I wanna talk about this because it excites me and I want to spread awareness of Steam alternatives (lest anyone mistake me for a fanboy). Some of you may have heard of sites like Good Old Games and Humble Bundle when they were first getting started. Old PC games in digital format for cheap with no strings attached? Sounds great! Patronage system that saves most people a couple hundred bucks and benefits charity? What's not to like! Did you know GOG sells new games too? Did you know Humble Bundle has a store, and is dedicated to a multiplatform offerings, including DRM-free copies of any game that has them? Now, this is the part where I stop sounding like an advert. Concept of ownership is a subject that has been touched on a few times in digital history, mostly in other media; arguably, it didn't seriously enter into gamers' minds until Microsoft's many stumbling blocks with the Xbox One. But it is a question that has been raised about Steam, the until-recently unchallenged PC gaming titan; with the threat of losing all your games for being reported in one looming large over its consumer base, people began to wonder: Is it worth paying for something that can be taken away so easily? Now, I have a feeling we could go on for at least five pages debating that one question. But more to the point, I doubt anyone will disagree that more freedom of choice doesn't go amiss. GOG and Humble seized on this unintentionally at first, I think, but then it just sort of clicked in everyone's heads: We don't have to go through publishers anymore. We have the internet! We can sell something all on our own, spread the word virally, and potentially make a killing at that. This brings us to today, where digital ownership is not just a gimmick that keeps a few fringe webstores afloat—It is a real and common choice when buying a game. Not as common on the triple-A side of things, but they also don't make up the same vast majority of the market they used to. I think I've bought somewhere around 20 games in the past two months, and of that only a fraction of them weren't available for download directly to my PC. As long as I keep them backed up and take good care of my computer, I'll always have those games; nobody can take them away by right or contract. That's exciting if you ask me. So what do y'all think? Is it the best thing to happen to gaming? Is it a temporary paradise, soon to be quashed by our console/Valve overlords? Is there some other downside to all of this?
I mean, worth of a product is up to the buyer. Listen, I'm not going to say I dislike buying games digitally. I like sales, I like convenience, and I buy games on XBLA and eShop all the time. What I'm going to say is that digital is a nice tool in the tool box, but all digital would actually harm this industry. This is an industry where the best source of preservation of a product is piracy. Square-Enix lost the source code to Kingdom Hearts. SEGA never bother to save the source code for a bunch of Saturn games- leaving them incapable of reproducing the games on any market. You'll never see Panzer Dragoon HD. This is also an industry where concept of ownership is... flakey. On one end, we see people rightfully revolting against the original Xbox One because they want to own their games. On the other hand, we have people banned from Steam because they spoiled Portal 2 and losing over $2000 worth of games. We have lawyers that work for publishers telling us that we can't post footage of our games because they own it, even though we bought it. To me, putting so much control in the hands of people who aren't consumers is a problem that could escalate. I feel digital loses all meaning in ten years after the console's launch when the servers go down and the content that was exclusive to a digital market place is lost. In a few years, the only way to play 'Splosion Man on an Xbox 360 is to pirate it. This is a problem that hasn't existed and yet we're going to lose so much. Games with online only achievements will be impossible to complete. Great works from studios without a retail publisher will be lost. When I can, I buy games physically. I'll have those games until the discs rot and even after if I make my own reproductions. No one can say I don't own these games. No one can ban me from some service I don't even care about in the long run and take away my games. What's this mean about studios without publishers? Well, unfortunately they're limited to needing digital distribution. This is why it's a tool, and a good tool. I wish there was a compromise, but there isn't. I mean, I see studios create their own discs and carts but not every indie on XBLIG can afford this. What I'm saying is, right now we have a good balance but we require more preservation and companies like GameStop or Amazon controlling the digital market rather than people who don't care about the consumer and force monitoring and what they consider proper behavior for their service. Still, can't say I don't prefer the old days when it comes to this sort of thing...
