and how "immersed" i have been in the book has way more to do with the contents of the book vs what medium i used to read it. I'd say the same goes for audio books at least to some extent. If i read a physical book, a digital book or listen to the audio book version, i am still experiencing the same story as everyone else who has read/listened to that book.
Also, you say that novel's doesn't exist without the the Gutenberg press, what about novels that only gets a online digital release, do they not count as novels? And what about the handwritten books that existed before the Gutenberg press? I'd say a novel is still the same novel, nomatter what medium it is in.
I also want to point out that there are actual differences related to physical vs digital copies of games, sure most of them aren't huge, but they definitly are there. For example with how load times differ on physical vs digital Switch games, or how physical 3ds games save to the cartrige while digital games save to the system memory. Sure, they definitly aren't as huge as books, but the differences are there.
@@thohillesland @thohillesland obviously the novel is now in existence so there can be digital novels the point is the medium of the novel in its genesis is due to moveable type. You had hand written texts prior to this but not the novel, this is a technological shift..the medium is the message. For people of a certain age their very psychology is formed by this technology, hence the term Gutenberg minds...knowledge for a long time is associated with the codex, the book...whereas for younger people their minds are formed by screens.
The point on immersion is about containment within the text. With a traditional book there is only the text and all of the information, the content of the artwork is self-contained within the book. This is not the case once you begin reading on a screen. For example you're reading a novel and come across a word you do not understand, you can either close the book and go find a dictionary or you just carry on and hope the text contextualises itself (which the form is designed to do). With screens and always on Internet connectivity you can just click on words and find definitions or go to a website...the screen is fluid and therefore always breaking or carries the potential to break your immersion within the text. This is a fundamental shift and it doesn't mean reading on a screen is less valid or anything like that but it is undeniably different and the affect on our psychology has not yet been fully explored or elaborated.
Mark's point here about physical games which I agree with is that the experience of playing a game doesn't materialy alter between physical and digital copies. It is actually identical because a game is just a set of stored code. You still ultimately have the experience mediated through a screen. It is not the same as the novel which came into being on the page, it is not native to the screen like a game.
@@seagullphilosopher2173 Those differences you pointed out between reading digital vs physical books are not something that is inherit to the medium being physical or digital, those are just outside factors. For example, if you are reading a digital book using a old Kindle tablet on the buss, you do not have access to the internet or have access to any quick dictionary. Those things are not an inherit thing to the medium being digital, they are just biproducts of what devices a lot of people use to read digital books.
I feel this example you used would be the same as saying, "Back in the day if you got stuck in an physical NES game, you either had to just try to find out what to do, or buy a strategy guide that could help you. While now if you play a digital PC game you can just open a new tab and look up what to do". While this statement is true, it doesn't really have anything to do with the medium being physical or digital, and more to do with how times have changed and what device is used to play the game.
I agree that there are definitely much bigger differences between physical and digital books in comparison with games, with the main one being that a physical book is one of the only media that you can consume without any extra device. However they are at the end of the day still providing the exact same information. You are still reading the exact same words in a novel no matter what format the novel is in.
I completely disagree with you, physical games are part of gaming history and preserving that history is valid. Not even talking about the ownership issues with digital media which are loans only unless you go the illegal way and I hate hacking with a passion.
I think you make some interesting points but I would clarify that “analog” and “physical” are not synonyms. Analog refers to storing information in a continuous manner (e.g., the groove of a vinyl record) and digital refers to storing information in a discrete manner (e.g., the microscopic pits of a CD). Analog signals can be transmitted non-physically (e.g., A/V signals transmitted over RCA cables) or stored physically (e.g., on the groove of a vinyl record). Similarly digital signals can be transmitted non-physically (e.g., over HDMI) or stored physically (e.g., on the microscopic pits of a CD).
Can a digital signal be played over a vinyl record?
Very true for many console games, but arcade games are often a marriage of software and hardware. Boards were built sometimes just for a single game, and controls can be tailored
I think it's sad hardware is all PC based now, and everything is just built using unity/unreal engine now. And access to unlimited storage has led to many developers scoring their games like generic Hollywood movies.
Replicating the unique sound chips is often the hardest thing to do via emulation
u seem fun
Oh arcade pcbs are a very special interest of mine. So yes, absolutely, many arcade games, including my favorite, were built in harmony with the hardware limitations of the games. And accuracy to this hardware has been a massive selling point for pcb collectors for years. However, both FPGA technology and software emulation are becoming so accurate and powerful (even with stuff like input lag) that it's impossible to tell the difference. I played a bunch of extremely expensive CAVE pcbs in spain and while some of them still stood out as unique from emulation, the vast majority are pretty much matched perfectly. Then there comes the question of future preservation and supply and demand. There are only so many DDP boards in the world and they are extremely fragile and expensive to repair. So you are going to get to a point where arcade PCB are 1, incredibly expensive, and 2. extremely niche. That begs the question, in the future and even right now, if 99% of the player base use the emulated version, is the original hardware even relevant anymore? A good example is the m2 port of Garegga. in so many ways, that port is an outright improvement over the arcade board: in features, in performance, in popularity, in graphics, and in competition. So now, ironically, the original arcade board is a straight up downgrade. So that begs the question of if you believe a game should be shackled to its original hardware forever, or if the game can have life after the death of the arcades? I obviously think the latter.
@@TheElectricUnderground Game versions are a real challenging sea to navigate when it comes to discussing game preservation. Like, the Switch versions of many games are undoubtedly way behind in terms of performance but they may also offer alternate controls (touch screen, gyro) that might set them apart from their more conventional console/PC counterparts.
I think in regards to arcade games specifically, preserving the form factor/presentation is also a concern to some people. You could see it as the difference between experiencing a movie in a cinema or in your living room, or like you briefly discussed in your video, the difference between reading a physical book and on an e-reader. It's less pertinent to home console/PC games since the developer has less agency in how the player experiences something but for arcade games the physical presentation can be a lot more bespoke. There's parallels here with handheld games too. Whether that's relevant to preserving /the game/ is one thing, but there's a lot of angles to the preservation discussion.
@@TheElectricUnderground I totally agree that the trend is inevitable and you are describing the reality of the situation well. I just think the mindset that games are purely digital has been harmful to the art form.
We used to have companies like SEGA sourcing hardware from defense contractors to compete with Namco, and they both had very unique aesthetic styles as a result of the different hardware. Maybe the artists were just trying to strive for photorealism or replicate real instruments, but in striving they often ended up making art that was even better than reality. And when a company didn't have the resources to compete with bleeding edge tech, they would compensate with gorgeous pixel art and musical arrangements. And even low resource teams could compete if they racked their brains to think of a genius mechanic for a puzzle game that would pry people away from the latter.
I agree we can preserve the art of the past well, as M2 has done with DDP, but sadly the incentive structure is gone to create future games. We will never see the sheer resources and grit being thrown at game development as we did when arcades were the tip of the spear, and I think a lot of that success came from an intimate relationship with the hardware.
