Gadgetory

- As we go hurtling into the future of video games, a big debate that has come up a lot is this concept of an all-digital future, where there are no longer any physical copies of games being sold, but instead, everything is made available either by downloading it onto a hard drive, or, even more so, just streaming games straight-up. And there's a lot of people that are afraid of that future. They should be. (ethereal music) ♪ On the mark, get set, we're riding on the Internet ♪ ♪ Cyberspace, set free, hello virtual reality ♪ - To get an idea for why this can be a problem, let's go back in time, way back further than I think a lot of people realize digital games were actually even starting to happen. The mid-'90s, in Japan. (singing in foreign language) It was at this time that Nintendo partnered with a broadcasting company called Sento.GIGA to create an attachment for the Super Famicom called the Satellaview, an amazing piece of technology that was way ahead of its time, and just basically a very simple version of what we now see in a digital marketplace. (speaking in foreign language) - [Narrator] Satellaview! (upbeat music) - The Satellaview gave Super Famicom owners an interesting and different way of gaining access to a library of games that couldn't be played anywhere else. The only problem was, they couldn't be played anywhere else, so once Satellaview died, it took that library with it. The way the system worked was actually really interesting. So, the Satellaview itself was an attachment that went on the bottom of the Super Famicom, likely in a spot that was meant to be for the CD peripheral that never actually came out for the system, and involved a cartridge that would be loaded into the top and would have a memory card slot inside of it. The attachment on the bottom would act as a receiver for the Super Famicom to get broadcast signals from Sento.GIGA, and the cartridge inside of it, which has a very long name I cannot pronounce in Japanese. (techno music) (speaking in foreign language) When you play this game, it would actually act as an interactive menu for interacting with Sento.GIGA's service. So, you would actually be in a little town, you would make your own little avatar by picking whether you're a boy or girl, name yourself, and then you could go to different shops that would change based on when you were visiting the service, so depending on what week or what day it was, different games could be available to visit. When you visited these games, it would download that information, via the broadcast, on the memory card you had slotted. In fact, it even came with multiple memory cards, so you could download different titles to different ones, and even add your own little labels to keep track of what game was stored on which card. Now, the Satellaview had an interesting variety of games, because you had some titles that were completely original and unique to the library, you had other games that were side stories/remix remakes of very popular Nintendo titles from the Famicom and Super Famicom, and then another category that kind of crosses over with those other two, are the concept of SoundLink games. And a really good example of this is Zelda no Densetsu. This was a unique series of games released on the Satellaview that took elements from other popular Zelda games and had very similar look to Link to the Past, but featured people playing as their avatar from Satellaview instead of playing as Link. And the really crazy part about this was how SoundLink worked. So, you couldn't just play this like a regular game; you had to play it during a very specific time of day on a specific day, and while you're playing the game, you're going to, at the same time, receive an active live broadcast from a narrator that would give you tips or tricks about where you're supposed to go, what you're supposed to do, and even add some extra narration, extra layers to the story. It was a super intense concept for its time, and part of the shame of the Satellaview dying is that there's not really a way to recapture that at all, because while there are attempts from people to download the information from those memory cards and be able to re-access that game, there's no way to access the narration that accompanied it, because that was a separate signal actively airing from Sento.GIGA, so if you weren't playing at that exact time, well, you can't really play it the way it was meant to be. While there are a lot of Satellaview games that are sadly permanently dead, like Zelda no Densetsu, there are some games that thankfully were able to survive, now as ROMs that were dumped onto the internet and didn't require that aspect of SoundLink. I think a really cool example of this is Radical Dreamers, a game that is actually a sequel to the really popular Super Famicom game Chrono Trigger, and continued its own story. Now, this has never been made available any other way outside of that ROM dump. However, it did serve as the basis for what then became Chrono Cross on PlayStation. Getting a little off-track, something else that was really interesting about the Satellaview was how it not only precipitated this concept of digital downloadable games, but even the idea of online multiplayer, where there were some games that were made available that players would have to play at the same time and try to beat each other for high scores. There was no direct multiplayer, but it would keep track of how each person is doing, and it would log later, hey, this is they guy that did the best on this game that everyone was playing at the same time. The Satellaview is honestly one of my favorite weirder parts of Nintendo history that sadly didn't make its way over to the U.S., but it serves as an excellent example of the worst-case scenario of what an all-digital future could be, because if the thing hosting it in the first place stops existing, well then it's just all gone. (logo dings) Now, to be fair, the example of the Satellaview is an extreme one. The modern equivalent would be if the entire PlayStation Store went down forever, and you lost all the games, or the Microsoft Store, or Steam. But there are still examples in recent history where games can cease to exist for one reason or another, and there's actually a few ways this can happen. First, there's the issue of licensing. (ethereal music) - [Narrator] Licensing. - Back when you had games that were made using third-party licenses, you didn't really have to worry about it when it came to physical games, 'cause the assumption would be that, by the time the license runs out, well, they've already produced all the physical copies of that game they're going to do, and they're sold or gone or whatever. Issues completed. But with digital games, when a license goes away, that means that, technically, it can't even be distributed anymore, digitally or physically. One of the key examples of this is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Video Game, a side-scrolling beat-'em-up that was based on the original graphic novel and motion picture adaptation that was super fun and had an awesome soundtrack. The only problem is, it was also a licensing nightmare. See, the game didn't rely on having just a single license. Another example would be something like Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, which had a remake that also got taken down because, oh, they didn't have Ninja Turtles rights anymore. But with Scott Pilgrim, they had to worry about the rights from