Comments on: Will We Still be Able to Play our Games in 20 Years?

By: Schoenberg

Schoenberg — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:27:54 +0000

Hey, I just wanted to drop a quick note to say I like your blog a lot. It seems like you post about fun stuff…more than I can say for many of the boring blogs I see out there! Dug this post a lot, Thanks.

By: Game Retail Store » This Week In Video Game Criticism: Affectation, Accessibility, Waggle

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:21:08 +0000

[...] the intriguingly named Wing Damage blog, Jesse “Main Finger” Gregory asks ‘Will We Still be Able to Play our Games in 20 Years?‘ Another pertinent question might equally be will we even want to play these games in 20 [...]

By: Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory

Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:50:17 +0000

In case you’re coming here for the first time thinking to yourself “this article sounds familiar…”, that might be because it was re-published (with permission) on Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5593081/will-we-still-be-able-to-play-our-games-in-20-years

By: Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory

Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:08:06 +0000

Wow, apparently Demon’s Souls online functionality could potentially shut down as early as 2011. I was not aware of this, but it’s stuff like this that made me write this article.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/21/atlus-to-continue-demons-souls-servers-until-2011/

By: ecco6t9

ecco6t9 — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:32:46 +0000

See people who want to stick it to Gamestop by moving to DD only aren’t thinking about this.

I’m pretty sure in Futurama years a Game Boy and Tetris still work.

By: J.J.

J.J. — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:23:28 +0000

Rock Band is going to be a usueless husk in the future. Most of the game is DLC, and if your licenses are screwed up because of owning new hardware or whatever, there is going to be quite a bit of gameplay that will be lost to memory. And hard drives only last for so long, its not like replacing a battery in your old Zelda cart. In probably 15-20 years, when it’s toast, everything you paid for is gone.

By: Vim

Vim — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:29:40 +0000

When the next generation comes around, Microsoft and Sony will be herding consumers to their new platforms with little regard for what had gone before. Look at the shambolic backwards compatability of original Xbox games, or Sony taking out the hardware PS2 emulation. Granted you can pick up the original consoles if you have a desire to play those games but next time this won’t be so simple.

Publishers know consumers will re-buy old games digitally, and generally want to move everything online. To them it makes perfect bsuiness sense, yet they show very little concern about what might happen to these games when the DRM servers are shut down – it’s all a very short-term attitude.

They love online too as it extends the life of a game and they can continue to make money from it via DLC. Great until the servers get shut down or people move onto something else, rendering the online component of games useless – but that’s another rant.

Meanwhile we can still play C64 games from 1985, and as long as the disc isn’t borked will be able to continue to do so.

Even great mountains crumble to dust eventually.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:26:01 +0000

I’ve noticed the same issue, it bothers me that so much of our game content is online only. Take Monster Hunter Tri as a recent example, the latter half of the game is only available online, and once the servers are switched off (which will only be in a matter of years) That content will be gone forever.

So in that regard its a shame that more games don’t allow you to play multiplayer or other online only content without a connection. Split screen options and the like are slowly and quietly being wound down or removed altogether, our games collections aren’t going to be nearly as complete in X years time.