Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Can you ever really own a video game? Players explain pitfalls of digital ownership

Buying a game is easy. Keeping it is more difficult in 2022. Delisted games, closed digital storefronts, and shuttered online servers are major concerns in the digital ownership era. That unfortunate reality became clearer this summer following the announcement that Assassin’s Creed Liberation will be removed from Steam, along with news that the XCOM 2, Killzone: Mercenaries, and Killzone: Shadowfall servers will shut down in August 2022.

The modern era of video game ownership is complex, bringing as many pros as it does cons. While buying digitally is convenient and can be less expensive than purchasing physically, it also comes with a myriad of problems — especially when games are removed from digital storefronts altogether. Sometimes, players can lose access to certain games even if they already own them.

Related Videos

I use the word “own” loosely there. Even when buying physically, do we really own our games anymore? Since many games need to be connected to the internet to function, it means that online servers will inevitably close, rendering them unplayable to all.

To get a clearer picture of just how gamers feel about game ownership, I spoke with a wide variety of players about their buying habits. Although the responses were mixed, most gamers I spoke with share a disdain for the current landscape of media ownership. Even when players lean toward physical media, it doesn’t always matter if you have a disc or a cartridge.

Convenience and accessibility

Despite the issues that come with a digital ecosystem, it’s the preferred method for a major portion of players.

In fact, throughout the first quarter of 2022, 71% of the 70.5 million total games that Sony sold were bought digitally on PlayStation. That’s over 50 million games. While it can be tricky to account for literally every physical game sold, seeing that many digital purchases speaks volumes.

But why — even with all of the issues — do so many players opt to download their games instead?

I still prefer the convenience of digital ownership.

Andrew Stretch, TechRaptor senior content manager, tells Digital Trends he prefers buying digitally for a practical reason: It makes moving much easier. “I owned a massive collection of PS2 games, but every time I had to move, shifting my collection with me became harder and harder, especially as a lot of my moves were across continents [and] hemispheres,” Stretch tells Digital Trends.

Convenience is certainly a driving force for more players I spoke with, as players are able to instantly access games without having to wait for a shipment or go to a store. “I don’t have to go to the store and I don’t have to worry about [a game] being sold out,” gamer Joe Siemsen says in regard to the perks of getting games digitally. “It’s the norm on PC now, to the point that most modern PCs don’t even have disc drives.”

Another player I spoke to, Lawal Muhammad, cites having fewer “physical boxes” as another reason to prefer digital, along with such other benefits as “remote downloading, pre-downloading, and streaming to multiple devices from the cloud.”

The Playstation 5 system standing upright. standing upright.

Though most players I spoke with prefer buying physically, many of them said they’d purchase digitally if the price is right. “The cheaper a game is, the more likely I am to go digital,” Siemsen says. Digital games go on sale frequently, with some titles getting a 50% discount mere months after release. Whether they’re less expensive than their physical counterparts comes down to luck, but it’s clear a sizable portion of players prefer to simply download games rather than purchase a boxed copy.

Digital games are also beneficial in that they’re more accessible. “If a game I own physically becomes available on PS Plus, for example, Red Dead Redemption 2, I will use the digital version for one main reason: Accessibility,” Waqar, another gamer I spoke with, says. “As someone who has a physical disability, I have to ask a family member to put the disc in and they’re not always free, which is one of the benefits of digital. [With digital] I just need to switch on [the] console and jump straight in.”

It’s easy to see that digital games are far more accessible, as well as more appealing overall in many ways. While there’s a new modern standard for game releases, this approach creates problems when games get pulled from storefronts.

Inaccessible games and server closures

Entire games can become inaccessible due to being pulled from digital storefronts, which becomes a major issue when it happens to titles that were never available at retail in the first place.

Avery Feyrer, senior writer for TheGamer, says buying physically is often the “safer” choice. “I still have a general worry that something could happen and I lose everything, but I guess that’s a fear that I’ve just accepted,” he says in regard to buying games digitally. However, in the case of digital-only titles, players don’t even have another option, and as history has shown, many downloadable games are impossible to play today.

Dan Robitzski, writer and editor for The Scientist, points to Warcraft III as a game he completely lost access to after Blizzard pulled the plug on it. “I’m still bitter over how they mishandled Warcraft III,” he said. “[Blizzard] dropped support for the game altogether, and since now games launch from the Battle.net app, it’s impossible to play.”

First-person shot of character overlooking vista in Killzone: Shadowfall.

But this sort of thing is just par for the course in the video game industry. One of the most famous examples is the removal of the Silent Hills demo P.T., which was delisted since the full game was canceled in 2014. The demo is still playable if it remains on your PS4 hard drive, but there’s no way to reacquire it once it’s deleted, and you can’t download it from the store anymore.