Love the channel! Nobody has a better grasp of game mechanics on RUclips
I think there's something to be said for having a small, curated physical collection of personal favorites, or buying physical when it's reasonable to do so. Let's not kid ourselves about "preservation" though. Very little of this is manufactured to last in the first place. Optical discs have a shelf life. Circuit boards wear down, malfunction, and break. At the risk of sounding way bleaker than I intend, everything will wear down and out just as a raw function of time. Digital archival is the only way a lot of this stuff is going to have any chance to survive at all, and a lot of it still probably won't. Fifty years from now someone will eventually scrap that last stray hard drive or server that some ancient nerd kept a ton of obscure doujin games on or whatever, and that will be that for a whole swathe of hard work and art that probably deserved better.
Preservation is absolutely a noble thing to strive for, but we can only do what we can do, and what happens past our time is out of our hands.
It’s true they are all digital. The physical preservation comes from preserving the artwork and packaging more than the game itself I think? It’s more about the idea of holding something and enjoying the box, manual, packaging and the game cart as much as it is playing the game itself. For me it’s about the physical embodiment of people’s hard work and effort.
If there’s a physical version, I’ll always prefer it over a digital download. But that’s just me. Holding a great game in my hands is a fun experience for me. Not to mention, the value will likely rise with physical versions as time goes on.
I would agree if physical hadn't gotten shit near the end of the 360/ps3/Wii era. Nowadays it's just a flimsy case with a disc or cartridge that requires patches and collectors editions often don't have the disc anymore.
@@stevenbishop1782 this is why i was glad the switch had almost no internal memory. There are still patches, but it limits how broken they ship games a lot
@@robbyrobot3303 That's really only true for Nintendo 1st party games though. Damn near every Turd party is cheap as hell & only puts 4gb worth of game on the card, forcing you to download the rest of the game lol. Switch games are worth tons of money though since it's the actual game on the card, & not just a security check like xbox & playstation games. Overall, I think it's better to just move to Steamdeck for 3rd party & only buy Nintendo games for Switch.
A rotten disk is worth $0.
@@etymonlegomenon931 so is the burnt out motherboard on a gaming PC.
If it’s damaged you buy it again, just as you would for your $1000 PC. Putting the original disk or cartridge into the original hardware, enhances MY gaming experience.
I own some physical games that most will never get to touch or see in person, in their lifetime. That is a fun experience for me.
And I promise you, they’re worth a lot more than $0 😆
Bro, stop sucking up to the greedy cashcows and giving them a good reason to push for the consumer to pay for a subscription model every month. This is ruining the gaming industry, and you dont own any of this stuff anymore as it's just like Netflix, disposable media that isnt yours
“Later we’ll all die said the gator to the fly” - Amy Squirrel.
Play those games now, move on to the next thing.
Can’t take it with you, and your kids kids kids kids kids in 2097 aren’t gonna care about Magnavox Odyssey games, other than being an obtuse curiosity for 20 secs. The carts and systems will be corroded and useless anyway.
Honestly, I think if we stop making it about physical vs. digital and start talking about “permanent copies”/“permanent access” vs. always-on-DRM or mandatory patches that we get to the real heart of the matter. Because what a lot of people really want is to keep being able to play their games whether the developer/publisher changes their mind or not later on. I can still boot up my copy of Final Fantasy 3 (6J) from the 90s without having to resort to emulation or getting copies of the ROM through unofficchannels. If my Super Nintendo breaks, I still have the game and if I get a new system, I don’t have to do anything to keep playing it.
On my Wii U I have tons of games that I’d lose access to if my drive goes down. I’d have to use unofficial means to get them back. But at least most of them run fine without an Internet connection.
Contrast that with Gran Turismo 7. Whenever Sony’s servers aren’t working, I lose access to almost the entire game - even if I play using a physical copy. In other words, the physical media does nothing to help me and I hate the always-on DRM equally either way.
In other words, I don’t mind digital over physical - I mind restrictions on access and online requirements for games I just want to play locally.
It's one of the things I like about doujin soft. A lot of them have no DRM so I can play them on or offline.
It's also why I'm critical of buying games on Steam. It's a guessing game as to which games will run fine if I open their exe files directly to bypass Steam and which ones will just say "no".
And even though Steam DRM is one of the less invasive and less damaging types, its still DRM. It can still decide you cannot play a game you want, because your internet crapped out on you and you didn't have the foresight to activate offline mode beforehand - as happened frequently during my uni days when the campus wifi was down and I just wanted to play games I bought on Steam between classes.
I lost a physical collection enough to fill two large boxes in a move overseas. Needless to say, I learned how easily the "future-proof" physical titles can be taken from you.
As Matthew once said, the best way to preserve a game video game is by handing out the source codes and letting talented people work on them. Aka, we are all screwed.
I think the more accurate way to talk about preservation, is local vs cloud instead of physical vs digital since it is not the time but the publishers are our biggest enemies. Skullgirls seems like a perfect example of how the publishers/developers spit into the faces of their customers. Back then, a physical copy meant that this version of the game could be played and shared without us monitoring you from Steam, you could just put it in the console and play. We couldn't update your CD or cartridge without your consent because you actually owned the copy. The same thing can't be said about all the cloud copies you rent from Steam.
I just love collecting physical media in general. Whether it's video games, comic/manga books, novels, movies, TV shows, etc. I still buy physical games, but my main issue with modern games is that they don't put as much effort in their physical versions (excluding special editions) as they used to. The covers usually suck and they don't even include booklets most of the time.
oh i know it's a huge bummer. That's one of the points I made. Where you spend extra money on the disc version (which in the end is the exact same thing as the digital version) and you only get a cheap plastic case and a disc? Where's the instruction manual? The extra art? Yeah the disc releases of games these days are really lame. Remember how awesome the game manual for starcraft was? it was practically a book. I used to take it to class and read it ha, now that's some analog media right there.
Hi everyone. I think the argument is hollow, because a physical release was way more than the software, which of course is digital data. The physical release contains the box artwork, the manual and other items like maps and of course OST music in some cases. So getting and maintaining physical versions has added value, compared to data on a hard drive.
Another thing is the hardware involved in case of cartridges, which by itself is a human genius product.
Very good point. Thats why we see video games as an independent medium today. On PC or mobile a game is just a software file/app, just a program. Thats why I think video game consoles are still very important.
Modern Physical releases don't hold that expectation anymore though, manuals are no longer being made and all you get for your $60/70 is a filmsy case with just a disk in it, a disk that most likely needs an internet connection to allow access to the full game, it's like buying a book that only has chapter 1 readable. I remember getting a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii and being genuinely shocked that it had a hefty manual that was in full colour, you just don't get that treatment anymore unless you want to shill out for a collectors edition and get ripped off.
@@1shoryuken I agree that the current threshold of expectations is in an all time low. Companies that simply put a small poster in the case make a difference nowdays.
