Bomber Raid (1989)

This going to be a very long one and an important one, at least to me, so I want to say thanks right at the start to anyone that takes the time to read this. I kept chipping away at this bit by bit and it just kept growing. Even just briefly touching on everything made this so long. I also could never be happy with it, and I’m still not, but it’s time I give up on it or just put it out there.

Bomber Raid is a late 80s vertical scrolling shooter released for the Sega Master System. It is one of those games that many people forgot or didn’t know existed. It is an enjoyable but not remarkably good old game yet I care about it. Bomber Raid is special to me. It’s sentimental and is one of my earliest gaming memories. Back in the 90s I first played Bomber Raid at a relative’s house. They had no interest in gaming at all but had a Master System and a few games donated to them so the rug rats had something to do when they came over. I was one of those rug rats that would pull these games out and play them during many of the times I went there throughout the 90s. Eventually my relatives ended up giving me the Master System and those games. I still have them and they still work fine.

Bomber Raid is a straight forward old shooter. Shoot the enemies while dodging them and their bullets. Grab the upgrades along the way and try to make it through the five stages without losing all your continues and try to get a good score too. The little plane controls well, particularly after getting upgrades to speed. There is enough pressure on to keep things interesting and there is a limited supply of cluster bombs to use strategically. One of the power-ups gives you little support planes and you shoot the power-up to determine the formation and shot direction of them. Like many other older games upgrades are lost with a death. This can be frustrating and it means that it is probably best to aim to get through the game without taking a hit. This might sound like a negative but Bomber Raid is only like maybe 30 minutes long at most and getting good at it is kind of the point. It creates a good tension and results in an experience that is satisfying and rewarding to learn and complete. It is re-playable and I can still come back to it again after nearly 30 years since my first try. But it is on the easier side, it is a little bit simple and many shooters of the time and since then surpass it.

Story is basically nonexistent; except what you can gather from the case, manual, visuals, locations, enemies and the briefest screens between stages. The front cover is misleading but I still like the games look. It is bright, colourful and looks good, with music and sound effects to match. You can always tell what everything is, what each power up is and when you are making hits. It is always perfectly clear and readable except for one serious issue. Some of the backgrounds are really similar in colour to bullets, which is an obvious problem. I like Bomber Raid but my thoughts on this game are clearly pretty clouded though. Still, I think it is good, especially when considering the time and hardware, and it is worth checking out if it is your type of game.

If Bomber Raid became a valuable game I wouldn’t be getting it graded and put in a little plastic coffin. I don’t even know how to express how lame this is and how dodgy that whole thing seems. I wouldn’t be trying to sell it either, some things are just more important than that. Every time I see my copy of Bomber Raid on my shelf it can take me back. I can see it surprisingly clearly. I can smell that place. I can feel that carpet little me was sitting on while looking up at the glow of the CRT. I had to do this because the bloody cables were always just a bit too short back then. I would sit there playing it while my relatives watched over me and talked with me or were cooking something delicious in the background. Never judging me or telling me to get off it and go outside. Not that I played it excessively anyway though. Going to see these relatives was always a wonderful time that I look back on fondly.

I was able to take out my copy of Bomber Raid recently and show it to my own kids, which led to me replaying it. But it also prompted me to tell my children the story of how I got it and about how I played it as a kid. More importantly I spoke to them about those relatives and told them more about one of those relatives that they never got to meet… and now we are losing the other to cognitive decline…

This story is just from one of my pieces of physical media. There are so many more with their own stories. Like the book I read while watching my son and his mother sleep in hospital right after he was born. Or the DVDs and Blu Rays I watched while holding and feeding my daughter late at night when her mother was getting some needed rest. Or the Super Mario 64 cart I played to death as a kid that I recently played through again with my son. Or the Perfect Dark cart my brother and I played endlessly. Or the Pokémon Stadium cart I played during stays with my Dad. Or all the Smash Bros. games I played with friends growing up. Or all the physical media gifts I have ever received. The list goes on and on…

To the rise and domination of media being released digitally and through subscriptions from the bottom of my heart fuck you so much. Yes this review is an excuse to discuss the importance physical media. If you’re not up for an unhinged, 8000+ word rant about how physical media is beautiful, vital and irreplaceable and that digital is mostly evil then maybe stop here.