This type of thing also occurs frequently with games based on licensed franchises, as licenses are only available for a limited time. Many players I spoke with mentioned the removal of 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, which was delisted after just four years. The demand to play it was so high, however, that it prompted the 2021 release of the Complete Edition, a remaster of the original game, which allows players to experience it with some enhancements.

But not all games get the same treatment. In 2019, many Activision-published licensed games such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance, The Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, and Deadpool, were delisted from digital storefronts without notice. Now, the only way to get your hands on these games is to buy them physically, which has become increasingly expensive. For instance, a physical copy of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions for PS3 goes for upwards of $80 on eBay, with a sealed copy listed for $175.

This issue is exacerbated for owners of a digital-only PS5 or the Xbox Series S system, as they can’t even make use of any games that are now only acquirable via disc, such as the Deadpool game.

Ownership gets tricky when you buy digitally, but regardless of how you get your games, online server closures are frowned upon. Server closures impact all players, even those who purchase physical copies.

“A couple of MMOs I grew up with over the years — namely Marvel Super Hero Squad Online and Toontown Online — were shut down, rendering all forms of playability inaccessible and making any purchases I made on them null and void,” gamer Edwards tells Digital Trends. These online-focused games are lost to time as developers move on to other projects, or simply don’t have enough of a player base to justify keeping servers up and running.

The kicker is that even if you buy physically, you aren’t necessarily safe from the problems that come with media ownership. That’s because many games are technically available “physically,” but don’t actually include a physical disc/cartridge anymore. Countless Switch games are available at retail, but only give you access to a download code with no cartridge, such as Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Worms Rumble.

Halo Infinite, on the other hand, does include a disc at retail, but there isn’t anything on it. You’re simply given access to a download key for the digital version. The days of having everything you need when buying a physical copy are dwindling.

An inevitable demise

Ryan Brown, head of public relations for Super Rare Games, thinks digital ownership will only get worse. “I fear we’re really at the cusp of this issue, as the first digital storefronts are set to close in the coming months and years. You can still buy games on the PS3 for now, for example, but unlikely for much longer, and the process is already quite tricky.”

In 2021, the PS3 and PS Vita digital stores were supposed to close, but after tremendous backlash from players and developers, Sony reversed its plans. Still, it’s inevitable that those storefronts will eventually be no longer accessible, just like the Wii U and 3DS eShops, which will close in May 2023, making it impossible to buy digital games for those platforms.

A Nintendo Wii U gamepad flat on a table.

Another problematic aspect of digital games is that they’re usually tied to an account. This means you can’t access those games on a different account, and if you get locked out, those titles are lost forever. According to players, Nintendo used to be particularly annoying in this regard, as an account was tethered to a 3DS and Wii U system (unless you called customer support). Now, players can easily transfer a primary account across multiple Switch systems, but this was not the case during the previous generation.

“I remember when buying my second Wii U, there was no proper way to unlink your account from the previous system so I needed [to speak with] Nintendo support to move [my] digital games to the new system,” Stretch says. Having to contact customer support to migrate an account to a different system was a barrier that likely caused a huge portion of players to lose their 3DS and Wii U games. Nintendo isn’t the only company players have had issues with, as other platforms make it tricky to recover lost accounts at times.

It’s clear that game preservation is in a tricky spot in 2022, but solutions aren’t easy to come by. Want to download a licensed game? It might be delisted. Want to download a Wii U or 3DS games? You better hurry, because the eShop will close next year. That physical copy of Battleborn? It’s unplayable.

With the ubiquity of digital games and ecosystems, it’s inevitable that many of our purchases will be lost eventually, and that buying physically is more of a temporary solution in many cases.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Atlas Fallen unexpectedly gives Forspoken some real competition
Two Atlas Fallen characters stand together in key art.

Atlas Fallen has the potential to surprise a lot of people. Although it's launching in just two months, we haven't seen much about this new game from The Surge developer Deck13 and publisher Focus Entertainment since its reveal at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022. That's a shame because after going hands-on with an early build of it, I've found that Atlas Fallen has the potential to appeal to people who didn't like one of the year's most divisive titles: Forspoken. 
Atlas Fallen - World Premiere Reveal Trailer | Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022
Square Enix's open-world action RPG featured some neat ideas with its fast-paced magical combat and freeing traversal abilities, but many people couldn't get into it. While more focused on melee combat than magic, Atlas Fallen is a similarly ambitious open-world game that delivers satisfying movement and action that's different from the norm. That makes it a game that might scratch some itches that Forspoken didn't fully reach due to its heavily criticized writing. If it's not on your radar yet, you might want to know what Atlas Fallen has to offer.
Encouraged exploration
Based on my demo, I'm not fully sure what to expect from Atlas Fallen's mysterious story yet. The basic premise is that player was a person from the lowest caste in this world's society who was bonded with an ancient gauntlet. That gauntlet has an amnesic spirit named Nyaal living inside it and is now trying to save the world from gods that have left it in desert-filled ruins. The narrative wasn't a big focus in my preview build, though, and the script is full of jargon that probably will only make sense once I play more of the game.
A talking companion bonded to the player's arm and hand is already an unexpected narrative coincidence between Forspoken and Atlas Fallen. But neither game's story is the appeal of either to me: It's their fun traversal and combat that interest me. The few seconds of Atlas Fallen's sand-surfing and fighting in its Gamescom trailer caught my eye last year, and both lived up to the hype.
 