Physical games are good for sharing between places easily, but we should be able to theoretically do this already by burning discs of our digital copies. Bam , physical backup
@@baysidejr for modern games we'll need dual layered blu ray, so i'm gonna get that setup soon (internal bluray drives are cool)
So there are physical limitations on cartridges in terms of space. Also carts are not just containers any super fx chips had processors and different ram amounts on the cart. Also I think you aren’t considering controlling the game via controller from that console we are just fortunate enough to have modern replicas and software to emulate the hardware. Some games require certain controller features and extreme example of this is steel battalion.
Having a way to install/start the games without relying on the servers of the console is really important in my opinion. Also, digital purchases strip the customer of their ownership rights, such as selling the game.
Games with DRM or important patches not included on the medium are useless though, it's frustrating to sort out those bad apples.
Digital is not the problem. DRM is. And it's a huge problem.
Having physical media is about OWNERSHIP. Without property you HAVE no rights. And before some Doomer Gen Z or Millennial wants to chime in saying we don't own a disc & nothing lasts forever, try going into someone's house & taking their stuff, you'll end up in a bodybag. Is physical media preservation? Yes & no. If the game delists & the emulation isn't up to snuff, like PS3 & 360 emulation is currently in 2023, yes. It's a way to enjoy the media without having an expensive PC rig & troubleshooting the rom. With digital you throw the baby out with the bathwater simply because "Nothing lasts forever" & "it's convenient" say that to the rom sites always getting tackled in the ground by Nintendo & games getting censored via patches for political correctness.
For modern games, it actually can be analogue. You convert a long play, or sometimes just the cutscenes into film and it plays basically the same
lol
ha yes, or another funny idea would be to print out the source code into like a giant book or something. It would be a true analog version of the game, but good luck playing it XD
Some modern games do have more involved gameplay at least.
@@austinreed7343 that really depends on where. Most of Sony’s big hitters for example are basically movies with breaks of gameplay
My entire 5th and 4th generation of consoles was stolen from my house when I Was 13. My mom sold my Genesis and games when I was a kid without my knowledge. When I think about it its heart breaking.
I don't want to pay subscriptions to play digital games so i own PhYSical video games xD
I'm not a fan of subscription models either, believe me. But that's not exactly related to the point of the video because playing games digitally really has nothing to do with how the games are monetized. For example, you could buy a "physical" disc (like the old physical discs for World or Warcraft) and still need to pay for a subscription to play. In fact you ALREADY do have to pay for a subscription for "physical" games. Like lets say you own Tekken 7 for playstation 4, right. And you have the physical Tekken disc. Having that physical disc does you nothing to protect you from needing to pay for a subscription to play online. And if the PSN online play goes down in the future, that disc is basically worthless anyway. So saying buying discs sounds like a simple solution to the issue, but it's really not. You are still going to run up against DRM protection in all kinds of different ways, because there is always that digital layer between the game and playing the game, even on a disc.
@@TheElectricUnderground If you own the game (Tekken 7) digitally or physically it is worth a lot given the idea of being a single player that I am. Fuck online play anyway.
Cartridges are/were a true physical format, up until the disc era came in - carts often had custom hardware from custom sound chips in Castlevania 3, extra RAM in SMB 3, the super fx chip in Starfox and Yoshi's Island (which were difficult to emulate). There's way more examples, but it's more sad that time is over as I felt it definitely prolonged the lifetime of the hardware, but it was very difficult for developers who were platform licensees because they had to order carts in advance from the 1st party with no refunds in the case of unsold inventory
Carts are really cool and for a while what your are describing was true, but at this point pretty much all the cart consoles have extremely robust flash drives that not only can replicate the special chips and everything, but also add in additional features like save states! Also on flash carts you can play really cool romhacks of the games on the original hardware like the project base version of super metroid :-) Also reminder, don't confuse original hardware with being "physical." a licensed game cart is no more "physical" than a flash cart. Both are just containers for digital information.
Old-school cartridges are an interesting curiosity. Instead of putting in a disk full of files, you're putting in _an entire ISA card!_ And make no mistake, they really _are_ a lot like an ISA card. The ISA bus is just an extension of the Intel 8088's address and data bus. Old-school cartridges slot right into the processor's address and data bus, too. The ROM chips on the cartridge are visible to the CPU in the same way the BIOS extension ROM on a PC's ISA card is. This ISA-like nature is why old-school cartridges can have additional hardware on them. Newer systems just use a tweaked SD card instead, and as the interface for that is designed solely with storage in mind, that's all they can do.
@@Roxor128 I know man (RE: modern carts/cards are just memory, more or less), it makes me a little sad that none of the pins can allow for something interesting. There's a great discussion with Dylan Cuthbert on some podcast talking about being in a room, as a teenager, with a bunch of Nintendo engineers and obvs designer like Miyamoto talking through an interpreter about possibility of 3d hardware on the yet-unreleased SNES. They phoned an engineer in the uk to talk about the pins on SNES cartridges there and then so he could confirm that they could add a 3d chip to cartridges of specific games!
@@ls.c.5682 That's an amazing little story!
I can think of one way to do a hardware-containing cartridge for a new system: USB. We've had USB storage for ages. Make the cartridge essentially contain the same contents as a USB3 flash drive as the basic form, and allow containing a hub and additional hardware if desired. Sure, it's not as tightly integrated as an old-school cartridge, but it'd be relatively easy to implement (at least by modern standards).
For me, physical preservation is more about being able to continue playing something indefinitely even if I cut my internet service off completely. I'm a big fan of Everdrives and such, and for me, that counts as physical preservation. If I want an update or patch for a game, I can download it and patch the rom file myself. I can add or delete things and curate my library to be exactly how I want it.
I love digital, and I've spent a small fortune on huge digital libraries for PS4, Xbox One & Switch. I like being able to hop in and out of different games instantly without getting off the couch to change the disc. The Everdrive brings this same convenience to retro consoles though.
I've had several huge issues with PS4 particularly, where my account was suddenly corrupted and I had to do a bunch of troubleshooting to get it working again. Each and every time, I had to go re-download every single license for every game I owned, and just pray my saves were still on their cloud. It really drives home how little real control you have over digital games. If you couldn't re-download the licenses, for instance if Sony's servers ever go away, your games are gone -- even if you own the disc in a lot of cases.
I didn't have the same level of constant issues with Xbox, but several times I let Xbox Gold lapse, and suddenly even games I owned physically would no longer work without an internet connection, even if all I wanted was single player story mode stuff. Not all of them became this way, but many of my games simply stopped launching, even with the disc in the tray.
This is why an Everdrive feels so much more secure to me -- my roms aren't going to suddenly stop working if I get rid of the internet, or if my service is out. I can play them "off-grid" with zero issue. I don't have to constantly prove that I own them. It's weird, especially with many homebrew roms, I feel like I own them more than AAA games I've paid 60 bucks for.
All you're really buying with digital games is the license, which can quite easily become corrupted or lost, and then you'd just better hope that you can still re-download it in the future. I would never count on that, with the way companies phase out their old consoles' digital libraries and de-list stuff for legal reasons. The de-listing is another huge issue for getting the license back if you lose it.
