Dealing with ethereal games in your collection

[Rev. Link]

There is no hunt, so what's the point?

There is no hunt for SMB/Duck Hunt carts, either. They're dirt common. Does that mean they don't count either. What about Wii Sports or other pack-ins? Does rarity now define collectability?

The more I think about this, the more I think that I want to count these games as part of my collection. Especially the Live Arcade games that aren't available in any other format. I'm giving up my money for these things, so dammit I'm gonna count them.

If I can ever get my hands on some decent photoshopping software, I plan on making some covers and buying some cases to put them in, so I have a physical object to show for them.

[ProgrammingAce]

There is no hunt, so what's the point?

And the "not owning anything" is actually legally true. Go read some fine print about the VC in the manual/store/website sometime. You don't "own" anything from it.

You also don't own your Xbox games, or your xbox system. You have a license to use them. Ain't fine print a bitch? Weather or not this is legal is still up for debate, but that's how it stands now. The fact the EULA is inside the sealed case is a bit daft, but that's a discussion for another day.

If it plays on a system and can be reasonably considered a "game", i'd count it. Otherwise you start getting into some stupid classifications. Do you count electroplankton? That's not really a game...

[SkiDragon]

I still say that it has to be printed on a physical media of some sort to "count". There are potentially an infinite number of copies of any downloadable game.

[petewhitley]

I really think that 10 years from now we're going to have a whole different outlook on what constitutes a "collection", as digital distribution becomes more and more common. A lot of market-analyst-type folks see a future where digital distribution becomes the norm rather than the exception, and I for one think they're right. It simply makes a whole lot more sense financially (for both the buyer and the seller), and in the end, financial concerns are likely to win over the small minority of purchasers who are concerned with collectibility.

[Rev. Link]

I still say that it has to be printed on a physical media of some sort to "count". There are potentially an infinite number of copies of any downloadable game.

But I'm not talking about random ROMs floating around out there or anything else like that, I'm talking about VC/LA games that are officially released through Nintendo and Microsoft.

And why should the number of copies made make a difference? Like I said earlier, does SMB/Duck Hunt or Combat not count in your collection since there are tons of them around?

[Cryomancer]

There is no hunt for SMB/Duck Hunt carts, either. They're dirt common. Does that mean they don't count either. What about Wii Sports or other pack-ins? Does rarity now define collectability?

The more I think about this, the more I think that I want to count these games as part of my collection. Especially the Live Arcade games that aren't available in any other format. I'm giving up my money for these things, so dammit I'm gonna count them.

If I can ever get my hands on some decent photoshopping software, I plan on making some covers and buying some cases to put them in, so I have a physical object to show for them.

You still have to go to the store to buy it. I can't sit in my chair and click some buttons and magically be given a cart.

If anything they could be considered a seperate collection maybe? Ie "I own xxx games and xxx downloads" or whatever. I'm not trying to say these don't count as GAMES, but there should probably be some sort of a distinction.

Unless of course they start offerring games ONLY via download, like the BS system or whatnot. Then there's an entire extra argument!

[Stark]

Add them if you think they are part of your "collection". The majority says they are not collectible since they cannot be traded. If I come over to your house and you show me your collection of 50 games and 30 of them are virtual I'll laugh in you face. That's the difference.

[Rev. Link]

You still have to go to the store to buy it. I can't sit in my chair and click some buttons and magically be given a cart.

Actually, you can. A few clicks on Amazon or eBay, or even here at DP, followed by a few clicks at PayPal, and voila, your game arrives by mail the next week.

And if any of you guys think I'm trying to count virtual games to pad my collection, please don't. I have over 900 games, and only one of them is virtual at this point (though I did pick up my 360 tonight, so that number's going to rise a bit).

[ProgrammingAce]

Add them if you think they are part of your "collection". The majority says they are not collectible since they cannot be traded. If I come over to your house and you show me your collection of 50 games and 30 of them are virtual I'll laugh in you face. That's the difference.

