The Preservation Paradox | Cold Take

In the red corner, standing at over 3 inches with a quiff, 2.4 pounds soaking wet (but don’t get it wet or it won’t ever work again), a monolith of gaming discontinued in 2002 whose reach is still felt to this day, the Nintendo 64. In the blue corner, a light footed contender born of the digital age, having no discernible weight or height, but virtually all the stamina available to endure forever, the My Nintendo Store.
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[@NYKevin100]

There should be a law: Either you give the consumer an irrevocable license, or you can't use words like "buy" or "purchase" and must conspicuously advertise the earliest date on which the license might be revoked. If they're forced to either sell it as a "lease," or change their ToS, I think a lot of these companies will choose the latter in practice.

[@RaxusXeronos]

I'd say these EULAs shouldn't be enforceable in court since terms only show up AFTER you've purchased and boot up a game in most cases. I've already bought the game, you can't just say I can't play it if I don't accept your terms, that should've come BEFORE purchase. Online play, fine. But if the only way to play at all is to get past a terms screen then, yeah terms should be up and front before I put money down on it.

[@anna-flora999]

The slight hiccup with that is that you usually don't buy the game from the same company that puts the EULA in.​@@RaxusXeronos

[@vincenttorrijos9680]

Australia has something of a law like that, but going the other way. IIRC, it basically views the purchase of a game as the purchasing of individual access to that thing instead of that specific version, so as long as you legally purchased the game in the past, things like torrenting and emulation are legally protected.

[@ResidentCynic]

it's worth mentioning that Steam in fact refers to your transactions for acquiring games as 'subscriptions' now rather than purchases

[@ExpandDong420]

They shouldn't be able to charge us 70 bucks and just take it away when they feel like

[@calebbraun9505]

My favorite response to game piracy was "how can you steal something you cannot own?"

[@jcace13]

If I go up to Nintendo headquaters, cash in hand, and ask to purchase something from their 3DS store and they say "No", what other choice do I have?

[@RorikH]

Remember kiddies, under the Copyright Law of the Sea, taking any game that has been scuttled or abandoned by its owners is legitimate salvage, not piracy.

[@donbionicle]

@@DANCERcow Bad analogy? Perhaps, and yet still the point stands. The shop is closed, the product discontinued, remaining stock packed away behind locked doors. And since we're talking digital-only space you can't even get some of this stuff second-hand.

[@TheRealMycanthrope]

​@@DANCERcowyes, that was their point. Work on your reading comprehension.

[@Ayeloo]

​@@DANCERcow The difference is that Mcdonalds is a company that sells consumer goods, meaning the end product is of one-time use, and the intellectual property behind the recipe is owned by the company and not for sale. This means their storefronts (restaurants) need the installations required to MAKE these end products (lean manufacturing). Nintendo, on the other hand, produce digital media, which can be replicated effortlessly, and can be sold at digital storefronts, which are all controlled remotely by Nintendo HQ. Purchasing this media should mean the end user has, from then on to perpetuity, access to this digital product in accordance to the EULA (and this access is being challenged by current business models). If Mcdonalds were to (completely arbitrarily) limit or exclude their products in certain regions, or close down storefronts all together, contacting their HQ through a customer support line WOULD be the reasonable course of action. But customers probably won't have to reverse-engineer Big Macs to get their fix, as they have other fastfood chains to choose from. Nintendo has horrible customer support and are draconian copyright moguls, meaning that the responsibility of conserving the products in their IP catalogue lies solely in the hands of end users, who can ALSO easily replicate the digital product, even if it violates the EULA.

[@Kattbirb]

If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't theft.

[@RaydeusMX]

Exactly.

[@calemr]

Sometimes, piracy provides a better product.

[@vailpcs4040]

Well... IP law might have something to say about that. Just because something isn't for sale, doesn't mean you can just take it. You copying another person's work without their consent or knowledge, even if they aren't selling it is unethical at best and stealing at worst. Didn't hbomberguy just do a whole video about this? When you buy a movie ticket, aren't you just paying for a temporary experience? If you copy and distribute an out-of-print media, don't the rights-holders still have a case? Many years ago, I put together a music collection of no-longer-available songs and gave them away for free to other fans of the artist. I was contacted by the artist indirectly, indicating that I was undermining a project they were working on to reissue the work and then by the rights-holder with a Cease and Desist. I had to stop what I was doing and did so gladly, but because no harm was intended and I never made an money, it was left at that with an agreement I'd not do that again. The work was since never re-released, but if the rights holders want to or NOT want to, that's not MY call. I see what you are trying to say, but just as no one can force you to buy something, you can't force someone to sell something. This is about you wanting something and not respecting what others want and it's selfish. I'd urge you to think about it a bit more from the perspective of creators.

[@vailpcs4040]

I'm not saying that its OK to rent us everything and for us to own nothing we pay for. But suggesting we address the issue via legislation and voting-with-our-wallets is a far cry from advocating theft.

[@OllyDee123]

Digital piracy has never been theft, it’s just copying.

[@TheNamesJER]

“Console wars are petty tribalism for people who don’t like regular sports” this is an amazing quote

[@PlebeianTheWise]

This is why I buy all my Second Wind episodes physically and at great personal expense.

[@Kumimono]

I just tape them to VHS like the pirate I am...

[@ytiralc]

Imagine if The Mona Lisa was made today and got got pulled by moneyheads. Imagine the weird shit you'd have to wade through to find a genuine copy that is accurate. We're all going to become digital archivists and preservers. It's not an if. Were already there.

[@FestatheJester]

@@ytiralc True that. I'm feeling the pain of searching youtube for comedy jems I discovered in high school and finding only the dust of "video removed." We are now collectors of digital media to preserve our digital history.

[@internet_introvert]

@@Kumimono Funny, cause that's actually legal so long as you don't try to sell your tapes later.

[@ashroskell]

But you don’t get to read the End User Agreement until AFTER you have already PAID for the game! And that is an unreasonable practice that could not withstand a legal challenge.

[@kungfuskull]

Ross Scott's video on this really needs, without hyperbole, a billion views. Make ALL WHOM WE CAN aware of this legal BS.

[@peytonmac1131]

Good luck getting a refund if you read the EUA and decide you don't like it.

[@AhuizotlXiuh]

@@kungfuskull steam is pretty good at giving refunds no questions asked with less than 2 hours of playtime

[@kungfuskull]

@@AhuizotlXiuh no: it also has to be within 2 weeks of original purchase. I know, I've both successfully and failed to get refunds in various time windows. And regardless: that's not the point???

[@Lex_Nocturna]

For real!! And this is only compounded by the fact that Sony has bullshit refund policy on digital purchases. The best analogy i can give rn is that your employer makes you sign a papper before you get your last check when you resign or let go which is against the law. The fact that game companies haven't been sued to oblivion is beyond me .

[@eldibs]

The "piracy is a service issue, not a price issue" thing is very true. I used to pay for Netflix (and I can still afford it), but I don't any more because streaming has gotten so bad in recent years. A hundred-thousand streaming apps to keep track of, they all want money, and they change their offerings all the time. No thanks. A Plex or Jellyfin server has a knowledge barrier to entry, but is more convenient once it's set up properly. Big companies consider ripping movies you paid for from the disc to be piracy, even though ethically it should be fine. If they had their way, all media consumption would be pay-per-view with ads. As a consumer, caring what they think is like a gazelle asking what a cheetah trhinks.

[@armedwombat6816]

Remember when dvds came with minutes-long unskippable anti-piracy ads? Meanwhile the pirated versions had those just cut out. Anyone who paid for the product, actually got a worse product.