Around 19:00, you mentioned "books and vinyl records" as one group but CDs, DVDs and etc as another. What, specifically makes a vinyl record different from a CD? They both contain data, that data is physically ingrained in the object, and you need special equipment to actually use them. The only "real" difference is that CDs practically necessitate electricity/electronics, but records don't, even though the period of record players NOT using them was relatively brief. It can't just be electronics then, so where specifically is the line drawn? To me, the argument that physical games are, for the end consumer, any different than CD or vinyl doesn't make any sense
This video's argument suggests that somewhere between books, vinyl records, and game discs, there exists an arbitrary point of complexity that stops something from being categorized as "physical" anymore, which is pointless when all of them can be represented digitally anyway. It just requires varying levels of complexity to do so. Physical audio/video formats and physical video games are really no different, and even if you take hardware into consideration, they are still conceptually identical. The difference between an NES cartridge and an SNES cartridge is not unlike the difference between betamax and VHS; you need special hardware to decode them one way or another, audio formats are just a lot more standardized and universally more generally useful than video game formats are. Lately "digital" seems to get conflated with meaning "non-physical", when that really has nothing to do with it. _Everything_ is physical, even digital data. "Digital" really only means the storage medium is entirely predictable and lossless. That's the only meaningful difference between real books and a PDF, vinyl and CD, VHS and DVD, or any other analog/digital format
From the title I was expecting this to be a discussion about what actually constitutes preservation, but this is much more aimed at consumers as an argument against physical games, which I think is significantly less interesting or important. The description mentions "a wave of talk about the need to "buy physical" and "physically" preserving games" - when people talk about this, I get the impression what they're really saying is that if you're a casual consumer of console video games, it's going to work out much better for you in the long run to collect physically than to go all digital. I'm talking casual-casual; Joe Schmoe isn't going to know how to set up an emulator or where to find roms, and he shouldn't have to, assuming he even has the hardware for it. But he sure knows how to slap a cartridge into a slot or put a disc into a tray, and for most that's good enough. If you've gone out of your way to do PC emulation, you are no longer Joe Schmoe. Real preservation is almost entirely carried entirely by emulator developers, those who rip games from their physical media and store the data long term, and veteran developers going out of their way to archive what little they can. Big corporations and casual consumers buying discs aren't even in the discussion to begin with
(First time commenting on the channel, love all your solo discussion videos like this, you're really great at digging into the stuff people are unwilling or even unable to discuss)
The fight for the availability of physical games translates into the certainty that your game license is tied to the cartridge/CD and it is more complicated for the rights holders to take it away from you.
From a preservation point of view, everything is on some type of physical medium, even if it is someone else's computer (i.e. the cloud). The important thing is to be able to transfer that data from one physical medium to another, and what makes this possible is to have DRM-free games available, that they are not contained in some type of proprietary medium, etc.
The value of preserving games isn't necessarily JUST in preserving the digital code representing the game itself, it's in preserving the whole experience of the game, as the developers originally intended it to be seen, heard and played. Some aspects of the overall game experience are easier to preserve than others.
Preserving the actual physical bits on a floppy disk, optical media, cartridges and digital downloads is the easiest thing to preserve. We've been doing this as long as digital media has existed.
Replicating the subtle timings of the game running on its original hardware is harder to accomplish, but still possible to achieve and important in preserving the original intent of the developers. This is being accomplished very well via emulation, and will get better over time, as modern hardware and emulation techniques improve.
Preserving certain games running on CRT monitors is the hardest thing to fully preserve at this point, and essentially a futile endeavor as the technology is no longer being produced.
But yes, at the end of the day all things are destined to break down and fade away into the sands of time. We can do our best to preserve the things that are important to us as individuals and to culture in general, for future generations to enjoy and learn from. But that is all we can do, as someday all of this stuff will disappear.
I like Cartridges. They can physically be in my hand and I don’t have to be online to play them. There is a difference. Nintendo has a big history since the 1800’s. You may want to look into that if you haven’t yet. I have to gracefully disagree with you if you’re saying there is no difference from online only and cartridges.
He never said anything about online only games.
The only difference I see between the two versions is that you have the unlock key with you for the physical version, but need an internet connection to play your digital game on a non-primary console. Last holidays, I was locked out of most of my Nintendo Switch games due to missing WiFi. Luckily I had a couple of cartridges with me.
Oh yes good point. I think currently that is a bit of the difference between the two, but as time goes on you'll either be playing your digital backups drm free (like on the ps3 and xbox 360 now), or you'll be emulating the games in some manner ha. It seems to be a trend that once a company stops making money on a console, like the ps3, it's pretty much abandoned and becomes a sitting duck for jail breaking. This fate will happen to the ps4 soon enough and has already happened to the launch switch (which is funny).
One reason I like physical games is that they are often on sale for much cheaper than the digital versions. Waiting for them to (hopefully) go on sale or getting a cheap key off a resale website isn’t always guaranteed.
As seen with all the closures of Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo’s digital storefronts, digital piracy truly is the only way to preserve these games for the future.
That sounds like a perfectly reasonable approach to buying physical games, but I've noticed that the digital versions of games are often significantly cheaper than the physical versions. When a game launches, they are typically around the same price (not to count shipping costs), but after a short amount of time the digital versions often get DEEP discounts during flash sales. For example, a few weeks ago I bought resident evil 5 for xbox 1 for only $5. Whereas the physical version sells around $15 on ebay without shipping. That being said though, if you find cheaper versions of phsyical games, then absolutely go for it, finding deals is a much more solid reason to buy physical games than the notion of somehow preserving them ha.
The ds and 3ds eshop closed. Those games are just lost now digitally. Either you buy a cartridge which lasts forever or download a rom. Discs suck but cartridges are pretty good about holding up over time.
@@Nostalgiaforinfi cartridges nowadays contain some form of flash memory, not mask roms like in the older days. Either way they will not last anything close to forever. Even if they did your console probably wouldnt. Just play , enjoy and don't give it too much thought
I'm still a "physical media" guy and will remain so. If my apartment building were to burn down, I'd get a good deal of it back because I have a media rider on my insurance policy, have it all well cataloged and documented, and it's all on camera on my YT channel XD
I get what you're saying, though. I do still think the preservation aspect is important, though perhaps not in the way you might think. If the physical version is still available in some manner while it still works, and the hardware still works, at least we can archive that digitally in a way that precludes DRM so that it can be used with emulators, hacked consoles, FPGA devices, etc. While that still requires the other pieces of the puzzle to work, it's still worth exploring.
While the “game preservation” argument is usually overblown it still has certain merit when it comes to topics such as censorship and licensing. Buying physical versions of games helps offset the possibility that content owners change the original artistic vision of the game. Want to play sonic 3 with the original music? Better have the original cart. Want to play an older game that was made at a time when sensibilities were a little different? Hopefully the digital version hasn’t been stealth edited to remove that objectionable content. Original versions of games will likely always exist somewhere, but that doesn’t mean they will be easily accessible for most people. For that reason preserving your own physical copy can be useful. But for me the more compelling reason to buy physical games is because, for me, it is fun to collect physical games in a way that watching a digital library grow is not.
