New Guide Section Needed for Digitally Distributed (downloadable) Games?

[Vectorman0]

I don't think these fit in with regular game releases, but I don't think they should be ignored either. What does everyone else think about them?

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I am going to show my ignorance here since I have not downloaded any games. Is there really any 'collectibility' to them since there is no physical product to hold? Would this be equated to 'collecting' MP3s?

JY

[s1lence]

Yeah, how would you value something that is basically has limitless availiblity?

I've wondered the same thing about the digital releases btw.

[Griking]

They hold as much value to me as a TIVO movie does. It's great if you want to watch/play it but it really doesn't hold a dollar value.

[Vectorman0]

It isn't as much about collecting as it is about them simply being games available for a system that you can get and play. I agree, they don't hold a dollar value once you buy them. But they are still real games whose downloadable versions you wouldn't ignore if you were talking about a certain franchise. If you were a Castlevania fan, I would imagine you would want to know about the SotN on the live arcade. If it was in the guide you would know by searching it by title.

It still leaves the issue that there isn't any hunt to the games as they are readily available. (Though for example, Hexic can only be gotten by getting a premium 360 - you can't buy it.) Some would say the same about Halo or Madden. And who knows, maybe 20 years from now people will be after 360 hard drives in order to get all of the arcade releases. We know how crazy some collectors get.

This is why I brought it up, because I am not even sure what I feel. I know that downloadable games aren't the same retail ones, but I don't think they should instantly be forgotten because of it. I've been under the impression the DP guides were meant to be complete reference books, and leaving out these games might be a disservice to the guide.

[Oobgarm]

I mentioned the downloadable PSX games to Joe when I was compiling the PSP list recently. My understanding is that virtual content is not something the guide(online or print) is going to tackle.

[Wolfrider31]

I actually agree. And I think this would be pretty foreward thinking on the part of DP. Yes, I'm with you all when you say that collecting digital copies of games are silly; because they don't seem to have any value in the traditional sense. Still, people's perceptions change, and when digital distribution becomes mainstream, people may have a different view of "owning" a copy of a product without any physical presence.

Also.. and this concerns me as gamer: what about games that don't have a physical existence? Take Braid for instance? That's just as worthy of some sort of recognition as anything that's contained in a house of plastic.

So I guess the question is: What is DP's mandate? Are the collectors guides merely to provide information on value for trading and selling? If so, then yes they should probably be limited to games that have a material existence.

If however, it is to provide a usefu directory of video games that people can track down and play, then digitally distributed games should be included. And to stretch it a little father games that are released solely online should be included as well.

Of course that presents other problems. Do RPGMaker games count? What makes those different from Braid. Etc, etc. It's worth discussing at least.

[Mayhem]

I believe the guide does cover all the games in the past (especially for the Super Famicom) that were available at download stations...?

I can understand why today they seem unimportant to document, but as said ten years down the line, how hard will they be to "find"..?

[Duncan]

My thoughts on "strictly digital" games, make of them what you will.

1) The argument has been made that because such games are infinitely available, they have no intrinsic worth. This, to me, is a little over-simplified. There are a lot of things in life that are paid for and often used, but are never presented in a tangible form. This website, for starters - I could easily argue that digitpress.com certainly costs money to own and operate, and yet there is no real permanence to it, or to anything else published on the web. The same is true for things like electronic trading of stocks or bonds, or even insurance. Or your debit or credit card, which certainly can't cost very much to physically make, being just a piece of plastic. But does that make it entirely devoid of value? This gets into the same issue of whether music downloads should be paid for or not - the number of people willfully making mass purchases from iTunes and Napster kinda argues in favor of intrinsic value. More on that later, because I have another point to make first.

2) If the purpose of the Digital Press Guides is solely to list the values and scarcity of physical copies of video games and equipment, then why is there so much space devoted to chronicling prototypes and rumored games that may not even exist beyond a ROM image? In my own opinion and usage of them, the DP Guides are even more useful as a historical reference than as just a checklist or price guide. Along with my well-worn copy of Phoenix, the DP Guides are an invaluable look into a past history of which I have only been alive for a more recent part. And surely, with that in mind, the rise of user-downloadable content (as it is lifelessly called these days) is an important part of the video game industry and its growing legacy.

3) Back to the question of value. If such downloadable games don't have value, why on earth would anyone buy Wii Points or Microsoft Points with real money? One American dollar currently translates into about 80 MS Points or 100 Wii Points - and if you can trade money for something, does that not instantaneously give it worthwhile value? Remember the laws of supply and demand: where there remains a demand for something, people will assign a value to it based on supply. In the case of downloadable games, there is effectively an unlimited supply - and yet PEOPLE STILL TRADE REAL MONEY FOR THEM, because they see a certain value in owning them.

4) More of a suggestion than an argument here. Taking note of my previous point about the Guides being a chronicle of history as much as value, I suggest that downloadable games be listed as appropriately as possible within their respective sections of the Guide whenever that time comes. I don't believe there's any need to assign rarity or pricing to them, but they should at least be checklisted and discussed for posterity's sake. My other favorite omnibus book series, the positively huge Standard Catalogs of Cars and Trucks, has always made the point that it's better to include the whole ball of wax - meaning the listing of every motor vehicle ever produced - and let the reader sort the details out as they see fit. Which means that along with all the Hondas and Studebakers, you also get a lot of weird one-offs and never-weres...kinda like the way DP lists all the mass-produced Marios and Defenders right alongside the demo discs and one-of-one EPROM boards. And here's a related point: If we only count games that exist on some form of media storage, then the original Magnavox Odyssey ought not to be included in the Guide at all - after all, its games work solely on electronic logic routines and the "cartridges" carry no data whatsoever. This may be stretching a little bit, but you see the dangers of carrying a certain line of thought too far.

In the end, it's not up to me, of course. But my thoughts are out there, so have at it.

[Matt-El]

It's like this:


Dp isn't for collecting things that can't be collected in a normal way.


For cataloging any downloadable games and content, someone else should start their own guide, If only for reference. I'd like to see an online guide by someone else though that catalogs this stuff. Online communication has been around with gaming since before the NES. Seeing a guide that showed what certain services did, developed and undeveloped, would be interesting.


But as for collecting, yeah, I don't think so.