Video games were never meant to be "collectible". Hell, most of them were once sold at walmart, if that tells you anything. The fact that you can assign one type of game as collectible, and insult someone who collects another type of game seems a bit daft.

Personally, i don't count games at all. Do i count unfinished betas? How about completed unreleased games? Betas i downloaded off the internet? Betas i have original copies of, but someone else leaked?

It's a hobby, let people do what they want.

[playgeneration]

If you count virtual download games in your collection - then you might aswell count roms on the internet, because apart from paying for them - they are exactly the same. I really wouldnt be surprised if Nintendo, Sega and Co all just used Roms from the internet anyway - they might aswell since their 99% of the time binary exact, would save time over doing it themselves, and if it wasnt for the "illegal" emulation scene there I don't think there would be a virtual console for Wii at all.

You dont really own the Rom from a virtual console download, you cant swap it, sell it, lend it to a friend, play it on a second system.
If you record a film off TV, do you say you own that film in your collection, of course not. Would a stamp collector count scans or photos on his computer of stamps as part of his collection? even if he paid somone for the photos - no they wouldnt.

[Iron Draggon]

I really think that 10 years from now we're going to have a whole different outlook on what constitutes a "collection", as digital distribution becomes more and more common. A lot of market-analyst-type folks see a future where digital distribution becomes the norm rather than the exception, and I for one think they're right. It simply makes a whole lot more sense financially (for both the buyer and the seller), and in the end, financial concerns are likely to win over the small minority of purchasers who are concerned with collectibility.

I have to agree with this. I totally understand the logic of not counting them, but then I totally understand the logic of counting them too. There's a very fine line between fantasy and reality these days. Someday we won't even be able to own our downloads. We'll just own our access codes to the servers where the games we play are stored. Think about it. You know it's coming.

This is good news for all us retro collectors, because surely the inevitable result of the future that we're heading towards now will be that all our games on actual physical media will become ultra valuable collector's items, just because they're actually on physical media... and the rarest of those games will become the most valuable of all... we'll all be glad we collected so much!

Personally, I count all the download-only games in my PC game collection as part of my collection, but I would certainly prefer to own them on physical media. Counting these is different than counting ROMS to me, because unlike ROMS, these were never produced on physical media. Now if they were ever available on physical media, it would be a different story, but since they can only be had by downloading them, then I see no reason not to count them.

It's interesting that this topic is being discussed right now though, because I just bought a copy of Monster Truck Fury for the PC on a CD, even though I already bought the download-only version. And I did so specifically because I wanted to own it on a CD. I thought that it had never been released on CD, but it turns out that it did have a very limited release on CD in Europe before they decided to make it a download-only game. So it should be pretty rare.

[Kamisama]

If you count those you can aswell start collecting Roms and show off with your 500.000 Games Collection.

If you dont agree to that show me the difference of a SMS Emulator on the Wii compared to a SMS Emulator on the DC,PC,whatever...

[j_factor]

I wouldn't count them in my collection. I don't count Snail Maze in my SMS collection, so I wouldn't count a game on my Wii's memory any different.

If you're counting games that you legally own rather than physical copies of things, that makes it too complicated. Should I count freeware games that I have? Should I count Bonk's Adventure and Revenge and Bomberman as being in my Turbo collection because they're on my Gate of Thunder disc, even though I don't own the games separately? Should Midway Arcade Treasures count as 20 games in my Gamecube collection?

You pay money for these games, and you own them. If for some reason you have to delete them, or have to trade in your system for repairs or whatever, you can still get those games back for free because MS/Nintendo's records show that you own those games.

But here's the thing about that. Eventually, these systems will be dead and their servers will be taken down. So if your system malfunctions and you lose your downloaded games, you're SOL. And if you missed a game that interests you, you're SOL because you can't trade them or anything. You could maybe find a used system that has the game on it, but unless it happens to have all your other games too, you'd have to keep multiple systems because the games are locked in to the system they were downloaded for.

