Future Problems
Recently, a lot of problems have arisen regarding game preservation. Sony and Microsoft essentially have kill switches built into their systems to prevent games from being played if certain conditions aren't met such as a dead CMOS battery or being unable to connect to servers to verify a game's legitimacy. In earlier 2021, these problems were shown to be a major problem after Sony announced that they were going to shut down the PS3 and Vita/PSP stores. Although Sony decided to not shut down the stores in the end, the hardware issues still remain and eventually they will shut down these stores and likely even prevent downloads of already purchased games sometime after that. Even the PS4 and PS5 have the CMOS issue and an even worse one at that as you can't even play physical games with a dead CMOS on those systems without being connected to the internet. One of Sony's main reasons for this is so trophies are harder to cheat but even as a trophy hunter, instead of denying access to games, the system should just disable trophy earning.
One of the biggest problems facing game preservation is the fact that you need the right hardware to run games. The systems that run games usually only have a commercial lifespan of about 10 years before the companies that make them abandon them entirely and it's up to everyone to make sure these systems don't die and keep them going for however many decades. Most other forms of media don't have this problem, you can play any DVD movie on any DVD player and play both Blu-Ray movies and DVDs on any Blu-Ray player. Any CD player will play any music CDs. Not to mention movies and music can easily be transferred to almost any digital format and still work fine. Books can be written on anything and have the same liberty of digital preservation. Video games don't share this trait as a form of media which is why preserving old games and consoles is so important. The best we can do with games other than just making sure they don't break is use emulation which will have varying results of quality and requirements depending on the game and system being emulated. Emulation is really the only guarantee of game preservation we have. Another problem we face with preserving games is the fact that people just don't care. The general public will gladly make sure that culturally iconic movies and songs are preserved but don't care about games no matter how important they are in regards of cultural importance.
Obtain Physical Games
One of the biggest problems many people have with the future of video games is the fact that digital only games are killing off physical games. If we want to preserve games easier, we need there to be physical copies. If a game is only available digitally or the disc doesn't actually contain the entire game, then the preservation of that game is dependent on the servers of whatever company to stay up so the content of the game can be downloaded and even then, some games/systems require a connection to a server even after the game has been downloaded so even having all the game data won't matter anyways. An important thing to do to support the preservation of games is to buy games physically. I don't care how convenient digital games are, you don't own your digital games and are completely dependent on a company's servers to access your digital games especially on console. And regarding console, despite physical games requiring manufacturing costs and whatever fees associated with store stocking, they are almost always cheaper than digital games, most likely due to the fact that physical stores actually have competition and benefit people buying. This may not be the case with older games but with current/last gen games, this is almost always the case. For me, the only time I should buy a game digitally is if it is significantly cheaper to buy it digitally than physically or it is only available digitally.
The existence and advancement of game streaming and subscription services is one of the main things killing off physical games and therefore game preservation. Companies are making these services to be a great deal to you because in the future, this sort of business model is great for them but will be disastrous to you when you want to play old games that were only available digitally through one of these services but the service is no longer available. This is why despite how good of a deal the Xbox Game Pass might be in the present when compared to other services, in the future when this is possibly the normal way to access games, this sort of business model will be horrible for us as companies will have full control over the access to our games. Another problem is that Sony and Microsoft are pushing out discless systems that are cheaper to encourage people to fall into the digital only trap. Even if you don't care about any of this and just care about saving money, the discless systems will still cost you more in the long-term as buying games physically on sale or pre-owned is almost always cheaper than getting games digitally even when the digital game is on sale. Eventually the money you save buying physically will be greater than the money you would save buying a digital only system. Buying systems with disc drives and using physical games tells these companies to keep the physical format alive on their platform longer. We need to keep physical games alive for as long as possible so we don't fall victim to the absolute control of these companies over our games.
Post-Publication Notes
- It appears Sony has addressed the CMOS issue in the PS4 and no longer requires an internet connection or functioning CMOS to play games.
Written 2021-6-26 Published 2021-8-1 Updated 2021-10-1