When the Nintendo switchch arrived, I decided it was the first console when I bought all my games electronically to improve its portability. Not having to wrap a bunch of cartridges was great, but I'm starting to look that way in the background EA has just been disclosed its iOS version of Tetris was disappearing in a few months – even to those who paid for the game. The hoarding discs and cartridges of my favorite games don't seem like such a bad idea.
If you missed this story earlier this week, last year Tetris Company signed a multi-year special agreement with developer N3TWORK to produce a series of mobile games based on the popular block-stacking puzzle game. As a direct result of that agreement, Electronic Arts, which had been licensed by Tetris for collecting mobile games that started in 2011, will not remove those titles from the iTunes App Store, and will make those games less appealing on devices such as the iPhone and iPad after April 21 .
It's not uncommon for developers to discard games after release. In this case an EA license for Tetris and it's time consuming, but maintaining and updating games costs time and money, and often it doesn't make sense for a financial firm to impose multiple resources on a topic once sales have slowed down, or when succession is about to hit something. the market But unless the game relies entirely on a remote server for it to function, nothing prevents you from enjoying the game or years after the company has moved away assuming you already have the right software and hardware needed to play it.
There's always the possibility that the old game isn't compatible with a major OS update — there's every game folder on my iPhone that needs an update before it works on the latest version of iOS — but to make that iPhone update my decision, I knew the results. Related to the EA incident is that in the end it was a couple that made the decision to make their own iOS models Tetris unseen after April 21. And thanks to the trash that was nailed to the EA's terms of service, none of them released a few pieces of the game that said nothing about the issue. It was a wonderful reminder that you it is not uncommon to own digital goods; instead you only rent this item – be it movies, music, books, or video games – until the company decides to return its digital assets.
There is not much you can do in situations like this. A good print that you often overlook but admits while quickly clicking on the online job registration process and app stores gives companies all the legal freedom they need to do things like this. It's something I've seen over the years, and it encouraged me to start collecting copies of my favorite video games from 30 years ago to make sure I didn't lose access to them.
My amateur efforts to archive video games take a two-pronged approach. If possible, putting my hands on the game disc or first cartridge is the most satisfying pursuit. Searching for yourself can be as fun as finding the game I need, whether it's listed on eBay or Craigslist, or finding a video game store that I can already clean up.
That being said, there are some drawbacks to this approach, and not just the loss of a lot of shelf space in old cartridge bags. You will often need to unlock the game and replace the dead long battery used to save progress and scores. It also requires you to keep an active collection of ancient gaming cartridges, which can be very expensive as they are hard to find. But thanks to companies like An analogue and Hyperkin holding back old pieces such as SNES, Game Boy, again Sega Genesis, enjoying real games on modern TVs has become much easier in recent years. No matter what happens to Nintendo, I know I'll be able to play similar classics Super Mario World and Goldeneye for decades to come.
Another option I archive for video games (would I like to mention it?) Is ROM: Free digital copies of DRM for games that can be played using software or hardware and can be safely stored on the drives without their risk disappearing one day. (Pretending to throw up accidentally means backup drive.) Getting ROMs online is a lot easier than going to a random store to buy a small plastic cartridge, but that approach has long been a legal gray area. To the best of my knowledge nobody is having a hard time downloading a copy of the NES Fun Bike
Another long side of the way for ROMs is that emulators can really get close to standardizing console hardware, but the gameplay experience is always wrong. Often you have to deal with the reduced frame, the downsides, the visual art, and the weird sounds that always remind you of the mistrust that comes with imitation. In the last few years there has been a significant improvement in terms of third-party gaming companies – programs like PocketGo and in the future Analogue Pocket remember – and they will improve further as mobile managers continue to be cheaper and more powerful.
Fortunately for me most of the games I want to keep are from the long haul from store shelves. But I can see that my operating system does not happen in games on modern devices that require hours of software update as soon as you slide the game disc into the console. You can hold on to this physical copy Red Redemption 2 as long as you want, but if it's based on the validation of a random server that has been offline for 20 years, having a plastic disc won't do you any good. With Nintendo Switch at least, I'll stick to carrots from here on as far as possible.