[@nobodyinparticular9640]

​@@armedwombat6816also a reminder of the hypocrisy of the anti-piracy ad using music without permission, heh

[@Subject_Keter]

I never got that, you can make a niche if you open up abit cuz it would be a mountain compared to these game workshop level crooks, but nah, that requires drive and actually to be the best instead of a drone.

[@Wandergirl108]

It's like I've always said, "If you want me to pay fairly for your product, don't make it difficult for me to do so."

[@kenpachi1989]

@@armedwombat6816 no need to remember, it's just called Denuvo now.

[@K4RN4GE911]

"I'm not a thoroughly paranoid person, I'm a thorough, paranoid person." Put that on a t-shirt. To be real though, Ross Scott of Game Dungeon fame said it best: "If the right's owners wanted to make money on a game, they'd still be selling it. It pisses me off to no end when a company simply sits on an intellectual property and lets games they don't even care about die!"

[@Sayiism]

That's a good point but hosting all of these online market places costs a lot of money too. At a point those server costs will start costing a lot more then they are making from the actual games and they will be running a negative, which is bad for them. Especially for these older generations of consoles where development has stopped and people stop having a reason to go back to them.

[@K4RN4GE911]

@@Sayiism Easy fix: Treat games like intellectual trademark properties going into public domain and after twenty or more years of inactivity, make them either widely available or get the Hell out of the way and let the public treat them as if it were an endangered species.

[@BLZ231]

⁠@@Sayiismwhich would be a valid point if they made sure when they move on to newer consoles that all of the games you bought on the old console can be transferred to the new console, and that the vast majority of the games on the old store are available on the new store before shutting the old store down. But they don’t, so frankly fuck em. While Valve has their faults, Steam has ensured that I can keep all of my games every time I upgrade to a new PC. But this bare minimum courtesy does not apply on consoles, which is why I don’t buy consoles anymore. They can’t be trusted, and everything makes its way onto PC eventually one way or another, so there’s no benefit to buying a console when odds are good it will just be a useless brick within a decade.

[@OtakuNoShitpost]

@@Sayiism At this point if your new marketplace can't be on the same infrastructure as your old marketplace, that's a design failure

[@PhysicsGamer]

@@Sayiism If the product is literally not worth the cost of running a server to sell it, then maybe it's time to just put it in the public domain.

[@Dre0oq]

Man, "the cynic in me is laughing at the hopeful in me" is such a true feeling put to words.

[@hazukichanx408]

Hope is nice to have, but so few things are even fairly likely to work out that... well, hoping, often just sets you up for disappointment. What I do is, try to take joy in things that are here right now. People you care for. Stuff you enjoy. The weather today, the things you feel able to do, create, have fun with. But I don't generally go around thinking "Golly I sure hope all the politicians and CEOs stop being awful soon!" ...Better to think of ways to replace them with better alternatives.

[@aturchomicz821]

@@hazukichanx408 Your brain without the pink tide:

[@ctrl_x1770]

​@@hazukichanx408I don't think hoping is blind wide-eyed idealism, nor an opposite to logic or reasonable assumptions. Rather, it's the expression of an underlying desire. You don't feel hope to deny unfortunate truths, you use it as motivation to make that hope a reality.

[@mac4974]

"I'm not a thoroughly paranoid man but a thorough, paranoid man" is some of my favorite writing I've encountered from anyone at Second Wind, even from the before time.

[@RaydeusMX]

I've said it in other videos on the subject and I'll say it again. Regardless of legalese bs when you buy the game the button says Buy/Purchase. It doesn't say "Lease", it doesn't say "Rent", it doesn't say "Access for a limited arbitrary time", it says "Buy/Purchase". And if you need to find alternative means to keep enjoying the game/content/etc. that you paid for then so be it.

[@CWTyger]

​@AfutureV Be that as it may, they're right. You're being told up front you're purchasing a game, and then in the license agreement, you're being told "Oh, you're not actually purchasing this, even though we're leading you to believe you are!" It's deceptive at best and malicious at worst.

[@RaydeusMX]

@@AfutureV Simple common sense. Regardless of how much companies try to bend reality with lobbying and pointless walls of text to try scam the costumer everyone in the real world understands that when you buy/purchase something you own it until you choose to sell it or get rid of it.

[@hexpix]

​​@@AfutureVI think you know the difference between having it in license agreement and having a button saying it. it's psychological stuff, being marketable etc. if there was a button saying lease etc it would put inconvenience on those companies which may put at least some pressure on them to be more pro client. if you're just gonna say "just read the agreement" or something you're just being silly. it's not realistic to expect people to read them, some of those companies even make some jokes about reading eula (cyberpunk being the latest I remember). so why don't have it more visible and more clear to clients buying those games? idk this stuff about "it's people's fault they don't read user agreements etc." really feels like something teenage me would say to feel smart and superior

[@generic120]

@@AfutureV And there's a reason why rent/lease are not the same as buying you numbskull. You aren't buying a product from a movie theater or a barber, so why the hell are you trying to compare that to buying a video game. Nobody treats buying digital games as renting or leasing it because it's not presented as such, and it's intentionally buried in the EULA for a reason.

[@hexpix]

@@AfutureV @AfutureV for the last question. as I said. even you have to see the difference between short and effective communication such as "rent" or "buy" and how differently they'll be understood and make customer feel about what they're getting and an agreement which is supposed to be technical and mostly for legal stuff etc. I really don't understand you. just because someone is not reading eula it's not like they doesn't read ui elements? that's a big button with one word And yeah I thibk it's silly to expect people to read those rules cause it's been shown they don't do that. and i don't really fell bad for not doing that. it changes nothing. the reason why I'd be for changing buy to rent is because I think it would possibly impact the sales etc. and would communicate what's in agreement already but in one word

[@CADClicker]

"You were better off buying the blu-ray" might be the best advice here

[@boiledelephant]

​@XanthinZarda Cyberlink users know this pain. Honestly my most hated company, although Sony created the situation. Not enough people know about the 09 F9 controversy where Sony literally tried to sue people for putting the blu-ray encryption key (which is just a string of plaintext characters) online. Sony structured the entire Blu-Ray market such that companies dealing with anything BR related were eating costs and incentivised to try to keep tight fisted control of their products and platforms to recoup as much of the ongoing cost as possible.

[@hshgf3410]

"The cynic in me is laughing at the hopeful in me." Too fuckin true.

[@mmcmullen8543]

Second wind really needs an investigative type show, im not sure what but something anout research and "following clues". You cant just let this mans perfect detective noir voice go to waste.

[@MadMargaretGaming]

Maybe a partnership with Nerdfighter?

[@diegowushu]

@@MadMargaretGaming *Nerdslayer

[@octochan]

Get him a collab with Coffezilla, he's already got the noir vibes

[@neonblade8591]

this is that show

[@Praisethesunson]

I come for the noir voice and stay for the critique of the video game companies being evil.

[@Dzztzt]

They are being capitalists, so yeah evil by association.

[@EWIK_-hg4ln]

I think you misspelled that lol

[@ponponpatapon9670]

@@EWIK_-hg4ln ?????

[@Unknown-jt1jo]

@@EWIK_-hg4ln Nope. The sentence is spelled correctly.

[@GreyWolfLeaderTW]

It's rather ironic that you sound like a petty thief demonizing any producer of a good or service and who bellyaches when the owner of that good or services says, "We're not a charity. Pay to use or product or don't counterfeit it."

[@boxhead6177]

The Steam Refund policy is hard to put on a pedestal when hidden behind it is a better refund policy, the Australian region version (which has no "hours played" restriction). The policy only exists as a knee-jerk response by Valve after they were served notice of breaching Australian Consumer Law. They sold it to the rest of the world it was their solution to provide better service... but it was meant to appease the Australian court and get the case dismissed. That failed, resulted them losing the case, and having them add an Australian region version of the refund policy.