You could probably get onto Accursed Farms and talk with Ross about this stuff.
The necessity of intermediaries is something I've thought about as well. I don't think people appreciate how fragile digital media is, particularly pure digital media like games or demos. More than just data rot from the plastic the games are stored on degrading over time, you have to make sure the game can run on modern hardware and modern operating systems, and if there's a networked component you have to emulate that too. If you don't have the hardware, you have to spend the time to create an emulation layer that can run at sufficient speed to play the game. Microsoft's commitment to backwards compatibility is a saving grace that helps keep PC games running long into the future.
The gold standard for game preservation is the source code getting released, since that means a native version can be created for whatever hardware and operating system you want. But a lot of stuff has to go right for that to happen.
But all of this takes effort. The games that will be preserved the longest are the ones that people view as important enough to copy between drives, like the Christian monks copying the bible in their monasteries.
Yeah that’s a big one Mark missed. I remember trying to play that game I think it’s called Claw and it runs like absolute garbage on modern systems.
Physical media answers to the human ritualistic needs. And ritual gives meaning to things. To kill the physical in favor of digital only vulgarizes art, making it lose some of its impact.
If things go digital only, lol, no company will ever see the color of my money.
I love playing Run & Guns, Shoot'em ups, Platformers, Arcade style games = when those are not getting released physical anymore = I'M OUT. It's a simple as that.
Interesting about your brother. I lost my old collection in a fire back in 2007 as well. It was a few hundred great games across 11 systems going back to the 80's, and I had a lot of pristine gems that really sell for a lot now. A lot of music CD's too. I've dabbled a bit in collecting again over the years and currently collect movies, but I'm pretty much an entirely digital gamer these days. I've had to move a lot too, and it's honestly a lot of hassle.
Totally get what you're saying and have thought similarly. A lot of "muh physical" and "preservation" talk is just thrifty people doing the Gamestop trade in churn, youtube hoarders with more money than self-control, piracy talking points and marketing spiel for limited print boutique release retailers. It rarely really gets into lost media, prototype discoveries, perpetuity, emulation accuracy, conversion competency etc or even consumer choice of where they want to play something. Some people do great work and documentation in that sphere though.
I also think digital distribution made tons of games possible that either weren't viable in the traditional retail model anymore, or never would have been. Whether it's mid 2000's indie games bringing back 2D, or all the crazy experimental and experiential genres we get now. Couldn't imagine not playing some of my favorite games from the last 15 or so years just because there wasn't a physical copy available.
Coming from a more art history background for me the whole "preservation" talk you see the vast majority of youtubers engage in are either purely talking about maintenance of access to the digital content of the game. With the "physical" side being mainly just thrifters with niche or resellers cosplaying as collectors. If you go into the more niche platforms you tend to end up with people that are very keen on documenting everything and within that you have the die hard group of people that are actually trying to preserve the games. (they also exist in popular platforms but there is a lot of overlap with the niche platforms and are vastly outnumbered).
Because the physical is part of the game.
Simply preserving a ROM/ISO/Etc. alone is akin to taking a picture of a painting or retyping a book and calling it preserved. Sure some of the content is preserved but not the actual item. Which, especially with games is even more important than a book or painting as games are inherently interactive.
There is genuine archival scholarship at the core of preservation, but I think the vernacular has spread far beyond that out to supplant it as shorthand for some of the things I described.
Even film, there's only one original negative, and interpositive, then prints were derived from it. The technology required to display film reels as they were originally projected has become exceedingly uncommon, and was never even really a mass market consumer product. Still, efforts are made to restore, scan and digitally preserve and distribute films, which still can't fully replicate the original experience and technology.
There is definitely something to be said for people who bypass corporate control to do things like Star Wars 4K77, and the enthusiasts who cultivate the demand and appreciation for such endeavors. Or those who do something as simple as overcoming region locking... but I just don't know how much dudes who refuse to watch anything on Netflix, pirate movies just because they can etc would really be doing to "preserve" film. Or what some guy buying mostly used DVD's at a Gamestop equivalent would have been contributing to anything, beyond being the 1 in 1 million guy who's shelves survived through the end times. At some point, for the vast majority of people, it's just posing, posturing and marketing.
4k bluray is great simply because online high bitrate options have a lot of issues still, or have an insane entrance fee for some proprietary hardware, higher than a standard 4k bluray player
I came to this conclusion a long time ago. I stopped wanting to deal with all the paper, plastic, silicon and copper that REPRESENTS my experience of playing a game. The game is the code being executed.
exactly my friend! The physical discs and stuff and cool aesthetically, but they are, ultimately, just containers for the game, not the actual game. Like how fancy chocolate comes with really cool golden wrappers ha.
There’s a completely valid point here; the experience itself is the most valuable thing by far; but games have been delivered via individual physical containers for decades for a good reason (and not just because it’s good business).
@@TheElectricUnderground What's the point in eating food if you can just have it all through your vein. The real food is the nutrition being ingested.
IMO it's misleading to say "video games are always purely digital" when cartridge and arcade roms are not necessarily dumped correctly which can cause graphical glitching and other possible issues not present with the original medium. Preserving the original games is really important in these cases
yes bad sound emulation (Sega Genesis) and weird quirks (many) that aren't reproduce correctly leading to games not playing like the originals, also not so much software as it is hardware but emulating Nintendo DS/3DS, on PC is just weird, lots of empty space and using a mouse to replicate touch controls isn't the same, you could use a phone, I guess but that adds another problem.
First of all, you are right. Best way to preserve games is dumping it onto a hard drive and keep it safe and accessible. No company can do a better job than enthusiasts around the world.
However, it also makes no difference whether pay for a digital copy or "yarr harr" it (for pc). On switch I save a ton of space by keeping 90% of my games physically. By keeping them physically I have the best ornament for my room a gamer can have. A nice lookong set of games. If the price is the same why would I buy digitally.
The true reason on the argument between "physical" or digital games, for me, really comes down to ownership. As demonstrated multiple times with delisting, digital marketplaces and repositories shutting down or as we've seen recently with Sony/Discovery, flat out removal of media from your device in your possession. This is why ROMS/DRM free (or stripped) games is the only 'real' preservation of media.
You're right that fetishism for original discs and hardware gets a bit silly but I'd say pinball machines are the mechanical video games and pretty much direct forerunners to arcade games.
This is a topic where the technicalities don’t trump the practicalities for a lot of people. There are barriers between us and the interaction of the games but electricity etc. is so readily available it doesn’t feel like it’s much different than something like a book. Maybe once a year when there’s a bad storm I might stop and think about the fact my game system is inaccessible.
Until we get good consumer rights & protections policies, physical preservation makes sense as a better alternative than digital.
