Downloadable content (DLC) has been the norm for several years, but I bring its usefulness and practicality into question. It may be "the way things are" now, but should consumers tolerate it?
I had dial-up internet for many years. This meant that anything I was able to download was backed up to a CD so I wouldn't have to download it again, or just in case the internet stopped working for a while (which happened frequently). I held on to this mentality through college, where even though I had faster, dedicated connections, I didn't trust the impermanence of the internet. Then Steam came out, changing the gaming market forever with the ability to purchase games and then download them to your computer, but I was loathe to jump on the DLC bandwagon.
It took a few years, but when I came to the point where I not only owned a gaming computer, I also had a Wii and an XBox 360, I finally began embracing the idea of downloadable content. I'd purchase simple things like extra maps for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, up to entire games like Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. Features like purchases being tied to your account, and the ability to back up certain games or game add-ons gave me more confidence. Microsoft, Nintendo and Valve are all big names; their servers will be around to host my game content forever, right?
I am no longer confident in the practicality of purchasing digital-only content. A couple of things have happened recently to resurface my concerns, as well as formulate a couple new ones. The first is what really converted my back-burner doubts into full consumer-driven anxiety.
I was discussing the new Transformers: War For Cybertron game with a friend, and complaining about how I wouldn't be able to unlock Shockwave, a character for the 360 version of the game. Shockwave was only available as a pre-order bonus, and I wasn't aware of that until the game was already released. I was even more annoyed when I discovered that two entirely different characters were also offered as pre-order bonuses for the PS3 and PC versions of the game. My friend linked me to an article talking about how gamers were selling unlock codes for these characters on eBay for upwards of $100 (see for yourself). Screw that; even I'm not that big of a Transformers fan. But then I noticed this other article linked from the same site (here), that gives details on the upcoming downloadable content for the game. This DLC would, of course, also include the bonus characters. This was something I had hoped for but wasn't sure would actually happen, so I was very pleased to learn this bit of news.
While musing about the idiocy of the situation, I realized an entirely new reason for me to be hesitant when making a digital-only purchase. Lately I've been hitting up the used video game stores in my area, looking for all the gems for the Nintendo 64 and the original Playstation that I couldn't get when they were new. I've had a great time with it, especially since buying one of these games meant I was getting all of the content in one convenient cartridge or disc. As my list of desired titles grows shorter, I've started checking out what games are available for the original XBox. And then I remembered that not only did the original XBox have DLC, Microsoft had also recently shut down all of their servers relating to that console's XBox Live service. You can still play the single-player campaigns in the games, and maybe some of the multiplayer if it has an offline option. But downloading extra levels? Forget it. Patching bugs and glitches? Enjoy getting permanently stuck. Thankfully, this is only for the original XBox system; if you have an XBox 360 and the game is on Microsoft's compatible games list, you can obtain the DLC for the game through their XBox Live marketplace.
DLC has always had the criticism that you couldn't resell it, with or without the main game it's attached to. This is because the DLC is tied to your gamer account. Technically, you could sell your account as well, though that violates the user agreement with whatever service that account is a member of. Once these account-driven consoles are abandoned by their makers, that point becomes moot, of course. But it doesn't solve the problem, because when the account servers go down, the ability to "unlock" the content attached to those accounts goes with them. Now these accounts don't absolutely have to connect to the servers to give you access to what you already have downloaded, so it's not entirely hopeless.
A lot of game publishers now are re-releasing games as special or "Game of the Year" editions with the DLC included on the disc. While I personally attest to this as I feel I need to buy this version for the sake of backups, I can objectively agree that this is a good idea. So, this does lead to the idea of backups. Is it possible to save all of this downloaded information somewhere that can be retrieved locally (not from a server) relatively painlessly? In some instances, yes, but even the easiest solutions can be difficult.