[@ArcaneAzmadi]

You know, I wasn't aware the 2 hour limit didn't apply to me and my nation. I need to keep that in mind next time a game lets me down. There's been more than one game on Steam I've wanted to refund but thought that I wasn't able to because I'd passed the 2 hour limit.

[@blunderingfool]

@@ArcaneAzmadi I imagine the "2 weeks from purchase" part remains in effect since it hasn't otherwise been mentioned.

[@Roccondil]

@@00101001000000110011 That's actually a practice people do with clothing, actually. They will, for example, purchase a fancy dress for an event about a week before the event, wear it, then attempt to return it within the following week despite the garment obviously looking worn. And it's happened often enough, or with expensive enough garments, that retailers have put additional policies in place that limit how a customer can return a garment, such as offering only store credit.

[@TheMemessiah]

It's nice to not have that restriction, but Steam's 2 hours or less and 2 weeks or less since purchase is still infinitely more fair than Nintendo, or Sony, or Ubisoft, or EA whose policies on the matter amount to "if you play the game at all, it's no longer refundable" at best, and "once you buy it, it's not our problem at all anymore" at worst.

[@johan13135]

@@00101001000000110011 EU returnable law only applies if you don't use the product, and/or break their tag. You put on your clothes and use them in the city? You've voided your right. Ofc people have learned how to perfectly fold and repair the tag again, but that's beside the point. And as far as I know about physical copies, they also had a breakable seal which if broken, would void your right to return it.

[@Stothehighest]

What's being described here already happened once, look at all of the Flash game and movies that were lost when it stopped being carried. At the end, there were multiple projects made to try to save Flash games, and then figure out to emulate them so people can still play them.

[@Rubberman202]

The Preservation Paradox is a serious problem. People can go on and on about insisting on getting physical copies of games, due to digital copies being subject to the wimps of corporate overlords who can just pluck the games away or make them inaccessible for whatever arbitrary reason, but physical copies have their own disadvantages most people don't talk about. If you intend to keep original physical copies for the sake of preservation, you better be prepared to fix and/or replace things that weren't meant to last in the long-term. Older Nintendo systems are surprisingly resilient in many ways, but they're not going to last forever, even under the best circumstances. It's cool of Frost to point this out, because it feels like something that goes under-discussed when it comes to talking about buying things physically or digitally.

[@1Raptor85]

thankfully patent law hasn't gone quite as bad as disney's meddling in copyright law so older consoles are fairly easy and cheap to fully repair or even reproduce new consoles after the 20 years expires, and there's plenty of clones available that can play the original cartridges. You get back to the SNES/Genesis era and before though the circuits were so simple they'll practically never die without extreme abuse, just clean them and every 30 years or so replace the batteries in cartridges that have a save function.

[@sebastianalhares]

Also, I'd rather risk my stuff breaking than trust some company who would sell my mother if they could get away with it.

[@thecaptain6520]

​@sebastianalhares *loses everything in a house fire* You: Well, at least it's not EA

[@sebastianalhares]

@@thecaptain6520 Yes. Exactly.

[@tabsterg]

Due diligence and all if I were presented with a _"rent license"_ instead of a _"buy product"_ button every time I'm about to spend $70 on a game I'd be delusional not to think it will be taken away at some point. It's deadass just decieving to use language that incinuates a purchase when the reality of the transaction is hidden in small print. Should be illegal to just be able to take someonse money while telling them right to their face they're *buying* a product if they're really not owning it after paying.

[@ann-marieellis8523]

@@DANCERcowthats exactly the point, you SHOULD own it, but you don't

[@kaijuultimax9407]

I think there's a valid point to be made that change will come only after people get burned. Sony's Discovery scandal is just an indicator of things to come in my opinion. Media companies like Discovery are only getting greedier with their licensing agreements and platform providers are struggling to shoulder that cost while still making a profit. Eventually one of these deals will fall through, a massive swath of content will be erased over night for users and that's when I think the average consumer is going to start demanding digital ownership rights. The average consumer right now believe it or not, doesn't believe that they don't own their digital goods, they truly don't. It's become clear to me that the only way to get them to realize this is for them to actually have their digital goods forcibly taken from them.

[@JamesTK]

Even though they did come to an agreement to extend the licence beyond December 31st, it still has an end date and no way to preserve off-platform

[@chrisosborn6401]

It will happen when Steam games get pulled. People have this mistaken assumption that their huge library that they've collected for years is safe indefinitely.

[@kaijuultimax9407]

@@chrisosborn6401 That's because even when games have been gone off sale, Valve has been committed to still allowing people to download the game in the vast majority of cases. When Alan Wake was removed from Steam's storefront for several years due to a licensing issues, I was still able to install and play the game at any point during that time. It's like Gabe keeps saying, piracy is a service issue.

[@NothingbutDust734]

Not really, people nowadays just gobble entertainment like there's no tomorrow. They won't give a damn, they'll just switch or pay more for something they've been getting as an extra for free. Unfortunate that the current generation and the succeeding ones will be led to this. They would no longer experience having games not able to run because it's literally worn out. Games will only be available yearly, don't concern yourselves about old games just play the new ones in the line-up. In our eyes you're consumer #3,288,289.

[@NothingbutDust734]

@@chrisosborn6401 Ahhhh, I remember my first paycheck legitimately buying games in the store. Only to then really read the eula. Trudging through reading that crap, when I found out that they have the right to remove games in my library. That's when I came back and boarded the ship.

[@gamelord12]

"That's not something the average consumer is considering before buying digital or physical." As you pointed out a few times, there's nothing stopping them from revoking a physical purchase either, if it's built to be online-only. But I do think enough people have been burned enough times that it caused the bottom to fall out of live service and now customers ARE considering this, which is why you see "dead game" threads on Steam forums mere days after a new game sees a par-for-the-course population decline after launch. Why put money into something that's going to disappear so soon? Personally, I no longer put time or money into games that disappear when the servers do.

[@ferinzz]

The thing I don't like to see is when people say that about single player games. Like no, the game is done and there for you to play without being distracted. If it looks good, play it and when you're done playing it it's over.

[@fathermahler1078]

"I'm not a thoroughly paranoid man but a thorough, paranoid man" incredible quote :D

[@xystem4701]

games preservation is a huge issue to me, and I hate how few people are even aware of it as a concept. Companies have made it so incredibly hard to keep these things around, and we are at serious risk of losing some incredible works of art forever

[@ann-marieellis8523]

Media presentation in general, and whether that's best done by digital or physical means, is something I've had on my mind for years now and never found a satisfactory answer to.

[@ZeeZedZee]

Interesting tidbit that connects the two eras here. Warner Bros Games released the PC build of Arkham Knight in 2012 knowing it was unoptimized and unplayable but they did it knowing consumers couldn’t do anything about it, only to have that backfire HILARIOUSLY when Steam implemented their refund policy just before that game’s release. Fast forward to today. Guess which studio was responsible for all the shows and movies going dark on the PlayStation store? Yup that’s right, Warner Bros.

[@EarlyBirm]

It really bugs me that people don't naturally see the problem with digital media. If I really love something I always pursue a hard copy.

[@TheSaltyGendo]

Most people don't like to think if they don't need to. That and most of them are also very ignorant.

[@Fina1Ragnarok]

I don't need hard copies. Physical disks get damaged too. And take up space(though some people like that). What we need are digital copies without DRM. Like GoG does. You can copy them as many times and to as many physical places as you like.

[@El-Burrito]

It's why you should get cracked copies. Physical media means having access to the potentially buggy unpatched release version only

[@TheMahayanist]

There's no problem with digital media.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

Non legal digital is fine though. The only way to really own something is to pirate it.

[@blunderingfool]

Everyone who owned the Infinity Blade trilogy (I had 1 & 2) lost all three games when Epic got pissy with Apple. We were all robbed with no compensation.