To be fair, game manuals peaked in the NES era with the first final fantasy. It came with a "player's guide" that was close to a 100 pages of information on the setting, items, characters, and even contained a walkthrough for early parts of the game. (it was more similar to a tabletop book than a game manual.)
I also want to print out some of my favorite game manuals because it would be funny and kind of cool.
Oh yeah game manuals have really fallen off in the ps4 and ps3 era. Do you remember how amazing they were back in the old school PC games days? The starcraft manual is my fav of all time. Not only does it have a lot of really useful info on how to play the game, but it also came with a full on story printed and really cool art and everything. i actually used to take the game manual to school with me and read it in class inside my textbooks ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground I was regrettably born too late to experience the pre-Steam era of PC gaming. I only had the manuals to a few old console and handheld games as a kid, and even then I got most of my games secondhand.
I think people don’t want to have their game cut off at the whim of a game company. Least with physical they can’t do that.
They can disappear digital games like Konami did with Kojimas P.T
Do you have a physical copy of Lawbreakers? Try playing that disc. Or try putting in a disc of Dark Spore in your PC and playing that.
@TherinThimble-rs3se
Little bit different with the online focused games you mentioned
A huge plus for "physical" is that an internet connection is not a requirement. Not everyone in the world has high speed internet or unlimited data caps. This extends to the consoles themselves. The new "slim" PS5 requires an internet connection to activate (due to detachable disc drive). Don't get me started on games getting delisted on online store fronts. If it weren't for stores reprinting games (shoutout to VGP), everyone would be forced to pay exorbitant prices or resort to piracy. Some people can't risk resorting to piracy, if one was caught in Japan using a bootleg Nintendo game, they would get tossed in the slammer.
I honestly, care less about the physical "extras" that come with games. I just want the game itself on the disc. Miss me with the Deluxe Edition Steelbook.
Love ya Mark, but this is definitely a "hot" take.
This makes me feel better about having to sell my nes collection years ago. They were just physical objects housing digital media... That skyrocketed in value after I sold them.
I'm glad my vid helped bring some light to the situation, in terms of them being no more different or special compared to rom backups (at least in terms of the nature of the art). On the topic of the value of the carts, that's a whole separate ball of wax. It reminds me of cryptocurrency in a lot of ways ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground Books are just collections of words. They are not true preservation. You have to have the book be told from generation to generation.
This is how I feel now. I’ve begun the arduous task of digitizing nearly 4000 game discs. I digitized my entire music library back in 2011, all 10,000 CDs, and saw no issue with that. For some reason I had to come to terms on digitizing and selling the bulk of my games, keeping those that have significant emotional connection or are very expensive to get physically.
For the CDs that won’t run from a digital image, I use the No-CD patches, similar to what steam and GOG do.
In the end, it’s all just bits and bytes.
All I know is when I pay $50 for something I want something in my hands to show for it.
This is what I call a Based Take.
I agree but honestly I just find digital games more convenient and find that piracy is better preservation than discs like you said.
Exactly! It is so funny and a bit ironic when you see people who are very strict about only buying licensed discs of games suddenly finding themselves having to use digital piracy to play their own games. A common example are collectors who spend thousands of dollars on disc games, and so, in order not to scratch the discs, they just play off a flashcart or burned copies lol. It makes total sense, but it's also pretty ironic.
@@TheElectricUndergroundpersonally, if I drop that amount on a physical copy, you’d best believe I’m using it. If not now, when? It’s there to be played, not to be encased and preserved for someone in the future to theoretically play it, especially since as time passes it becomes gradually more irreplaceable and the risk+anxiety increases, so if you’re not going to, why would future you/future generations? What are those guys waiting for, fuckin judgement day?
If you buy a physical version it holds value as you can resell it whereas a digital copy only has value to you and becomes worthless the day you stop playing.
I've had a similar thought before.
Physical media is just a red herring in the topic of game preservation, with the real enemy being DRM. DRM is gonna exist and still be just as awful whether you download the game or run it off of a physical disc.
The fact that DRM exists even on discs means you don't have any more practical control over the piece of media compared to the guy who downloaded it.
Rare Electric Underground L tbh. No collector is so deluded that they actually think they might end up being the custodian of the last surviving copy of G-Darius or something. The point is that as long as I own it, *I* can always play it. I don’t have to hunt down a copy, I don’t have to wait for a torrent to become available in 2040. I don’t have to hunt down a manual scan to make sure I’m not missing something without being spoiled (manuals are a very important part of the intended experience of some games). I don’t have to subscribe to an online service that could axe the game at any time leaving me out of pocket with nothing to show for it. I don’t have to jump through hoops of perfectly configured emulation and low latency controller adapters. I don’t have to resist the temptation to switch to a different game in 2 seconds flat every time I die and get remotely frustrated.
Don’t get me wrong, you still talk the most sense on this entire site, but I think you’re too quick to dismiss the physical game + original hardware experience which has a lot of advantages, and for a lot of people is a big part of the hobby.
Lol after “Nintendo catches you emulating” segment there was a Nintendo Switch ad
Oh no!!!!!!!! I absolutely love your channel your takes………. I am 1000 percent against digital only games. I waited 13 years for Alan wake 2 and completely passed. I won’t support this future at all. I have literally bought 27 physical copies this year because of this garbage. I’m a collector. Still love your channel though
True, physical media is not inherently "preservation". It is protection from digital storefront closure, to a very limited degree, but I agree it's not singularly capable of preserving a game. But that's because preserving retail machine code in is not sufficient to be called preservation. And that's where I have to push back on the rest of your premise, because I don't see games as inherently digital. As I see it, games are physical first and foremost. They came up through mechanical experiences like pinball and gradually adopted more digital aspects as technology facilitated it. It was such an organic transition that it's difficult to definitively declare what the "first videogame" even was.
Code is little more than instructions for hardware -- the compiled logic that brings every other part of the experience together. Just because digital means are being used to preserve parts of our gaming history, through things such as emulation, doesn't mean that's all that a game is. It's just the colossal effort and compromise our community has chosen to make to preserve what we can in the face of the reality that hardware can't last forever. When we've lost all of the hardware for vector graphics screens, sit-down cabinets, motion controls, light guns, Gameboy Cameras, and whatever that holographic thing was that Time Traveler did... part of what those games were will simply cease to be. But it doesn't mean the code left behind is all they ever were. It's just what we managed to save. (And of course there's even more to preservation than the games themselves, but I already wrote a book here.)
But for real though, Nintendo closes storefronts like they're porn tabs when their mom just walked in. Ain't no way the Switch eShop will outlive the majority of physical carts.
It's more about creating false scarcity so that they can inflate prices.
This argument is a play and devils advocate to just hear yourself talk. Your premise is that technology makes the past obsolete all together. I suppose you support AI everything as it will be more efficient.