the original graphic novel, the rights to Universal Pictures, the rights to Anamanaguchi, who did the soundtrack, and Ubisoft, who developed the game. Once the licenses ran out, and the game just didn't perform well enough for Ubisoft to try and keep it going, well, it stopped existing. - Mother. - Anyone who didn't get a chance to buy the game while it was available digitally missed out on a chance to gain it, permanently. And even people who owned it before, if they had deleted it, have to now jump through additional hoops to try and download it, which, by the way, actually happened to me. I thought I still had it installed on my old 360, I was wrong, but found a way to do it by going to my download history and re-getting it, which was a bit of a pain, but I'm glad it's still there. And it's worth noting that, in situations like this, sometimes people wanna make it work. In fact, both the original author of the graphic novel and Anamanaguchi have expressed interest in making it happen again, but they also need Universal and Ubisoft to care so they could all actually come together and renew that contract, which clearly has not happened. And on that note, there are games that have been able to come back from this licensing issue, like Alan Wake. Alan Wake, when it was originally released, made use of copyrighted music that they had a license for, but once that license ran out, well, they weren't actually technically allowed to sell new copies of the game anymore, or have it available digitally. A year later, however, Microsoft worked with Remedy Entertainment, who had developed the game, to renegotiate that contract and be able to get the rights back, so the game was put back on digital storefronts, at least for PC. So, licensing can be a real mess, but is something that you can recover from. Something that's a bit more of an issue is if you run into lawsuits. (ethereal music) - [Narrator] Lawsuits. - And a perfect example of this is what happened to Silicon Knights. And this was a company that had gained some fame for their work on GameCube titles, like the Metal Gear Solid remake and Eternal Darkness, and later on, worked on titles for the 360, and two of them don't exist anymore, thanks to lawsuits. The short version of what happened is this. See, Silicon Knights was using an early version of Unreal Engine 3 to develop some of their games, specifically Too Human and X-Men: Destiny. And at the time, Unreal Engine 3 was still in its early phases, as it was being made for the first Gears of War. Well, at some point, Silicon Knights decided, you know what, this was way too much of a hassle to work with, this has been a big problem, we're gonna sue Epic Games because the engine they gave us doesn't work. Well, that didn't go great for them, because in response, Epic Games counter-sued them over the issue that, first off, you knew that going into using our software, and second off, we know you've been working with other companies with that software without our permission or license. So, they counter-sued for damages, and after winning said lawsuit, not only caused the digital versions of these games to get de-listed, but even demands that all unsold copies in retail be sent back for destruction. So, while these games still do exist with copies floating around, there's not nearly as many in circulation as there could've been, nor are they nearly as easy to access with digital games, thanks to that lawsuit, which, by the way, the amount of damages owed was so high that it caused Silicon Knights to go bankrupt, closing doors, and it's prevented us from ever getting an Eternal Darkness 2, which is really sad. Now, a third way that games can get de-listed digitally and cease to be is probably the most depressing way possible, because the company said so. (ethereal music) - [Narrator] Because the company said so. - Either because they wanna make the release some kind of special limited time thing, or purely out of spite. Now, thankfully, we have two great examples of both of these. So, in the case of making something special, a good example is The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition, released on Nintendo 3DS. If you were playing 3DS, there was a limited time you could download, for free, a version of Legend of Zelda: Four Swords, which featured redone and better visuals, and changed-up content. So, this was really cool deal for anyone that was playing their 3DS, but if you missed your chance to download the game, well, that's it, it's gone. Now, that hurts, but what hurts even more is probably one of the biggest examples of what can happen when a company de-lists a game, P.T. Back in 2014, Konami was working on a new Silent Hill game that would be led by Hideo Kojima, the guy that was in charge of the Metal Gear franchise, which was something a lot of people were super psyched about the idea for. And a way to hype up this potential new game was a playable teaser, which has now become of the most infamous examples of a very small-form but amazingly scary game. However, shortly before the launch of Metal Gear Solid 5, things went south between Konami and Kojima, causing him to be let go from the company and ceasing all production on his future works, Silent Hills included. And just to really rub salt in the wound about that happening, Konami removed P.T. from the PlayStation store. Removed it so much, that not only can you not download the game anymore, but if you had it before and deleted it, you can't re-download it. It's just gone forever. Now, since that has happened, there have been numerous fan attempts to recreate the experience, people making their own spinoffs or things based on the idea, but it's been really difficult to recapture what exactly that game nailed down so correctly. And despite the fact that it was basically a trailer, it's an experience that is gone, because Konami said so. What's really scary about the negative aspects of an all-digital future is the fact that it's, well, probably inevitable. There are some great arguments for why physical games should still exist, but they're mostly from people who are really into games and want that way of collecting or holding onto something, and it's not really the way the industry is moving anymore. As the years have passed since the digital first became available, numbers have flipped completely with more people buying digital copies versus physical, because it's just so much more convenient. You don't have to go to a store, you don't have to wait for something to ship for you, and if you wanna play a game at midnight, the moment that it's technically available to play, you can do that! And from the standpoint of the companies selling and making these games, it makes perfect sense. You don't have to spend any money on creating box art or designing a box for it, you don't have to ship copies out anywhere, you just make the game and make it available digitally and can produce as many copies as you want, because it's digital. And we're seeing moves towards this more and more as time has gone by. Microsoft just released an all-digital version of the Xbox One, which doesn't have a disk tray at all, and multiple companies are looking into the concept of streamable games, where instead of even buying a digital copy that's yours specifically, you can just play a game over a stream. No doubt, there are some amazing benefits to an all-digital future. That's why it's probably going to happen. It's just really scary to think about what we might lose.