Do you own a copy of your favorite movie? How about your top album? Any seasons of TV you particularly love? Of course you do. You own them because you want to be able to consume the things you enjoy. Seeing that film once in the theater wasn’t enough, you want to re-watch it over and over because it’s just that good.
I’m the same way with video games. I know Paper Mario like the back of my hand. I will re-play Metroid Prime until the very day I die. There are games that mean so much to me that I never want to be without them, in the same way that I don’t want to lose my copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark to the Future.
My first console was a Sega Genesis. A Nintendo 64 came into my life very shortly after that. A few years later, I got a Gamecube. Then a Wii. Now a Switch. I have a library of games on my shelf spanning both platforms and decades. However, I recently purchased another console: a restored Super Nintendo. Yes, I went back in time to purchase an old-school machine that’s been cleaned up. After all, this was the console, according to scholars of gaming history. I had only ever played ports of Super Mario World and Super Metroid. Now is my chance to learn some history of what came before me.
Here’s the problem: getting working games is hard. The big titles, Super Mario Kart and FZERO, I can get refurbished. I was able to boot those games up first try and, hey, they work great! Some games I was able to get, like A Link to the Past, weren’t refurbished, but they worked after turning the system on and off a few dozen times. Then there are other games, like Kirby’s Dreamland 3, that I can’t find on the internet for anything short of $150…more than I paid for the SNES itself. I haven’t quite rationalized pulling the trigger on those ones yet.
But hey, I have enough other games to tide me over! I had a lot of fun playing the racing games I purchased, though there isn’t much of a time commitment needed for Super Mario Kart. I’d beaten every track in the first night and, though short, it was very enjoyable. I’ll still boot it up if I have an hour to kill here or there, but it wasn’t a new project. No, that came in the form of A Link to the Past. I have an entire post devoted to that game in the pipeline, but long story short, I got several weeks out of the game before it crapped out on me.
If you don’t know, cartridge games from that generation have an internal battery that stores your save file. Once that battery dies your file is gone, so when you boot up the game next time around, it’s the equivalent of a factory reset. If you know how to solder, you can pop it open and put a fresh battery in, but it’s a hassle just to get the game working again.
I had played the most of A Link to the Past, with only two temples remaining before I finished the game, so I did get a pretty full experience. I have a decent understanding of what its “all about” and its place in the franchise’s history. That being said, I can’t help but feel let down that I lost my file. After all, it was my file. I can watch a YouTube walkthrough to get the same information, but it’s not me solving the puzzles.
I get it. I bought a piece of technology that was older than I am and expected it to work just fine. I can’t be mad that it didn’t work flawlessly. But I can be frustrated in a different way…I’m frustrated that this was the way I had to play the game.
In the years since, A Link to the Past was never re-released on a later console. I couldn’t buy The Legend of Zelda Classics Collection that was released on a disc for the Gamecube because…it doesn’t exist. There are no ports or collections or anything. There is no way for me to buy a hard copy of the game and play it here and now in 2019.
Yeah, your favorite film, Back to the Future, was on a VHS tape. You watched that thing so much the tape was almost worn out. But a few years later, you were able to buy it on DVD! Now you could watch the film AND all the wonderful bonus features that came with it! A few years later and, hey, it’s back! This time it’s been remastered for Blu-Ray in stunning HD! At this point you own three different copies of the film and you’re a-okay with that.
That option doesn’t exist for some retro games. I love the guys, but boy Nintendo can be really obdurate when it comes to re-releasing these things. A handful of games, like Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask have been ported to their next-in-line consoles, but by and large your favorite games from the cartridge era are stuck on cartridges.
Kind of.
Over the last year, Nintendo has been rolling out a digital service that’s offered with the Switch. For $20 a year, you get Nintendo Online, a service that allows you to play online with friends and back-up your save data to the cloud, should you drop your Switch and break it. Not a bad price, but the kicker is that it also comes with access to a huge library of NES and SNES games for FREE! What a bargain! It works just like Netflix; as long as you have a subscription, you can play these games. It’s a streaming service, basically, for your favorite retro games. What could go wrong?
A few months ago, Netflix announced that The Office and Friends were leaving their streaming services. In the time since, the internet has been apoplectic. Some threatening to cancel their service, others starting petitions, and most everyone generally mourning their ability to binge watch their favorite series. So you can imagine my frustration with these people, as I sit in my castle of physical media wondering why they can’t just buy the seasons on Blu-Ray.