[@Ramsey276one]

No wonder I can't find it after remembering it from a magazine!

[@Nijht]

Losing Infinity Blade makes me pissed to this day. Thanks for re-opening that old wound.

[@ohareport]

In the UK when the BBC iPlayer stopped serving purchasable versions of tv shows, they refunded every penny i’d ever spent in that store. Just saying.

[@PotatoHermit]

6:42 This running trend of odd costumes... What is this man into? I'm on to you, Frost.

[@duomechtra1234]

This is why I LOVE GOG. Once you buy the game, you have the offline installers basically forever. Not to mention you can choose which patches you want in you game.

[@FearTheCaboose1337]

For now. putting all your eggs in that basket isn't really safer than anything else.

[@Kayoscape]

True, but GOG immediately allows you to put a duplicate egg into another basket. If GOG ever stops allowing you to download a purchased title (and you've been a diligent little digital squirrel) then you have a local, DRM-free file to fall back on. Hell, you can go ahead and make your own physical media from the installer if you want. It's yours.

[@FearTheCaboose1337]

@@Kayoscape correct me if I'm wrong, but that requires A, knowing how this works beforehand, and B, having already done it

[@Kayoscape]

I mean, technically, sure. But I’d have to ask how many PC gamers don’t know how to store an installer file for later use. Or did I misunderstand?

[@Texelion3Dprints]

I started downloading all my GoG games installers, but honestly that takes a LOT of space. And you never know if the harddrive won't be faulty after a few years, or if the software can even run on modern machines. Doesn't matter what we do, eventually media is lost to time.

[@Askanon]

This has become a growing concern of mine as we progress further and further into digital only. I have long understood that if you don't own a physical copy that access can be revoked at a moments notice, or without notice, and frankly that terrifies me. That I would spend my money on something that I don't actually get to "own" and eventually lose access to it. I suppose it goes hand in hand with investing time into an MMO or mobile game. You know that service will end someday but in that case I would assume it's about the experience and memories you make along the way and less about "owning" something but that's just me. That said I tip my hat to any of you out there, and you know who you are, that are working to preserve gaming history as best they can. Keep fighting the good fight guys. I'm behind you 100%

[@Racecarlock]

I'd honestly be more open to legality arguments regarding piracy if the whole arrangement wasn't so one sided. Not only can my game be taken from me at any time for any reason (and you just know a company is going to try taking games away from digital collections and then charging full price again because companies really can be that stupid), but quite often when it comes to emulated games, their emulators are worse and have less features, and they can just take games off whenever they want and you can't do shit. If corporations had done ANYTHING to show they were trustworthy within the past decade or so, maybe I wouldn't be so hard on them. But they want 70 dollar games, then they also want battle passes, then they also want microtransactions, then they want loot boxes, but loot boxes go too far, so they retreat back to battle passes and microtransactions. And THEN, after spending all of that money, which they clearly must not value as much as you do, they want to be able to take away your video game that you paid full price for for ANY reason. I mean, again, what's stopping them from releasing a remastered edition and then taking away your rights to play previous versions of the game without giving your money back or giving you a free copy of the remaster so you have to pay again? Nothing. Bad press, and that's about it. They treat us so terribly, and then they act shocked and offended when people pirate. All they see are wallets, and then get surprised when those wallets are attached to people with feelings.

[@Code7Unltd]

@@AfutureV >Nintendo does not do most of what you mentioned Wrong. Ask any competitive Smash Bros. player about their stance on Nintendo. You're likely to hear no end about their hostility towards Smash Bros. Melee competitions. Do I need to being up the internal Nintendo op "Belgian Waffle"?

[@Code7Unltd]

@@AfutureV You've mentioned nothing about "Operation Belgian Waffle". That was when Nintendo harassed and stalked a 26-year old Belgian man for breaking through security measures on Nintendo consoles. I don't play modern game consoles on the virtue that all the "major studios" threat the player like a thief, outside of Valve.

[@Code7Unltd]

@@AfutureV Steam may have DRM, but turned out to be so convenient for so many that they mostly wiped out PC game piracy. This is not bringing up how the Steam Deck is making Linux more viable for general use.

[@AstralDragn]

@@AfutureV Nintendo does other things. Nintendo is the apple of videogames to put it bluntly, super locked down and enforcing you to use their products in their walled garden. Not to forget that they've been extremely hostile to one of the best ways for consumers to learn about a game (videos on youtube) So they might not 'do' all that, but their barrier to entry is huge comparably. We complain about the 70 dollar games but they're not as bad as well, having to buy a console, then purchase a subscription for more space or whatever I recall hearing about for the switch, THEN we can buy the game we want, and just maybe if its one of their 'remastered' games we gotta pay another subscription. Look, I'll be frank, no, I don't know nintendo's business model, I don't own one of their consoles, I tried using one of the switch emulators ONCE and was frankly disappointed by their games, but claiming that they aren't doing more or less the same shit is too much. Lets also not forget nintendo is the most pirated because who do you think is gonna play those games? Nintendo is a oooold corporation, and who might be interested in their stuff has had a looong time to figure out where to get what they want from, and what they like as well, meanwhile they're also one of the most stuck in their ways companies as well.

[@AstralDragn]

@@AfutureV yes I am confident in saying that. The best of the bad is still bad. They are anti consumer same as Activision blizzard is, same as nearly every big publisher or console manufacturer. Get used to it. Do not put them on a pedestal just because they're the lesser evil.

[@bloomleaf8310]

The crappy thing about this on the piracy front is that there are people who probably would not of considered piracy who will be willing to do it as these stores shut down or move items away, and might find it worth pirating more media as a result.

[@harrylane4]

That’s a pretty cool thing IMO. piracy is cool

[@misha_stupidyttookmyname]

Yeah, the only way to watch some series or movies in english for me is illegal download. I don't care for a lot of them but if i buy a boxset of a series and the picture with all the "subtitles" is locked in german i don't feel guilty watching the downloaded version while the boxset gathers dust. Even buying it digitally in english is impossible for some of them. You are not in an english speaking country, take this inferior product where lipmovement isn't synchronised and the voices are all wrong.

[@itchylol742]

Can confirm, got into piracy because Steam DRM stopped me from playing a legal copy of Just Cause 2 in 2013 because the offline mode didn't work. Now i've pirated like 100 games and some tv shows, movies and music too

[@quisslequassle404]

@@AfutureV I think he's saying that being forced to pirate that one time showed him how pointless buying stuff digitally was in all the other situations too, not that steam forced him directly to pirate music. If steam can just take away what you've paid for, who says itunes and such won't do the same?

[@itchylol742]

@@quisslequassle404 This exactly. About a year ago I got banned from Spotify for using third party tools to (attempt to) download podcasts, but I had mp3 files of all the songs I liked. Every year I get reminded of why piracy is better than legally purchases, either from things that happen to services I use, or services other people use

[@roboknobthesnob]

What a great way to start the new year. Hearing the most soothing voice in the world

[@Eddafred]

I remember when I found out the Scott Pilgrim Vs The World Game got axed from the Online Stores in 2014, and the realization that the same could happen to ANY game I bought digitally. Which is why I no longer feel any guilt when I break out the Jolly Roger, especially when it comes to streaming services.

[@trainee5471]

Thank you Ross for this enlightneing episode! You were right about The Crew all along! Sorry, I mean Frost, not Ross.

[@El-Burrito]

Lmao! I was hoping Ross would do a new video about the Crew but I guess he's done it to death already

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Frosst

[@scalarmotion]

​@@bigjohnsbreakfastlog5819he did!