Downloads may sound good now, but if you care about the long term, it's just a mess IMO.

[Rev. Link]

If you count those you can aswell start collecting Roms and show off with your 500.000 Games Collection.

If you dont agree to that show me the difference of a SMS Emulator on the Wii compared to a SMS Emulator on the DC,PC,whatever...

I don't see why people keep throwing ROMs into this. I'm not talking about ROMs. I'm talking about officially released licensed games from Nintendo and Microsoft, games we give them money to play. The only difference between VC and XBLA and everything else is that they don't come on a disc and you have to buy them online instead of in an actual store.

What difference does it make if you can't trade or sell them later? Maybe the deal here is that those of you who object to this seem to collect games as things of value, for the sake of having things of value. I collect games as games, for the sake of having games and playing them.

[playgeneration]

Roms are being discussed because thats EXACTLY what these virtual console games are - the same untouched roms that have been on the internet for 10 years or so. A lot of us are used to the fact we can get "illegal" roms of games, a few years ago the companies behind the games couldnt give a stuff about their old games, and emulation helped keep them alive. For all the people who bang on about it being illegal, well next time you see perfect screenshots of old games in a magazine or on the internet - where do you think they came from. Emulation has saved unreleased games from being undiscovered, Mame has made sure arcade games will be around when the real cabinets are long gone. And if it wasnt for all the hard work done by emulation guys - there wouldnt be a virtual console at all.

Sorry to go off track a little, but the point is just because your paying for the roms on virtual console doesnt mean their really any more special. And i think its almost certain that a lot of the virtual console games are infact the same rom files that have been on the net for years - everyone else in the industry uses them so why wouldnt sega, hudson etc do so too.

This thread proves that people who buy virtual console games really want to justify their purchase, but the undeniable fact is your not getting a lot for your money, these comapnies are making 99.99% profit out of these downloads, while you get a game you can only play on one system. Sure its a good way of playing one or two games you missed on your TV. But in the long run your better off just buying the original systems and games - and im sure youll have more fun playing on them as they were intended anyway.

[GillianSeed]

This thread proves that people who buy virtual console games really want to justify their purchase, but the undeniable fact is your not getting a lot for your money

I'm getting the convenience of playing classic games w/o having five extra systems hooked up to my TV -- not all of us have the space/cash for that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not caught up in the OP's dilemma of whether to count them as part of my collection. I don't really think of myself as having a sacred cache of artifacts that have to pass muster against a set of arbitrary criteria -- I just own games that I like to play.

these comapnies are making 99.99% profit out of these downloads

If you buy carts from a second-hand dealer they're making 100% profit, so what's the difference? Actually, considering that most dealers buy low and sell high, it's more like 500-1000%+ profit.

while you get a game you can only play on one system.

That's all I need.

Sure its a good way of playing one or two games you missed on your TV. But in the long run your better off just buying the original systems and games

In some respects I do agree. When I first got the Wii, I did go a little overboard on VC games. But of the seven I purchased four are for the TG-16, the one 8/16-bit console I never owned. The only one I see on eBay right now has a starting price of $50 and a Buy-It-Now price of $85. Sure if drove around to various thrift stores I might find a cheap on in a year or two, but I don't really have time for that. And in either case, that assumes it would even work when I got it home.

I may snag one sooner or later, but for now the VC is the perfect way to experience a system I was never able to play. For systems that I own, I may consider buying the cart instead of purchasing the VC game in future. But if it's a title that I absolutely love why wouldn't I want the convenience of playing it on my Wii?

im sure youll have more fun playing on them as they were intended anyway.

This is where it gets dicey, how were they "originally intended" to be played? Game systems undergo hardware revisions all the time. How many different PC-Engines were there, like 12?

[Rev. Link]

I agree that, at least for the collectors, the people with passion for the industry, yes, you should own the old classics in their original form. And I do. There's not many VC releases that I don't already own on their original system.

