[game_preservation] XBLA, Wiiware, and maybe the future of releasing all games + intro

[Andrew Armstrong]

Yeah, it just kinda sucks all around. Plenty of things are now only 
digitally distributed - and with DRM, of course (since if it was *just* 
downloadable, ala, say, MMO clients, then that'd be less of a problem 
since those you can make multiple copies of).

I'm only really half interested in the reasons for this massive digital 
push - but here we go: one angle is it is easier to distribute, and 
cheaper (although not exactly much cheaper games are they? ;) ), there 
is a small piracy angle, but mainly it's a good stab at trying to 
prevent 2nd hand sales, since the main thing they do is tie whatever 
game it is to an account and credit card and, basically, wipe that 
market out.

Research is needed on the preservation side though, if you have anything 
you can write up Steven for our Wiki then that'd be awesome :) There is 
a lack of authoritative articles on the subject - or, well, finish your 
paper and we'll put a link up of course.

Case studies, well, Devin's example I'd never even heard of, would be 
awesome - there are some non-game service examples where DRM-downloaded 
files (on PC's...but the platform doesn't really matter, it could be 
Steam or Xbox Live here) become defunct despite being brought because 
the service provider disappeared/stopped the service, even from 
Microsoft - big red flashing lights there, although console DRM usually 
means you can "go offline" and play them without an internet connection, 
so copies can be partially made that way (still tied to an account and a 
miserably-poor-quality bit of hardware which might very well fail).

Andrew