[@MrRagemanPL]

I think the worse thing than license revoking is the fact that every year a bunch of games have their servers shut down with no option for players to bring them back online. Playstation 3 games are basically unplayable online these days, Xbox 360 will probably follow sooner or later (if they can weasel their way out of Spencer's promise). I'll stick to my physical game releases anyway. At least when they stop allowing me to play them any more I'll have a nice box on my shelf.

[@roggenvollkornbread]

Spencer's comment was completely empty anyway. Spencer says they make their games in mind with preservation, but the quote continues that he believes the best platform for preservation is PC, since its not dependent of specific hardware. Console games are totally free game.

[@Jgallstar1]

When I was building my custom computer I was so limited in the case selection that was available because I specifically wanted a case that allowed for a CD drive. That was back in 2017 and I can only guess that there's even less CD drive case options now.

[@jeffs1571]

Nowadays you'll need to get a USB disc drive and just place it on top of the PC

[@butterscotchpanda]

Fractal Design Pop Air has room for two 5.25" drives in the front, behind a magnetic panel. You can also use that space for 3.5" or 2.5" drives if you have no interest in a disk drive, but if you care about those then the Pop Air has gorgeous looks, fantastic compatibility, a very reasonable price point, good build quality, pretty average cable management features (it's no North or Terra), excellent airflow, and mad expansion.

[@rairyu7528]

A new year, a new cold take. Good stuff.

[@denmark1226]

Good to see this place running again. I was wondering what I'd do without Second Wind to watch

[@RamblerMonkey]

They were just on holiday break homie 😂

[@denmark1226]

@@RamblerMonkey I know that, but I can still miss the content

[@CassidyBooks]

Like I said on the Discord, hearing about stuff like this makes it harder to just have fun in spite of all these problems with the gaming industry: not impossible, just harder.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

Which is why there's a large part of the gaming population that will actively try to shut down these discussions (and not just about video games either). No one wants to hear about how their blind consuming is actively making problems worse and degrading the experience for all.

[@CassidyBooks]

@@leadpaintchips9461 Exactly, yep

[@Captain.Mystic]

The solution, as always, is criticism. The games you enjoy as well as the games you hate. Applaud the best and condemn the worst, but play what you find enjoyable and understand when youre being taken advantage of. After all that, youre left with the games you enjoy and come back to the most even when they arent trying to bait you into doing so.

[@eggborg1225]

Here's to the first cold take of new year! 🥂

[@GeoToni13]

Here here! 🥂

[@El-Burrito]

Chin chin! 🥂

[@AstonishingRed]

This shift to digital benefits companies and companies ONLY. It’s baffling how many people defend it without really understanding the implications.

[@Wandergirl108]

Right? Who the heck things a digital, non-physical copy of something will last LONGER? That's like asking smoke to retain its shape!

[@BLZ231]

Eh, yes and no. There are methods that people can take to use the official digital distribution platforms, but then download a personal copy on their own devices. Yes it is unfortunate that things you paid for can just vanish from digital libraries, but there are ways around it. You do have to jump through a few more hoops to guarantee that you can keep what you buy, and that might be beyond the average consumer. But unfortunately that’s just the world we live in. And the reality is that digital is better at preserving things than physical media, because in theory data can last forever, but all of those physical cartridges and discs are going to stop working at some point. And while Valve has a lot of faults, I can still readily access and play every game I’ve ever bought on Steam. So really the problem isn’t digital, the problem is that the consoles and streaming services are being really shitty about it.

[@RandomPerson964]

Blatantly wrong. DRM only benefits companies. DRM-free digital is the objective best distribution method for virtually everyone. Really, the only major downside is the dependency on an internet connection. For initially downloading it, or for updates and connection to things like MMO servers. But let's say you have an offline video game, movie, song, etc., you've got the cheapest, most space efficient, and most durable form of storage. A reliable 1 terabyte SSD is cheap as hell. If you can tolerate a terribly slow 1TB HDD, even cheaper. If you mostly play small file size indie games like I do, you can fit a pretty big library in 1TB. If you play large file size triple A games, it may take a few more TB. Even if you're using ye olde 2.5 inch SSDs, that's hardly any space. Even less if you use M.2 or micro SD cards. I'd take that over the shelves full of cartridges and discs I had as a kid. Durability of digital storage highly depends on many factors, but the types we use these days tend to be quite durable. Even when components break, the data itself can usually be recovered. If you're serious about data preservation, a well-cared for redundant copy will make it last at least a lifetime. It would basically take a catastrophic event to lose the data in that scenario, and still really difficult to lose, even if you're less cautious. Physical media is like DRM with extra steps. Both prevent you from preserving your own data without special hardware or software to circumvent them. If you're purely relying on physical media, good luck. Discs suck ass. I've had more discs fail on me than anything else, and there's almost no recourse for fixing them. Cartridges are better. Their contacts can be cleaned and they're more water resistant than people give them credit for. And then you have to rely on a decreasing amount of hardware that can play them back. Disc drives in things like DVD players and disc consoles are especially susceptible to failure. Man, discs just fuckin' suck. Because of patent and copyright bullshit, and the expense of reverse engineering and manufacturing, clone hardware that can play your old physical media isn't going to happen soon, if ever. For digital, all it takes is one nerd to make an emulator and/or virtual machine to play old games. A modern computer can play games from the seventies this way, even though the cassettes and other hardware have probably mostly failed by now. You know who benefits from physical? Scalpers and resellers. People collecting physical media to either sell them for outrages prices, or just sit on them forever, never to be played. Nice market you've got there.

[@jeffs1571]

Because people don't want to admit that what they're doing for 5% more convenience may not be the best option, because then it would mean admitting that they aren't choosing the best option.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

I like GOG. They allow you to play games offline so as long as you have the game installed somewhere you can play it.

[@qwefg3]

I agree with the old steam statement. Piracy with those types of products tend to be more issues with distribution and receiving rather than attempts of theft. Just look at how many fan translations there are of older games that didn't get a proper translation... And thus required alternative access to obtain. Downloading Duelists of the Roses or perhaps Pokemon Trading Card Game 2nd edition may be considered an issue... But more people would argue that not having a means to get them without going to the high seas is the bigger issue. Then again... The chase for infinite money is always ruined by the chase for more infinite money.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

The issue with preservation is not just the great games we'll never be able to play anymore (though the fact Xenosaga isn't deem worth remastering is a sign of everything wrong with this industry), but also all the mid ones. Remembering only the greatest hit leads to a skewed version of our history. I was a huge adept of old JRPG back in the day, and I am glad that I got fan translation of not only Live a Live, but also Dual Orb 2, and a lot of more or less inspired clones that participated to the genre existing.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

@@AfutureV To your first point, that is just not true. There are countless examples (and even your statement has the qualifier of 'most' instead of 'all') of older games that are just not available. As to your second point, technology becomes outdated or are you really trying to argue that Super Mario Bros. for the NES, the original Halo, and BG 3 should have the same price point, or that Super Mario Bros. should cost _more_ if you adjust for inflation?

[@leadpaintchips9461]

@@AfutureV Except you're saying that every complaint ever is about price, when that's not true. There's examples right in these comments about people not having access to what they bought or what they want to go through legal channels for. It seems like you _are_ arguing for those games to be the same price, which is wild to me. I don't know of any other tech driven field (which video games are) that had the pace of advancement that video games has had, where things 20+ years ago have the same price point as the current generation does.

[@stevenneiman1554]

Something else which I honestly think is a big issue that's easy to overlook is how people aren't just cheated out of their purchases by these decisions, history is destroyed or allowed to be rewritten. Sure, I'll admit that I probably care more about these issues than most, but I think that the fact that you can't go out and try games from 30 years ago unless they were famous enough to be preserved is a tragedy and hurts the growth of the medium. For that reason, I've long been of the opinion that the condition for receiving the protection of copyright for a large commercial venture should be maintaining an archive, which, when the copyright expires, must be opened to the public for a minimum term, with no DRM. As a side benefit, this would also somewhat discourage the misuse of patch culture that we see today since it'll be a little more expensive for a company if there's 30 different released versions because they outsourced primary bug testing to the end users and had to patch it to hell and back.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

Yes, but that would make it prohibitively hard for solo developers to bring out a game. Because you just know the big companies are going to lobby to change the wording so it applies to all commercial ventures.