But what about the XBLA games? The ones like Geometry Wars that aren't available anywhere else? What about when the VC starts seeing original content? It's bound to happen eventually.

I keep hearing, "You're just paying for ROMs!" Well hell, we're all paying for ROMs everytime we buy any game. It's just that in most cases it's printed on a circuit board or burned on a disc. Now, would I love it if XBLA games were available on discs, with cases and books? Yes, yes I would. But they're not, 'cuz MS chose to distribute them digitally. There's nothing we can do about that.

[j_factor]

I have a feeling that most of the Live exclusive games will continue to be featured on those Live Arcade Unplugged compilations.

[j_factor]

I don't see why people keep throwing ROMs into this. I'm not talking about ROMs. I'm talking about officially released licensed games from Nintendo and Microsoft, games we give them money to play. The only difference between VC and XBLA and everything else is that they don't come on a disc and you have to buy them online instead of in an actual store.

What difference does it make if you can't trade or sell them later? Maybe the deal here is that those of you who object to this seem to collect games as things of value, for the sake of having things of value. I collect games as games, for the sake of having games and playing them.

If I buy a game and decide I don't like it or whatever, I can trade it away. Not so for these downloads. If you can't "do anything" with it, do you really "own" anything? Yeah, you can play it, but if that's all you can do, you can't transfer it or whatever, then it's basically an indefinite rental.

My main objection is really not so much that I couldn't sell them later, but that I couldn't buy them later. Once a download is no longer offered, I can't get it no matter what. Any cartridge or disc, I can try to get on eBay or whatever. With downloads I'll have no recourse to pick anything up once they're no longer available.

And here's why I don't like these downloads in general. Imagine if your favorite game of yore had been exclusively for a download service instead. You wouldn't be able to get it today. You'd be missing out on a great game. It's like those Sega Channel Exclusives -- some of them managed to be dumped as ROMs, but the rest are lost forever. Potentially good games, that no one can try anymore because the service that sold them is gone. If some great game is released only on Xbox Live, where will it be in 10 years? Nowhere. People that didn't play it while it was still new will never be able to.

The main reason I'm into classic gaming and try to get other people into it, is that even if you were a gamer back then, there are probably quite a few great games you missed. And even the games you didn't totally miss can be really fun to re-visit. With online distribution, if you miss something, you're basically SOL. If you want to re-visit something, you're SOL unless you have it. That sucks.

[Rev. Link]

You're preaching to the choir about digital distribution. I don't much like it either. But there it is, and now we have to deal with it. It's only going to get worse, too.

My whole point is, even though we're not getting a physical object to show off for buying them, these are still games. Officially released games from major publishers. None of us might like the way they're being distributed, but there they are, regardless.

[Iron Draggon]

Right, why should I pretend that I don't own No Limits and Scream Machines for the PC just because they were never officially released on physical media, and they never will be? They're only the two best roller coaster simulations available for the PC, but OMG they're not available on physical media, so let's all just pretend that they don't exist and they're not a part of my collection!

[Neo Rasa]

Any time I make a list of games I own it will include digital distribution purchases. If only because I consider, say, Robotron 2084 to be equally relevant to Gears of War. There are entire developers that do nothing but digital distribution. I guess no one can ever own Heavy Weapon despite having played through it, payed for it, etc.

The notion that they don't count hurts the games more than anything else. There's already a stigma amongst newer collectors and gamers that a lot of this stuff shouldn't cost as much or be considered as important as newer games just because they're old. It's damaging to the industry in the long run since newer games that old gameplay routinely get dismissed regardless of quality (look at Izuna and God Hand).

While not the direct culprit, I'd say not counting official digital purchases amongst one's collection is part of the problem. Ninety percent of the time if I show a list of games I own to someone the presence of Virtual Console titles, as an example, prompts interest in the old genres and allows me to get the person interested in more obscure shmups and action games they would have never even heard of otherwise.