Lol what are you even talking about? Also accusing a RUclipsr of talking ... You don't say!!! So people on RUclips talk about stuff they find interesting? My point is that you can't have a video game without digital technology, it literally doesn't exist. Past? What past? There is no history to games, they are a brand new digital art form. They are the products of code and computers. And in my vid I explicitly say that gamers should try out printed books for a nice change of pace. Your jumping to wild conclusions without listening to what I am saying
I think that there should be a distinction between collecting cartridges/discs and preserving them. There aren't many practical reasons for collecting those anymore outside of sentimental or nostalgic value. It does make some sense for preservation purposes, in addition to digital preservation. Those internet archives might not always be there, and when a game is digital, there's no guarantee that you'll get the same thing tomorrow that you had today. Take for instance, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on Genesis. The copy of the cartridge that I own has several music tracks composed by Michael Jackson, where the current official Sega version doesn't anymore. If those bootleg and archive sites go down, dumping the rom from those physical cartridges will be the only way to get them back. Better not to rely too much on a single method of preservation.
Those archive sites are good for distribution, and people should be grabbing copies as much as they can, in case somebody has to restore/redistribute something that has become scarce/unavailable online.
Right, but don't forget about the main point I am getting at, which is that cartridges and discs ARE digital backups to begin with. There is no distinction between them from hard drives or external servers, other than the type of hardware they interact with. A rom is a rom. Whether you put it on a cart and license it, or put it on a flashcart, both are digital versions. The point I'm making is that having an analogue backup of a video games doesn't exist, unless you print the game's source code on paper or something crazy like that ha. So yes, I agree, having multiple copies of a game is good. But having a licensed version of a game doesn't make it somehow more preservable or analog. If i download all of the ps2 library in iso form and store it on multiple hard drives (or better yet, M-Discs), it's got just as much or more of a chance to survive than the guy who buys all the licensed discs and keeps them in his gaming room.
@@TheElectricUnderground Why have sex when you can just masturbate?
This mostly only applies to Nintendo, but there are some games where the experience is tied to the specific hardware too. Like DS or Wii games where physically holding the console or controller and moving it is part of the charm. That aspect needs to be preserved too beyond just the hardware too. Interesting topic.
Do you know where I can get a legal digital copy of Marvel Vs Capcom 2?
I think a lot of folks are confusing "preserving" with "owning" on this comment section. The video is *not* saying buying the digital copy of X game is better than a CD, but rather in the sense of keeping the game available in any way possible (I'd say primarily the high seas)
Duplicating a ROM to various hard drive will always be more future proof than buying a single mario bros cartdrigde and trying to keep it running for the rest of eternity
Physical games are Physical DRM. I think a better way to put it is the physical cart is the DRM vs an online server. Think physical vs download. They are both still technically digital, yes.
Well, if this wasn't 2024, where emulation hasn't become so good that FPGA seems redundant, then you wouldnt be able to say there no real difference from physical Disks-in-system and just digital.
I have a good argument for physical. They are easier to share a single item with family and friends, while digital means sharing the whole account they are registered in. Physical also play without networking.
Totally agree with this take. There is one thing i'd like to bring up though. Preserving different forms of media in physical form prevents that media from being possibly altered in the future. As time goes on, many things can be "improved" or replaced by the "better version" and then the original is scrapped. This can even happen with translations for books. And over time, as we go further and further into the future, many people might not even know or recognize what the original form of that particular media even was when it was first created. So digital preservation of media comes with it's own faults as well, depending on how you catalog it. Good video though, I love your takes. I also believe video games themselves can be preserved in digital form, just make sure if you do so, you keep track of all the various versions of media.
I love you man, your takes are 99% legit, and the only ones I'd argue are 'correct'... that being said, this argument is like saying writing makes no sense for preservation, because writing is literally just a thought and needs a brain to be used, and the brain must be coded to understand the language in order to get anything out of it. Therefore there is no difference of preservation value between writing, and a physical game. And bringing bootlegging into the argument isn't a valid argument because you're cherry picking. No one is stopping you from downloading and making your own book, just the same is how no one is stopping all the Mother 3 repros on Etsy 😂.
Very well put!
The thing with BluRay and DVDs though is that there is no digital equivalent (though there can be). I find it very rare for you to be able to buy a digital copy of a movie (though iTunes may still do it, I don't have an account), it's subscriptions and renting. BluRays and DVDs also have lots of bonus content which I don't have access to on streaming and if it exists is not available in my country.
While piracy and backing up are the best forms of preservation, I don't blame people for wanting discs which they legally own as they may not be as tech-savy. Countries like Germany are very strict about piracy so it's valid to avoid that.
I've always had the take that collecting arcade cabinets, JAMMA PCBs, and just other physical media is essentially just interactive furniture. As someone who has owned a New Astro City and various PCBs, that cab would just sit in my room looping attract mode looking cool.
Battle Garegga, for example, is better played on the PS4 port due to all the advanced features and the lack of a sprite limit. There's a really clear example of the sprite limit ending Eaglet's run during the Stunfest 2018 demo.
I'll still hold onto the PCB for collection's sake, but it would be better if I could just somehow hook up a MISTER to JAMMA and play a shit ton of games off that.
Music is also just written as code that needs the instruments, singer or audio device to display it. Cinema is also code written on film that needs a device to play it back and project it.
Star Wars fans have been messing with old film prints to scan and try to preserve the original theatrical versions, because they are not made available anymore. Artists remaster their work or rerecord it to make it meet standards that could not be achieved at the time of the original recording.
Time is a bitch for everybody.
I definitely get where you're coming from on this topic. It honestly makes a lot of sense. Like, when I played for example, Sega Ages 2600 Complete Hack via CDRomance and used PCSX2 Nightly I got a really good experience outta it even though I don't have the discs,manual,or aethestics items.
Genuinely I believe emulation is preservation. Maybe for some games that have more unique schemes like Akari Warriors it may be hard to preserve elements of that without an accessory but I believe these things will be resolved by buying said accessories.
To a certain degree, me playing Contra 3 on an Xbox One controller it is still preserving that game experience even without not having the original cartridge or console it was made for.
And even there is digital software on emulators or Reshade to recreate certain CRT filters even though the monitor.
I do appreciate that you made the video and I feel like I get something to think about while playing games.
Yes game "piracy" and emulation are equal to preservation. Because of how crazy video game business practices and copyright laws are, there is no way games can be preserved into the future other than through drm-free digital backups. It's the only way and so far this is exactly how things have played out. Relying on original hardware will fail because the original hardware will fail or become scarce over time. Relying on retail discs will fail because they are tied to the original hardware and they're not going to escape disc rot, supply issues, or simple physical damage. Mass DRM-free digital copies that are accessed via "hacking" or emulation is the only viable answer.
Interesting thoughts, good video as per usual. I recently got a ps5 and have gotten back into buying physical games again. It’s nice to have something tangible to hold again.