[@lpsp442]

You make a great point and an even greater suggestion Steven, but please for the love god learn to use commas, line breaks and full stops. People will notice what you have to say better when it isn't four enormous run-on sentences in a massive super-paragraph block. I want interesting people like you to flourish.

[@studentt6064]

Copyright is handled differently across countries though. And usually copyright is like what, 70 years of protection I believe in the EU. You bet that most companies will straightup go bankrupt in that time or just simply dissolved and who will be maintaining those archives then?

[@stevenneiman1554]

@@studentt6064 The idea is that they'd have to pay for the archives' upkeep for the open term up front, so if they go out of business it's already paid for, and the archive company can just start the free release period early. Of course, I also think copyrights should have the same term as patents, so ancient legacies would be much less of an issue.

[@bananasean5145]

Im so early this cold take is still warm.

[@3row4wy23]

I feel like I have to do a golf clap every time I finish an episode of Cold Take. The writing, the delivery, the humor, the VOICE? All fucking excellent.

[@Raida7]

"I'm not a thoroughly paranoid man but a thorough, paranoid man." great line Frost

[@bigmack70]

Emulation is the key. I still have my entire old N64 game library, for example, and can play it on my Steam Deck.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

Only until Steam decides to scuttle your Steam Deck. Or the publisher of your emulator (also Steam?) decides to make it online-required, and then goes bankrupt and the servers go down.

[@legoware]

​@@bramvanduijn8086 steam doesn't make emulators tho??? They're usually open source projects made by dedicated fans who believe in preservation of the console

[@ASFalcon13]

6:47 Gabe Newell spitting hard facts

[@kentonroush]

The idea that we don't own our games remains one of the stupidest, most transparently anti-consumer practices in the entire industry. It's subtle, relative to things like lootboxes, gacha, always-online requirements. Less damaging to people's lives, so it doesn't get talked about so much. But it's so much more *clear cut* how wrong it is, so much less defensible. It's even worse for physical games, since you've long since completed your purchase when you even reach the EULA. I bought a thing, paid for it, left the store, and get home only to find out that legally I didn't purchase jack squat unless I agree to a mountain of legalese? What? Insane. Imagine if any OTHER physical item you bought worked that way. You buy a table, take it home, set it up, and then when you try and put some food on it it threatens to evaporate unless you agree to never paint it. That is almost literally what video game EULAs are- And there ARE some strong legal arguments for why they shouldn't be enforceable, but... Well, legal issues are complicated, and they have the better lawyers. ...Additionally, as for the piracy question, I wanna bring up one extra thing Frost didn't. It's pretty true that pirates will preserve basically everything. And honestly, that's great! The stats on 90+% of old games not being accessible are only true if you ignore illegal means of acquisition, and those means bring the number shockingly close to 100%. But... A lot of people end the conversation there. Make no mistake, it is a win for preservation, it is great that corporations don't have the absolute ability to erase things from existence and there'll always be someone, somewhere, who made an unauthorized backup that cannot be taken from them. But none of that is sufficient. Games preservation isn't just ABOUT you, in your room, being able to locate and play some old GBA game from your childhood or the like- That's a part of it, sure. But games preservation is of great importance for academia in game design and history as well... And good luck getting a school to authorize a teacher to use pirated games in their lesson plans.

[@congoredjr]

In the USA, to sign a contract and have it be valid - legally binding, one must be 18 years of age. Are EULA's considered contracts? And if so, how can they be upheld in a court if the game user is under 18 at the time of accepting the EULA? Further more, how is a child supposed to understand what they are agreeing to when most lawyers even struggle with these EULA's?

[@Nayutune]

Generally EULA's put something along the lines of: You can only access the service if you are of . If you are under 18, you have to be supervised by a parent that can agree to these terms in order to access the service. If you are found to be under - they are fully within their right to suspend your account/stop providing the service.

[@congoredjr]

@@Nayutune ah ok. It would make sense that something along those lines would be in the EULA.

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

@@Nayutune What you're saying doesn't add up, if you need an adult to agree finding out you are a minor or were one doesn't change if there was/wasn't an adult with you. You can't be sure who was there when the EULA is presented and agreed to.

[@Nayutune]

@@Buglin_Burger7878 yes.. There is a flaw in this system - they can't confirm the exact identity of the person who is agreeing to the EULA in real-time. However I imagine there could be situations or a legal case scenarios where that may be brought up or figured out via some other means later on. The only thing they can do after the fact is terminate the access - since access itself is part of the EULA's agreement. Since a minor can't consent to the EULA - that means they can't legally consent to being provided with a service in the first place.

[@BackdoorBarnyard]

Are people allowed to change contracts after they've been signed? EULAs are constraints changing. Did you know you're waving your right to sue Microsoft for any reason whenever you sign into a Windows PC?

[@richardbp92]

This has been informative, I always thought about the convenience of digital but never thought about the caveats.

[@robertnope1993]

I’m definitely getting to old but I’ve hated digital purchases since the outset. Got burned early in the x360 days and was very much a Karen about it through 4-5 different supervisor levels over a movie I “bought” that they stopped supporting. I eventually was issued a credit to “buy” an additional movie. It’s all nonsense. Video games peaked a long time ago and it’s just now an ongoing online nightmare/headache. System-link multiplayer is as far as it should have gone.

[@boredandstoned13]

"I'm not a thoroughly paranoid man; I'm a thorough, paranoid man". Gold.

[@sup3rst0k3r]

Best line I've heard for a long long while. I'm not a thoroughly paranoid man. I'm a thorough, paranoid man.

[@ChristianNeihart]

We are living in hell.

[@robertnope1993]

Never had this kinda trouble with lan parties and split screen. Twisted Metal 2 and Goldeneye look horrendous, but are some of the best multiplayer memories my failing brain still has.

[@UltraInfernoJ]

Love the rebirth of everything second wind, keep up the great work!

[@TheRealDrSick]

Remember kids: If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing

[@georgewebb9074]

Happy new year to cold take

[@dragonoverlord2010]

A quote I heard recently. "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing."

[@sleepingking2821]

Appreciate you covering this topic. It's one I think of whenever I consider getting a console instead of sticking to only Steam.

[@NotSoMelancholy]

I think this generation is going to be hit the hardest. Games have gone “why bother with DRM when I can just add some justification to make it online only.” The Crew, Destiny, Darktide, now Forza. Or modern multiplayer games with inhouse matchmaking through the companies dedicated servers: Halo, CoD, Battlefield, Fortnite, Apex, R6 Games that should be perfectly playable solo, with local multiplayer or 3rd party hosting. Once the service plug is pulled they’re done for good. I can still player Left for Dead 2 alone or host my own server to play with friends because it wasn’t reliant on systems to push the latest premium cosmetics in their ingame store instead of DLC packs, some mandatory social hub or to push some meaningless daily task. Modern games don’t have that luxury and when this generation ends it’s gonna take a lot of big names with it.

[@yondie491]

we old folks were screaming about it for decades and no one listened, now were laughing

[@jeffs1571]

My only consolation in all of this is that I thoroughly do not care about any of those online-only games.

[@Romanticoutlaw]

games like that (and included is the insistence on ever-more-photorealistic graphics, which I was not willing to keep upgrading my machine to play) are a big push that had me swear off AAA games. The only new AAA game I've bought in probably four or five years was starfield, and that was a sobering reminder of why I won't be buying tes 6

[@elcheshireilustracion9396]

Frost starting the year with a hit. Amazing. Happy new year to y´all! And also, amazing gag with the cholo Switch.