When you stream something, you don’t possess it. It can go away at any minute, without warning, and you have no recourse. Ownership was never part of the agreement. So why, then, would I choose to rely on a “video game streaming” service when I hope to play games in perpetuity?
Because I have no other options, that’s why.
Listen, for $20 a year, Nintendo Online is a no-brainer; it’s worth it for the cloud backups alone. But subscription services in general aren’t built for people like me. They, by virtue of being young and volatile, are made for short term entertainment, not lifelong enjoyment. Yeah, I watch things on Netflix, but I still buy Blu-Rays of my favorite movies because I don’t want to the roll the dice with which films will be available and what time. Ownership is that guarantee that, hey, I can consume my favorite art whenever I want. Unfortunately, retro games just don’t make that guarantee available. My options are: lease a game until the service shuts down, or buy it and hope it magically works forever.
Well, I have a third option.
I could get a digital copy that's saved to my computer. It will be permanently there and no one can take it away from me. The technology will be far more stable than a cartridge and easier to transfer when the time comes to upgrade. Yes, this digital copy is the answer to all my problems, right? So what’s the holdup? Oh, just a little matter surrounding its legality.
The odds that you, dear reader, looked at that last statement and didn’t laugh are pretty low. This is the internet, dammit! It’s a lawless ocean full of pirates and plunderers! You’re all Robin Hoods, sharing copies of your favorite games that were liberated from the tight grasp of the greedy companies! Viva la revolucion!
Now, I’ve grown tired of corporate crocodile tears. If you want to pirate a copy of the newest Call of Duty game, you certainly won’t hear any complaints from me. I’ll push back if you emulate an indie title as those guys need the money to put food on the table, but by and large, you do you. I won’t protest.
But I want to buy games. If not for legitimacy, then for authenticity. I’m a collector at heart and I love my collection of games. Each one, for the most part, means something to me and owning that game makes it feel special. I don’t like the idea of having my favorite game reduced to a digital file floating around in a hard drive in my desk. It feels so soulless that way. I don’t want to do it.
But I will, if I have to.
Because at least, in that situation, it’ll still be mine. It won’t be taken from me just because a service decided to shut down. It won’t be left in this weird space of pseudo-access, where I can still play it but never own it. No, that game will still be mine for the rest of my life.
Up top, I stated that my first console was a Sega Genesis. My favorite game on that console was Sonic 3. My second favorite was Sonic and Knuckles, followed by Sonic 2, and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. I also had The Lion King and a few arcade classics, like Ms. Pac-Man and Frogger. Not a lot of games, but they were mine and I have very fond memories of them all.
My Genesis is gone. Either it broke or we sold it at a garage sale, not sure which. Maybe it’s still down in my parent’s basement somewhere, but I’d be surprised if that’s the case. I don’t mourn, however, for I can still play all of those games. I own the Sonic Mega Collection for Gamecube, which contains all of the above and then some. I own the Sega Genesis Classics for Switch, which contains many of those games plus a whole bunch that I’d never played before. The Lion King was just re-released for Switch, in a combo pack with Aladdin. And the last two, Frogger and Ms. Pac-Man, I can find anywhere.
Every one of the titles I played on that system was re-released for a later console. The developers made them available, and I purchased them. You know, like how commerce works! I didn’t steal from them because they made their products available. But I can’t buy A Link to the Past. I can stream it, but I can’t buy it. The game has not been made available, so I can’t purchase it.
Is this entitlement? If yes, is said entitlement because I’m a gamer or a millennial? Is this just one big first world problem and I should be happy over the fact that my biggest problem in life is how I can play my favorite video game? Is this entire sentiment I’m feeling ridiculous?
Let’s do an exercise and find out!
You saw Star Wars in theaters. You loved it! You own it on VHS, but your VHS copy is really fuzzy and not very clear. To boot, your VHS player is thirty years old and there are no companies making new VHS players OR VHS tapes anymore. DVDs don’t exist in this hypothetical. Right now, it’s just you and your VHS.
Now, Disney comes along and says you can watch an HD version of Star Wars if you sign up for their service! You can stream it to any device in your house! Say goodbye to your crappy VHS copy! No need to keep that clunky player anymore!
A few years pass and, shockingly, the streaming bubble bursts. Disney gives you a two month notice that Star Wars is going to go away. Those two months pass, and now the HD Star Wars is gone. Your VHS copy is gone, too. No new announcements are on the horizon. Directors are focused on new movies; no one is really bothering to spend the man hours on re-releasing the film. It’s all out of your hands now. You can’t watch Star Wars in any way. Unless, of course, you steal it.
What are you going to do?
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