Video games are naturally digital yes, but same can be said with any format that can be converted into digital media , thing is with physical release we get to have the game in our hands faster and it is much less hassle to keep them safe and even when online services are not there it is easier to put in a disc and play than go through isos and also disc are a physical format that is unique in itself
Well the same can't exactly be said for other analog based artforms because video games literally cannot exist in an analog format. There is no way to create an analog video game. The closest you could come is maybe printing out the game's source code or something ha, but even then if you preserve the game physically, you'd still need to enter that information back into a digital system in order to consume it. Film and music are kind of weird because they are analog, but they require special amplification tech (reels and records), but that tech doesn't involve any computer interpretation of the media. So if you think about it in a scale of analog-ness, printed media that you read and look at is the most analog, because the art and the media are one in the same. Then you have film and records in sort of a middle ground where the art is physically present on the media, but it requires analog amplification to consume. Then you have video games which are a purely digital format, because in order to be a video game in the first place, the process requires computer interpretation.
Games are not the first digital art form: their parent medium of software is. After all, software in general gets copyright protection, and anyone who's serious about programming considers certain examples of code to be beautiful.
Also, with regards to instruction manuals, I really wish there was some option for piracy that would get you PDF copies of the manuals as well as the game itself. Many, many old games are hopelessly opaque without the manual, so even if you do get a copy of the game, it's a huge headache figuring out how to play it.
Physical can be good when my digital storage is full (N Switch). It's also easier to pop in a cartridge and get to playing the game than having to download it first (ofc this rarely matters).
The data contained in books isn't analog, it's digital. A limited set of letters and other symbols, forming a code. Literally no difference in principle to software code.
While the preservation aspect is a moot point as you so eloquently put it, I do sympathize with those concerned with the ownership issue of physical vs digital.
It's easier to lose access to a digital account than a physical copy.
About books and comics. It depends on the paper quality. I hate thin paper when you can see next page artwork bleed through. For me unfortunately digital comics looks better (light areas and contrast) not to mention spread pages with zero gutter loss.
While I know what you are saying, and there is technical truth in what is being said, I like have the physical memeto of buying something that is generally quite expensive (£30+), I like that I can easily sell it on when I am done, and it will work (hopefully) many years after I first got it. It isn't that difficult to understand really.
The people that are crazy about the “preservation” thing, to me, is some kind of other issue. Like fear of loss or something.
“Every piece of art”, in this case video games, has never been preserved forever.
Does every random crappy game, because they were published and released, need to be “preserved”?
It’s crazy.
After the nightmare of Scott Pilgrim on digital store fronts, I make it a point to grab physical when I can to *know* it's available to enjoy whenever I want.
Having to coddle a 360 for years knowing that game could just vanish at any moment was ridiculous as emulation for the title was a problem.
It was on the cusp of becoming entirely vaporware despite being so beloved until they pushed out a new port and got the licensing issues sorted with all parties involved.
And tbh, knowing that anything you paid for access to can just be snatched up or hoarded away at any moment is pretty dooky.
See: WB and streaming recently.
I disagree whole heartedly.
Bought the Physical version of Samba De Amigo on Switch because it was $20 on Amazon. It came in a full-sized Switch Case and only the game card was inside. At this point they need to make an SD card plastic snap case for them and let stores stack them on metal hooks to save space.
I still like to import physical Japanese Shmups and Fighters from Playasia. Especially the M2 shooters! Heck Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou PS4 version is in route as I type. An all digital future is coming so we better get our collections together. I think Nintendo will be the last physical video game Company since they make money on the cartridges.
I don't like to collect plastic so I'm with you in what you are saying in this video Mark.
But there is one thing that it was better for videogames when physical supports were the only way: the game release was a complete release, a complete job. I mean, if there is something throwing me off about "modern" gaming is the constant release of half-made, half-tested, half-balanced games. That's why I stick playing older things and slowly playing new stuff few years later-
But when I bought MGS or RE2 I knew that it was the "real" deal, carefully crafted, complete game.
The advantage of [physical video game] over [digital video game] is the stripping away of account access rights. That's a massive advantage.
If your PS4 bites the dust and you get a replacement, you can simply install from the disc again with NO requirement to set up your PSN account on the new one. If you try to restore your digital PS4 game from a hard drive backup, the software built into the console will not let you restore it until it confirms that a PSN account has been set up on the system matching the same PSN account access right embedded into the digital backup.
That's the advantage. Now you can say emulation and hacking the firmware etc. That's not the point. You can always hack digital stuff. The point is there's definitely a tangible functional advantage in just normal use.
Great presentation and points. I was a pretty early adopter of emulation and though it was early stages, I was fucking around with it in 96 I believe. It blew me away to see some NES games and Sega System 16 arcade games running on my shitty pc, sometimes very slow or without sound, using a gravis PC pad which was shit, or the keyboard. By around 1999 I started selling all my retro games and consoles to embrace an emulation machine with video out, so I could play these on my CRT tv, stereo. My friend was also making controller adapters by soddering and that allowed me to use SNES controllers and similiar on the PC for those games as well. This was before launchbox and hyperspin interfaces, so it was basically folder surfing on a pixelated CRT to launch games. I had also modded my PS1 with a mod chip and burned Dreamcast games as well. By this point I really didnt regret selling those games too much. I got over that roadblock of not wanting to sell the physical games for nostalgia reasons. Later when PS2 was emulated to my standard as well as GC , I sold those as well, along with some other "newer" consoles. Emulation is an all consuming beast and eventually I will sell everything that is emulated up to my standard. Switch is already there. The ability to use any controller, graphics filters and save states for much more efficient practice are some of the big advantages over owning the games (forget storage, disc rot, maintenance).
Man, I definitely love your videos! You and I have very similar views on the gaming industry.
Everything you said here I realized myself back when I bought my first Switch, 6 years ago. Originally, I was dead-set on getting all my games in physical format, but very quickly saw the disadvantages of it. Fast forward to today, and I have 740+ games in my collection, only around 7 of them in physical format. Digital games rule, especially on the Switch, because Switch games are very lightweight, so I can have 20+ games downloaded at one time on a 256 GB sd card, and I don't have to keep switching cardtridges to go from one game to another. Also, imagine the physical space I'd need to have at home to store 740+ physical Switch games. It's absurd. Plus, I've also had my physical games damaged in the past. It's frustrating! Oh, and another great thing about Nintendo specifically is that they allow you to keep redownloading your purchased digital games, REGARDLESS of said games having been taken out of the Eshop for legal reasons, or the console's store service having been discontinued (like on the 3DS). So basically, at least in the case of Nintendo's consoles, going digital IS THE BEST WAY TO PRESERVE YOUR GAMES. A lot better than going physical.
You’re kinda wrong. You can’t duplicate originality and quality. Emulation can be laggy and not all devices are created equal. Thus making it physical that’s opened for updates is the best. It’s like arcade 1up being considered an arcade when it’s not… my DD1 arcade cab is truly a timepiece. Seeing it a mame cab would be a crime against humanity.
As long as corporations exist, there will never be any preservation or any freedom as a customer.
They own the shit you buy.
You don't own the shit you buy.
Piracy is a moral right.
If by freedom you mean get anything without paying a thing, then you do not deserve that freedom at once.
@@niemand7811 By freedom I mean owning what I buy.
That Baten Kaitos background music was a cool choice. That game soundtrack is really good.