To be honest since I'm a console gamer I've paid little attention to Steam and every so often a game will come out on PSN that is downloadable only and its usually pretty fun but kind of forgettable and then I'd go back to my AAA console disc releases or niche japanese imports. Until this year anyways. So far this year we've had Strider and now Mercenary Kings. These games are amazing and better then most of the games in stores now. They were cheap too, about $20 bucks (or free with PS plus!). These aren't just forgettable experiences but amazing games with incredible art design and great mechanics. Theres a ton of other downloadable games that have trickled out but these are the stand outs for me. As for the hard disc console releases, we've had Infamous Second Son (passable), Metal Gear Ground Zeros (shameless demo rip off) and Lighting Returns (outright garbage). Those are all AAA console releases. And they don't match those PSN/Steam/XBox Live games. By a mile. Looking at the android store (or the app store) we're seeing fps with console style graphics and actual MMOs now. For 7 bucks. Sure there's a ton of in game purchase junk out there, but there's also legitimately hardcore games starting to trickle in. Theres been alot of topics on mobile gaming but I don't think until recently we've really seen the kind of quality we're seeing now. Its not just the "Indie" games that make up these downloadable titles but real studios, though small, are coming up to deliver fantastic games. For the first time the big developer package game releases are no longer the best thing out there. Amazing times.
I thought Mercenary Kings was pretty awful and had this insufferable WACKY and HI-LARIOUS art style and dialog to boot. Because what Metal Slug ripoffs really need is useless crafting and farming for materials.
The art style is an homage to the Neo Geo Metal Slug style art design and the weapon crafting is a way to add depth to the game. It allows you to essentially level up not only your health but the power of your weapons rpg style. The game kind of reminds me of the Metal Slug Neo Pocket games just taken to another level.
The reason the crafting is useless is that the best results are mostly just "buy all assault rifle parts, get the best possible assault rifle". Might as well just have a shop to buy different guns instead of fucking around with different parts for negligible gains.
All I'm going to say is the same thing I've said a billion times. 10 years down the line your HD may fail then your games are gone forever because we all know the service they are on now won't be around in the future. It's the way things go. So the only way you'll ever get that game back is "IF" it gets a re-release on a different format or you managed to find a HD with that game on. If games could be copied and backed up to other media then this wouldn't be an issue but as the case is you can't or you can but you need to be logged in to the account associated with that game. Digital Distribution is ass when if comes to preservation or even just future gaming. I mean, I can still go and buy 20 year old Super Famicom and Mega Drive games BRAND NEW! in some cases and enjoy these games from the past including the original Strider. 20 years from now do you honestly think it will be that easy or even possible to do the same thing with the Strider remake? I doubt it very much. Another point about physical media is that it is very easy to back up for future use on original hardware.
To be clear, what you are describing is DRM. Digital distribution does not necessarily equal DRM, and DRM can exist on consoles/physical media. Don't fudge this, because digital distribution is what allows many smaller developers get their games into the hands of gamers, and competition is a good thing.
Steam have said in the past, if the service goes into the ground. They'll release a tool to be able to play your games still. Any other similar platform I have no idea.
That statement is quite old - afaik, in fact, from a time when Steam only had Valve games. These days, I doubt they would get away with giving away every title by every third party developer they have on their platform. You might get patches for Portal and L4D, but don't count on keeping access to e.g. Borderlands.
While the OP is excited about game quality I'd like to add something to the availability discussion. I recently discovered that the PS Vita download-only title ピコットナイト (Picotto Knights by GungHo) is not available on the Japanese PSN store anymore. The servers for the free-to-play title were shut down in december 2013 one year after the game's release. It also doesn't show up on my download list anymore. So there's the downloaded copy on my device but once I delete that it's gone. I don't want to make a case for this particular game but it's an issue that really bothers me. I want to have the option to preserve games I care about. Either via a hardcopy or the possibility to keep a DRM-free backup.
Personally I'm a big fan of digital downloads mainly because this means no more disc swapping to load your favorite games and also the low(er) prices are a nice welcome. Since the launch of the Xbox 360 I have been playing more XBLA games than full retail one's, and with the addition of 'Games on Demand' over the years, I even play more 'full' games as well. ---- And as a response to the discussion above: Don't forget that many of the digital only releases would not have made it into the shops, and if they did the prices would have been significant higher. I don't really see preservation of these games as a problem, hell even the majority of Nintendo's Sataview releases have been preserved. The only 'problem' will be that gamers who are willing to pay for the license to play, will be unable to do so once certain platforms get discontinued and/or titles get taken of the digital shelves. Eventually all platforms will be fully hacked, and so you can keep on playing and obtaining these games (regardless if you bought them or not) for years to come.
I've always thought that a system similar to the FDS would be pretty cool where you could plug an SD card into your console and backup your games. Granted SD cards don't last forever but if you had a way to back it up at least you wouldn't have to worry about the main HDD dying. Of course someone will want to tie the card to the console/account and in the case of both consoles die and accounts have to run off a server and nobody will want to run a server indefinitely. Basically pirates always win.
I think what he's describing is that eventually, the servers (especially for consoles) will be shut down, and you can't download replacement copies of your games. With the original Xbox, as of I think it was 2010, you can't buy any of those maps, games, cars, whatever, for your Xbox games. Ever (legally). That's the most upsetting thing, is that you will eventually not be able to download them again, whereas I can still buy a Genesis game. Steam just makes this too easy for us, doesn't it?
So? Physical copies of games go OOP too. Just like a Genesis cart, if you have the files of any game & there is no DRM involved, you can sell it, play it, give it away, whatever. For example: I can still play Commander Keen. I downloaded it 20+ years ago. I copied it from computer to computer over time, and it still works, no issues. If someone buys it today (from Steam), they could run into trouble trying to play it, not because it was distributed digitally, but because of DRM that Steam could add in at their whim. This is why when I get games online, I make sure they are DRM free. There was a time when you couldn't play Heavy Rain, a physical copy of a one player game with no online features because of DRM. tl;dr: All these bad things people are describing are forms of DRM. DRM & digital distribution are not necessarily tied together, and the problems associated with DRM affect games with physical copies too.
Who cares about legality at that point? Way I see it, when the servers go offline and you can no longer get those games, sure, they're technically illegal, but who cares if you can preserve them by downloading them? I doubt there will ever be a time when downloadable games can never by played by any means. DRM made the world a better place in that case! There's barely any gameplay in Heavy Rain anyway, so just staring at a blank screen is just as entertaining and has less glaring plot holes.
Even if the consoles go online only (maybe in the next generation), there will be a market for gaming as it is today. And I believe that Nintendo will be in this market. They are doing well IMO. The portable market belong to them, even with phones/casual/3 minutes gaming fever. And frankly, the Wi U is still the best console in this generation. The best games. Only graphic bragging people care about Fifa14/NBA14 kind of games. The only Xbox One game I'm interested is Forza 5...
Yes the biggest downfall of these smaller downloadable games is that once they are not available on store servers, you either have a copy on your console HD or you don't and its gone forever. They just removed Burger Tiime World Tour from PSN because the license expired on the property. So now I have to keep that game on my HD if I ever want to play it again or its gone for good. Maybe these indie or smaller games can have a limited release physical copy kind of like a homebrew release. That way anyone who wants a physical copy can get one. Strider has a physical copy in Japan for ps3 but nothing for PS4.