[@jamesmurphy9577]

I really appreciate the range of Cold Take. Game design, business practices, legal conundrums, and cultural goings-on all united under the flag of a single smooth noir narrator, and not one without an opinion either. I think a lot of videos that try to tackle these topics present the sides of an argument or a problem as if they're equal, so as to preserve some notion of neutrality, and yours don't. But you don't usually take one side or the other either; you're identifying the good and the bad regardless of the source and synthesizing a new (and constructive, I'd say) opinion. Like the noir detectives whose genre you build upon, you're interested in sussing out the facts and the factors that contribute to or necessitate various gaming phenomena. It's all very reasoned, very measured, but not spineless and unopinionated. Cold Take is a net positive addition to gaming media, and I'm sure if your dialogues ever reach beyond gaming, your approach would be a worthwhile addition to those new spheres as well.

[@Dw7freak]

The big issue is that there's a precedent for the EULA not being enforcable. The same lawsuit that saw modding as legal. Galoob vs Nintendo 1992. The case was about copyright infringement and how Game Genie's cheats broke that. The court ruled in favor of Galoob in that the copy game was owned by the player and they could mess with it as they wanted. Because of this lawsuit, the court (at least in the USA) views copies of a game as owned by the consumer. If someone wanted to sue Discovery or Sony about the content being pulled, they could site this very lawsuit as a case of digital ownership being infringed upon.

[@Sweet_Zombie_Cheezuz]

Its no coincidence that as these digital services get closed, emulation is getting easier and more accessible for the masses. XBOX is the easiest console to run emulation on and that too is no coincidence.

[@GeneralNickles]

I dont play live service or multiplayer games for 2 reasons: 1. They just aren't my cup of tea. Never liked multiplayer on CoD or really anything. 2. This. Exactly this video. I don't want to spend countless hours grinding away at a game only to lose everything when they decide it's not profitable anymore. I've been a staunch defender of physical games ever since digital only started, and I've been laughed at for it more times than I can count. Recently, those people that laughed at me are starting to realize that I was right. People thought I was crazy for buying a PS5 with a disc drive, and I think its crazy that one without a disc drive even exists.

[@mrshmuga9]

I do the same thing, but with platform versions. I could technically buy the PS4 version and get the PS5 upgrade for “free”. Because sometimes the PS5 version costs $10 more. But I don’t, I still get the PS5 version. Why? Because when that store eventually goes offline, and if I deleted the upgrade file, now my disc only has the lower quality PS4 version on the disc (where there’s a difference). It would be a complete waste buying that console and all those games just to not even have the best version. You could argue “but you could save $10!” But I’m not buying games at $5 a piece, where the $10 would be more than I spent. I’m buying games when they’re at least $20-30. So I’d be wasting more money getting the PS4 versions at $20-30 than if I bought the PS5 version at $30-40. Out of my PS5 collection so far, only 2 are true exclusives, and 8 are cross-platform. Of course the quality between each versions varies, but why not get the best version for a minimal cost? Otherwise, what was the point of even getting it?

[@shardinhand1243]

awesome new second wind! missed the show, happy new year m8 cheers.

[@CCNeverender]

You have an AMAZING voice for this smoky noire style performance. Excellent work :)

[@enoknab]

When your retailers act like ninjas the consumers have a responsibility to become pirates.

[@Gamer3427]

To me, buying a game digitally has never been about preservation. It's always been about convenience. I prefer having a physical copy of a game, but when it's 3am and all the game stores are closed, or when I'm feeling lazy and don't want to go outside and hope the stores have a copy of what I want, digital is easy and right at hand. The idea of digital, (at least through official means), preserving the games longer has always been a bit laughable to me because I've always been aware of just how ephemeral any digital service is. The second the servers go down or the company hosting doesn't see enough profit in it, you lose everything aside from maybe what you have saved to your local storage. For PC players in particular, think about it this way: If Steam shut down right now, what do you actually own?

[@RedAlertGame]

If steam shut down I reckon pc people would literally never buy anything again. Piracy is just too easy.

[@the_bramble]

Long comment, but here we go: This was a persistent question that came up when I was district manager of a regional used game store in the Midwest for a few years: Do we have any obligation to catalog the quote “rare stuff” that comes through door (no, because we’re a store, not a museum. Not that I agree with that sentiment)? What happens in a decade or when the grinding wheel of time renders all the cartridge games unplayable or ruined through overuse. The 360, probably the most ubiquitous of the games and systems we got in, all but vanished after COVID. We couldn’t get rid of them before 2020, now, they rarely make an appearance. I could talk for hours on this. We once got the most complete Resident Evil collection I can account for in: Every game in NA, PAL, JPN versions, with each having a collector’s edition, steelbook, ect. The special edition RE7: Biohazard house, three PS2 chainsaw controllers. We bought it all and sold it off piecemeal. Sad stuff. As much as we love games and want to preserve them, the developers and companies making the games never intended for them to be preserved in the way we’d like them to be. They’re consumer products at the end of the day, and that’s they’re not made with the consideration that say a guitar might be. Hopefully that group (I can’t remember the name) that is trying to act as the definitive preservation organization can stay solvent for the long term.

[@thecaptain6520]

"They're consumer products at the end of the day" 200% THIS Video Games are not art. They are toys. They are meant to be bought and sold.

[@impotenceaura]

This series is so fucking good. Glad I found this channel.

[@Ratstail91]

It's depressing to think that all media is eventually ephemeral... it really comes down to how long we think we can make our monuments last.

[@Romanticoutlaw]

makes me imagine a post-apocalyptic society that rebuilt itself and came to the conclusion that humans just stopped valuing art on a grand scale since there's so little of it that survived

[@fare-5174]

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

[@nicklager1666]

Say what you want about the design and the bulkiness of the 64. But it had a place in my youth. The moments it gave me cant be replicated it doesnt mean i dont like and havent had moments with more recent Nintendo products but it was just something different back then. I mean i can still have fond memories of south park on N64 where i had to find turkeys to throw snowballs at in the notorious N64 fog. Heres hoping for a great 2024 for our guys on Second Wind.

[@Tolly7249]

So far the best tool for preservation I've found is the Anbernic.

[@deusexvesania1702]

First video of the new Year and it's another reminder that Romero's famous words finally came true, just a bit more broad. Happy new year though!

[@unavezms8167]

Frankly I'd have gladly bought a lot of stuff IF the license was irrevocable. As it stands the only way to own anything is to download it to your hard drive.

[@FubukiTheIcyKing]

If every game after an initial sales period went drm free and couldn't be revoked (aka what GOG offers) would be the ideal way.

[@Turnil321]

At least we do no longer have the red rings of death.

[@ChaosMoss]

Yo, I have that PC case and just now realized that is what those buttons are for! 🤯

[@BaelzWhaelz]

Piracy is morally acceptable with gaming these days.

[@Ramsey276one]

You mean *gAAAming*

[@Canadamus_Prime]

How many people, when games were sold purely on physical media, even knew there was an EULA? I mean for PC games it would splash the thing in front of you when you installed it, but for console games? I think it was printed in the back of the manual for everyone to ignore.

[@Nayutune]

to be fair back then it wasn't a big deal because what could even happen? Even if something was wrong in them - it would be unrealistic to spend resources going and taking copies from millions of people from different countries. Many didn't even have the internet access - so what's there to worry about. DRM's were a thing - but it only bothered people when it was an actual issue due to blue-screens or being a rootkit. But in the age of digital media where it takes no effort or resources to delete games out of someone's library, why wouldn't they want that control? .. and finally - way less people used to be on the forums or whatever, meaning: If that information/discussion did happen, nobody would have seen it.. and internally on forums everybody would probably be just called paranoid (look at current discussions towards anything privacy related)

[@Canadamus_Prime]

@@Nayutune Yeah he said as much in the video. I'm just saying, back in the day, I don't think many people even knew there was an EULA for physical releases on consoles.