As I worked my way out of a cave at the start of the demo, I learned how to raise large structures out of the ground, surf across large patches of sand, and dash through the air with the help of my gauntlet. After I entered the game's open world, I could play around with all my movement options and found them to be a treat. Open-ended games with large worlds like Atlas Fallen can live or die on how satisfying they are to explore, and making movement fun is a crucial way developers can make traversal enjoyable.
Forspoken was able to capture some of that magic despite its problems, and it looks like Atlas Fallen has too. Of course, that's only one part of the game, as players will run into many enemy Wraiths and need to fight them. That's where Atlas Fallen's engaging combat system comes into play.
Satisfying combat
Deck13 and Focus Entertainment had yet to go into much detail about Atlas Fallen's combat before now, so I was shocked by how unique it was. The core combat revolves around attacking, dodging, and parrying, with weapons shapeshifting as you use them in different ways. It's faster-paced than I expected from a developer who previously made Souslikes, but it's the Ascension system that really caught my attention.
In between fights, players can equip their character with Essence Stones that buff or add abilities, assigning them to one of three tiers in the process. Once they are in a fight, attacking and defeating enemies causes players to gain momentum, which fills a bar at the bottom left of the screen. As this bar fills, or "ascends," players gradually gain those Essence Stone abilities, getting more powerful the more aggressive they are.
Ascending does come with a catch: The more momentum you build, the more damage you take. Players can counteract this by equipping defensive or health-related Essence Stones or using "Shatter" once an Ascension tier is filled to deal lots of damage and crystalize enemies for a short while. To succeed in Atlas Fallen, I needed to fight aggressively, but fights would quickly turn in the enemy's favor if I missed a crucial parry or dodge when I had lots of momentum.

This system gives each fight a push-and-pull feeling not common in action games. Most of the time, games like to make players feel significantly more powerful or weaker than everything around them; Atlas Fallen does both. This unique system hasn't gotten more attention and promotion, but it ultimately is what makes Atlas Fallen stand out the most at the moment.
There's something exciting about how mysterious this game still is to me, as that means there could be lots of surprises when players finally get to try the whole thing in a couple of months. It's shaping up to be an unexpected, almost accidental alternative to Forspoken. If you're still looking for an action-heavy RPG with innovative movement and combat gameplay ideas, Atlas Fallen should be on your radar.
Atlas Fallen will launch for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on May 16.

Read more
Here’s how to get Redfall Bite Back Edition for free from Nvidia
A character levitates a book in Redfall.

As part of the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Nvidia is launching a new GPU bundle. Anyone making a new purchase of the RTX 4090, RTX 4080, and RTX 4070 Ti desktop graphics cards, as well as RTX 40-series Nvidia desktops and laptops, will receive a copy of the Redfall Bite Back Edition when it releases on May 2, 2023, for free.

That's not just the base game, which normally retails for $70. It's a deluxe version that includes the game, the Hero Pass with two future characters, and several cosmetics. Nvidia also announced that Redfall will support Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), including Frame Generation on RTX 40-series graphics cards.

Read more
5 features we’d need from a PS5 Pro to justify an upgrade
The Playstation 5 system standing upright.

A new version of the PlayStation 5 may be on the horizon – at least if you believe the leaks. Earlier this week, Insider Gaming reported that a PS5 Pro is in development and is scheduled for a late 2024 launch. Considering that the rumor site previously claimed that a PS5 with a detachable drive would launch this year, you might want to take the claim with some skepticism. Insider Gaming provided no actual details on specs or what a Pro model would entail, only claiming that a source says it's in the works.

There’s not a lot to go on there, but just about any educated gamer could predict that a PS5 Pro is coming in the next year or two. Sony previously followed the PlayStation 4 with a PS4 Pro, which would improve the system’s power three years after its launch. It’s reasonable to think that PS5 would get the same treatment four years later -- which would likely be near the halfway point of its life span.

Read more