Why Owning a Game Doesn’t Mean You Can Still Play It

In some closet somewhere is a PS3 console that hasn’t been plugged into the wall since God knows when, containing a digital collection of games that seemed permanent when you bought them. Now, years later, plug it in, and suddenly a good portion of that collection can no longer be used because the shop that sold the game closed its doors, the license to use it expired, and what was once a purchase has become a rental without your consent. This isn’t some far-fetched scenario. It’s the way things normally go.

From Digital Game Libraries to Online Casinos

The frustration is not necessarily due to losing one game; rather, it’s more the recognition that “own” was always an illusion. The boxed disc, for all its other faults, will still work in the right console even if the company is long since defunct. A digital purchase needs to be functional through a functioning storefront, a valid license, and working servers – things the consumer has no control over once it is purchased.

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Nobody Warned You About the Delisting

The scope of the issue only became apparent after someone quantitatively investigated the phenomenon. A study conducted by the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network in 2023 found that, of a random sample of 1,500 games released between 1960 and 2009 and sourced from an extensive industry database, 87% were commercially unavailable in any form. Only 13% of video game history can be purchased legally right now, and not a single decade managed to achieve an availability rate of even 20%. For the vast majority of classic video games, the only options are searching for old original equipment, visiting a limited number of libraries that keep archives of legally owned materials, or pirating – which seems like an extremely uncomfortable choice for products that were sold at retail value upon release.

However, the goal of the researchers behind the study was not to embarrass anyone, but to advocate for the expansion of exemptions under copyright law which would enable game archives and libraries to preserve and distribute video games in the same manner that they can preserve and distribute books, films, and music. Video games are presently not included in these exemptions, and that is one reason for the rapid erosion of preservation for the medium compared to any other media.

The Shutdown Pattern Extends Well Past Old Consoles

None of this applies to games that haven’t been considered in 15 years. Live services, always-online features, and anything that relies on a publisher’s servers are vulnerable in the same way, just on a shorter timeline. Within a few years of a game’s release, people lose access to content they bought relatively recently rather than long ago. Cosmetic upgrades, season passes, and real-life currency used in-game all disappear the moment the servers go offline. All that’s left is an empty disc or digital file.

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The Archive Trying to Catch What’s Disappearing

A national audiovisual archive offers a useful preview of what organized preservation actually looks like once an institution takes it seriously. Its television archive alone contains about 600,000 pieces of media, most of which are stored on outdated formats, such as tapes and films of obsolete gauges and equipment that will become unreadable if left alone for much longer. Without intervention, it has been estimated that more than 95 percent of this material will be irretrievably lost within the next ten years, a figure not far from the 87 percent estimated for classic video games.

While the two types of materials face different legal and technical hurdles, the lesson learned applies directly: Media does not last simply because it happens to do so, and “somebody somewhere will definitely save this one day” is not a preservation strategy. The difference between collections that survive and those that dissolve in silence lies in a deliberate preservation effort.

Reading a Storefront Like It’s a Contract, Because It Is One

Those collectors who have gone through the experience of losing a library at least once start developing similar sets of reflexes, and much of it is about being as discerning with a checkout page as one would be with a lease.

• Always buy the physical version when there is one, not falling back on whatever version happens to be fastest.
• Do not rely on keeping older hardware in good working condition, but rather ensure that all of its backward compatibility gets covered.
• Backup save games and downloadable content from the cloud provided by the platform itself, as both of them go away when a store shuts down.
• Research the track record of live-service games shutting down before you commit your money on cosmetic DLC tied to an online server.
• Consider an additional fee to purchase a “digital deluxe” upgrade in the same way as any other additional feature that depends on the company running.

Just make sure to do it in advance, not afterward.

The Tell Nobody Names Until It’s Already Confirmed

A shutdown is seldom unexpected – it is seldom announced by someone who bothers to translate the warning in time.

• Content updates and new additions become progressively slower and then completely disappear from any release schedules.
• Issues on the server side start cropping up, but helpdesk tickets get generic responses to them.
• Any discussion about the future of the title in question is conspicuously avoided in any earnings calls and press conferences where such discussions usually took place.
• A physical release of the title is not being printed anymore and it is not being put back into stock.
• The official forums and social media accounts begin ignoring it almost completely and only refer to it when fans bring it up themselves.

End-of-life dates are seldom announced by the publishers themselves until the decision is made and therefore the warning period is in the hands of those who notice it.

What a Decade-Old Save File Is Actually Worth Now

This PS3 still serves a purpose, despite having lost part of its collection, since it serves as a clear illustration of how quick “owning” was proved to be a conditional thing and a very good reason to be more careful about purchases made from now on. 87% of any medium’s history doesn’t vanish just by chance – it vanishes since there was no one who was both capable of and financially interested in preventing this process, and since all customers were unaware that their purchase was anything but what it looked like before the store vanished.

There is no universal solution for such problems, and any attempt at giving one will look like another type of marketing. But the real solution is much simpler – it lies in asking the right question earlier the next time it comes down to making a purchase on a certain console, platform, or whatever else it could be. A collection of discs cannot prevent an industry from eliminating anything it wishes to. At least it won’t allow it to eliminate your particular collection.

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