[@thomaskuzma4360]

Always love these videos!

[@nhodgie]

"XBox will be easier to sue than Playstation or Nintendo" is such a cold line. It accurately sums up our dystopian trending world.

[@ainolonia8138]

Damn... the WRITING of this video is through the roof!

[@anna-flora999]

5:15 I'm not sure if I'm a good representative of the average consumer, but... Wasn't it always clear that a digital purchase can be disappeared? Even ignoring everything else, if you somehow lose your account, your purchases are gone

[@deathybrs]

That's called "moving the goalposts," along with a bit of a "strawman." The companies you make the purchases from are legally obligated to help you recover your account if you have given them money, if you let your account disappear, that's because you didn't try to recover it. It's not the same as Discovery deciding they want their own streaming service, and stealing your purchased content from you on your Playstation without giving you a refund. (They have since gone back on this stance, but not because they wanted to - because the users went completely and justifiably crazy about it.) Also, "legal" and "right" are rarely the same thing these days.

[@kaijuultimax9407]

There's a difference between losing something and having it taken away. If I lose my login credentials, that's on me and I can live with it fairly easily. If a company decides that they can arbitrarily decide whether or not I actually own something I paid my hard-earned money for, that's a complex issue pertaining to consumer law, property law and business ethics.

[@deathybrs]

@@kaijuultimax9407 I'm not sure business ethics is real, and further, not sure it ever was. The companies that (appear to) have done it, did it for marketing reasons. 🤣

[@kaijuultimax9407]

@@deathybrs Business ethics is as much a human construct as businesses themselves. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken seriously or that there is no merit to it. It's considered poor ethics to sell a product that can be destroyed/made void remotely and consumers should advocate against these types of practices whenever possible.

[@deathybrs]

@@kaijuultimax9407 I do not disagree with you. That said, we are not the customer any more, investors are, and so long as we continue to giver our money to these bad faith actors, we will continue to not be a consideration. Until the bad actions affect investments, nothing will change.

[@OllyDee123]

Well I can't see anyone deleting my 16bit ROM collection anytime soon. I worry for the newer generation of console gamers who in the future will try and dig up beloved games from their childhood, only to find there's no way to buy them and nobody bothered to preserved them. I'm lucky in that my childhood games are preserved and nobody can take those away from me.

[@deathybrs]

Did you know you can download every game ever made for the Commodore 64, almost 6,000 games, in a few hours? From internet archive? heheheheh

[@OllyDee123]

I'd imagine less than a few hours given the storage capacity of a tape.@@deathybrs

[@thecaptain6520]

​@deathybrs how many of those games are worth playing, do tell?

[@OllyDee123]

@@thecaptain6520 Probably around the 15-20% mark. I've made a folder and added the games I enjoyed. Haven't played all of them yet. I never had a SNES for example so I've barely scratched that particular surface. There's no rush, not going anywhere are they?

[@deathybrs]

@@thecaptain6520 I've personally lost my taste for 8 bit, for the most part, except the much later stuff, so my number would be a lot lower than Olly's... and signal-to-noise ratio is definitely a problem. For me, it's more the incredulity of it - what used to be my life can be condensed into a 1 or 2 hour download (my original estimate was off because I haven't tried doing this in quite a few years). 16-bit still tickles my fancy, and you can also get every game ever made for the Amiga, Genesis/MD, and SNES (also about 6000 games between them) in an afternoon. Your signal-to-noise ratio on that is going to be QUITE a bit better.

[@revlouch]

“Was shut down in *future date*” that’s forward thinking I like to see

[@greghuffman3061]

i recommend everyone start an archive with an external hd/usb stick (usb sticks are already up to 528gb in size) and make copies of roms/emulators. theres already complete collections available on torrenting sites and more. spread these copies to friends if you have anyone interested in preserving their favorite games. if anything, thisnis easier to do rn than prrserving the newest games, but we will get there.

[@huma474]

The current state of affairs will only be fixed if a new digital bill of consumer rights is passed. It needs to be legally mandated that if a company revokes the license for a title without good cause, or renders the title unable to be played, that they must either: a.) refund all moneies spent to the customer for the entire ownership period of the game, or b.) must provide the customer with a method for accessing the title external to the previous methods , like being able to download and setup their own servers if they want in the case of abandoned MP games. The current state of affairs will result in things becoming progressively worse for consumers over time. Nintendo is leading the charge as the most anti-consumer company because they want to effectively make all older systems e-waste at their whim.

[@Vendavalez]

On that last point, one hopes that Xbox doesn’t try their luck a few years from now and pu themselves and the industry through an OGL fiasco of their own like Hasbro did.

[@FO18L]

Happy New Year to all at Second Wind!

[@ChaoGuy2006]

I must admit, this is my first time seeing Cold Take- and hot damn I'm hooked!!

[@blursedoftimes]

engagement algorithm go brrrr

[@hourglass1988]

This was debated a lot within the WoW community back when blizz started hammering down on private legacy servers. The consumers argued they had a right to play the game they purchased AS they purchased it. Blizz laughed, pointed at the wall of fine print that pops up after every update and the court case was over in no time. Sure legally they dotted all their i's and crossed all their t's but it felt so wrong. Of course with hindsight we know that blizz knew these servers were a thing and let them be for years. They didn't care until they saw a financial opportunity. With their own popularity waning they wanted to recapture their glory days. The lawsuits all came to a head just a year before Blizz announced they were developing wow classic. A better more reliable service then servers ran out of hobbyist's basements sure but it was still not the original game. Similar sure, but a lot of those legacy warts had been smoothed over. That's better right? Maybe its just nostalgia talking but I think the warts were part of the character. Then again I jumped the WoW ship almost a decade ago and the promise of the old game coming back out didn't entice me back. So I guess they shouldn't care about my opinion on it, I'm not a paying customer.

[@NoOne-fe3gc]

Remember lads, the seas will always be there for you

[@DragonNexus]

My problem with believing Microsoft's attitude towards backwards compatability and preservation is I remember the reveal showcase for the Xbox One.

[@bladedicedragon]

i have to question though, how much of that 87% is just bad games like shovelware or "my first programming game"? i made a game once, i used game maker 64, it was crap, i wouldnt want it preserved. the highest peaks and the "so bad they good" games will be preserved, it is all the games that are midway down from the peak, and below, that will have to be looked at carefully to determine what stays and what doesn't. but that falls to preservation groups.

[@Dzztzt]

I don't know, sometimes someone else's "bad game" is someone else's treasure. By that logic any tribunal of gaming elites could decree a game be banished cause only a few liked it.

[@kaijuultimax9407]

There's an argument that anything is worth preserving because it may become retroactively important in the future. What may seem unimportant now could become important later. Many indie game creators are able to bring some spotlight to their more obscure titles by virtue of making a more popular game that causes fans to explore those past titles. Or how about little things like Resident Evil 1.5? Even with the restoration mod that turns it into a full-ish game, it's not much more than a novelty in the greater history of Resident Evil, but I still think it should be preserved all the same.

[@lynchstan9745]

I see your point, but I feel that hindsight perception of past mediocre titles elevates to something a little more considered merely than just being crap, as in their value comes from being a time capsule or snapshot of a particular form of "crap" from a different time. In a way, said titles serve a notable purpose in that context alone and have their own form relevancy in videogame history somewhat so by that token, I still feel principally that 87% games being unavailable on digital platforms is a point of valid criticism.