The thing that has me concerned is that even if you keep the consoles working, and even if you have an extensive library of physical media, these days what’s on the disc is probably an unpatched, incomplete, possibly unplayable mess.
That’s not intended as a criticism of game development, just an expression of fear for the preservation implications. It’s no longer enough to preserve what’s in your hands—which is difficult enough where electronics are concerned—but now someone must find some way to extract, archive, and reapply all the day one patches, bug fixes, DLC packs etc.
> someone must find some way to extract, archive, and reapply all the day one patches, bug fixes, DLC packs etc.
This is what has to happen. I believe that as these consequences become more and more widely felt you’ll have a pretty strong mandate for some kind of change in thinking.
I mean, if you’ve actually bought the game (as opposed to streamed it) I think there’s a strong case to be made that you should be entitled to its use beyond the wishes of the copyright holder.
That’s not intended as a criticism of game development, just an expression of fear for the preservation implications. It’s no longer enough to preserve what’s in your hands—which is difficult enough where electronics are concerned—but now someone must find some way to extract, archive, and reapply all the day one patches, bug fixes, DLC packs etc.