Now let's look at the XBox 360. In a brilliant move recently, Microsoft updated their software to allow users to back up content to a flash drive. This is a great alternative to being limited to the system's sometimes woefully small hard drive. (On a related note, why can the 360 only read storage formatted in FAT32? Microsoft invented NTFS, a superior format, yet their most advanced piece of hardware to date can only read this archaic format and a few other obscure ones.) I'm not sure what the files on the hard drive or flash drives actually look like, or what other limitations this form of backup has, other than the account-related ones I've already mentioned.
The Playstation 3 is similar in its backup abilities, as is the Nintendo Wii. The Wii and its handheld counterpart, the DSi, can also do their backups to SD memory cards. The different variations on the Sony PSP can back up to Memory Stick DUO memory cards. All are about as convenient as the flash drives. I'll admit to laziness here, and tell you that I haven't investigated any other consoles or handhelds, but I'm sure they have similar capabilities.
So let's say all the servers go down, but you still want to play Madden 2024 on your Playbox DS or whatever. You have your backups of all these different games, extra levels, and other downloaded content. How to get at it again? Ah, well step into this shadowed alley, my friend, and I'll show you what's under my trenchcoat. No, not that! I'm referring to piracy and the modding community.
Before you raise your hackles over how I nonchalantly referred to piracy and modding as if they were one and the same, let me assure you that I recognize the difference. But these two communities both offer what you need. Through console modification, and illicit "homebrew" software, you can recover all of that archived information. In the case of Steam, there is an "emulator" that masquerades as the official program. Currently, this sort of amalgamation of black market hardware and software is considered illegal, as it's being used on closed-source systems. But once support for this generation of consoles disappears, who's going to care? Well, gamers like you and me, but that's about all.
The future is grim, dear readers. We enjoy our extra weapons and sound effect packs for Worms 2 on XBox Live Arcade now, but where will we be in ten years? Don't lose all hope just yet, as there is another option, and it comes from the same corporate masters that feed us DLC now. All of the companies I've mentioned are re-releasing titles from yesteryear on their current systems as DLC, and on all of the systems that I've mentioned. You can get Perfect Dark on XBLA (in beautiful 1080p), Super Mario Bros. on the Wii's Virtual Console, and Final Fantasy Tactics on the Playstation Network, for but a scant few examples. Steam has a wide range of PC titles dating as far back as PC gaming can go.
I remember when Windows XP was announced, there was a lot of concern that older PC games would no longer be supported due to differences in the operating system's architecture. Console gamers at the time just shrugged, as adopting new cartridge shapes and disc readers came with the territory of purchasing a new system. Most of these concerns proved to be without merit, as many older PC games worked fine, and the ones that didn't initially usually did after using Windows' built in "compatibility mode". This is still a concern though, because it's unlikely this free ride of developers adapting older software to fit newer hardware is going to last forever. The Playstation 3 was originally going to be backwards compatible with physical copies of original Playstation games, but that was dropped after the first generation of systems; instead, thankfully, they did switch to releasing them over PSN. Steam's developers can only do so much on old titles like Doom to get them to work with each new version of Windows. As I've mentioned, Microsoft maintains a list of original XBox games that are compatible on the 360, but it's only about a third of the entire library for the older system.
The retro gamer of the future will probably be able to get emulators for these systems running on whatever supercomputers will be available then, but how well they'll work is speculative, and dependent on the hobbyist programmer developing the emulator. My Nintendo 64 emulator can't run higher-end games like Perfect Dark without more than a few glitches, and that's for a system more than a decade old. What I foresee as a viable option instead is for the mom-and-pop video game stores to keep backups of different downloaded content, and for a small fee, installing this content to a console through whatever means necessary (chip modding, operating system cracking, etc.). These stores may even welcome this idea as a more stable way of making income; after all, everyone has access to this content, so you don't have to hunt for a rare copy of any of it.
I'd like to think I've made an informed consumer of you, or at least given you some digital food for thought. I think the idea of used game stores holding backup copies of DLC is a good one. In the meantime, let's all cross our fingers and give console makers the puppy eyes to convince them that keeping this stuff around well into the future is in the best interests of everyone.
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