I have already made the point about how physical media can bring people together in person, creating connections. How it can be bonded over and shared. How it can be a part of the most important times of our lives. How it can be gifted. How sentimental and important they can become and how much connection you can have with them. And how they can remind us of times, places and people we hold dear. How they function as connections to our own personal histories. But I am not saying you shouldn’t ever let go of things too. You can’t have and keep everything but maybe the most important ones to you are really worth owning a tangible copy of and hanging onto.

The more sentimental stuff is something I see ignored a bit when I look at the discussions of digital versus physical. It’s typically about ownership, control, price, access and preservation. So I had to kick off here but now I do want to have a crack at going through this more thoroughly. When I see the YouTube videos and comments across the internet I always feel like it is same stuff over and over and that it is always missing things. I know my attempt will be far from perfect too but I’m going to give this a really good go. It has become more important than ever with the Switch 2 game key cards and too many PS5 games not getting a full on-disc release too. This was what actually pushed me to get this finished enough and put it out there.

I also have included some pictures along the way to support what I’m talking about, to break up the wall of text, to highlight what is being lost and to make another point about physical media, which is pride in ownership and the greater feeling of satisfaction physical provides.

I’ll continue by hitting the other sentimental and often overlooked benefits of physical media first; the rituals and physical sensations. Part of the gaming experience for me is going up to the shelf and picking what to play next. Sliding it out, looking over the cover art and back cover, popping it open and taking out the disc. Putting the disc in, flicking through the manual (if it has one), and putting the case back on the shelf before settling into the couch. God damn it I just like a little foreplay first to build that anticipation and desire for starting a new game. I like the sound of disc drives. I like that new game smell. I like tearing the plastic off. Sometimes I like to take my time with the whole process. Most of all I like holding real things in my fingers. It’s all so satisfying and enjoyable. I think this stuff is more important than we realise and helps to prevent you from taking all we have access to for granted. I believe we are already seeing the psychological and behavioural impacts of constantly consuming so much so instantly. I don’t want to lose all this and have it replaced with scrolling through a list of titles on a screen and a simple button click; soulful and human to utilitarian and boring, no thanks.

Next up is convenience. People like being able to download games and have them installed and ready to swap at a moment’s notice. I get that, I’m lazy in many ways too. Not the strongest argument but I understand it. What is the cost of this though? Less time spent outside and leaving your house, less socialisation, less time moving and a more sedentary life style. Obviously you should be getting enough of those things in other ways and more important to me is the loss of video game stores. I loved going to video game stores. They were wonderful places to visit. I used to do it almost once a week, like 14 years ago, and I would often go when out with friends. I liked encountering likeminded people there and talking to the knowledgeable staff that were up for a chat and a recommendation. Walking into one during the GameCube days was heaven and even if you somehow had a few thousand dollars to spend there would still be so much that you wished you had more for. The final few stores I have near me, that aren’t shitty EB Games, are about a 35-60 minute drive and then when you get there the selection is poor. These stores are a shell of their former selves. It is so depressing walking in to see a wall of Funko Pop figures and merch. Then you browse for a few minutes and walk out with nothing. If you still have a good store near you then cherish that place. The more general stores that carry games are constantly shrinking their game sections as well.

You lose third places that existed because of physical games. Places for local special events and competitions have been drying up. You lose that joy and anticipation that comes with picking up a new game. You lose seeing trailers playing on screens in store. You lose the ability to play random demos in store. You lose the ability to make random game pickups. Proper launch events seem to be gone and numbers are much lower on launch days now. Look at footage of game and console launches from back in the 2000s. Look at how god damn happy they are, look at the shared passion and the community. Physical videogames and everything surrounding them provided opportunities for little events in your life. All this gone or going to save seconds swapping discs, to save a bit of time in stores and so you have it straight away. Despite the fact that we can have things dropped at our doors on launch day if you want and installing from the disc is pretty quick. A bit of saved time and effort traded for a large negative impact on gaming communities, local businesses, many forms of employment, the enjoyment of others and how much harder it makes buying physical for others, how much it ruins collecting, along with so much more I’ll get to. This is the death of culture.

What’s happening is something that really bothers me and it is far more detrimental than many realise or care about. It is why I feel fine about criticising the buying habits of others. Normally my attitude is ‘do what you like and enjoy things however you want.’ But in this case these choices negatively impact me directly, it hurts the medium I love and the communities around it. Constant digital media consumption is like smoking. You enjoy it in the moment but it ruins things for those existing in the same space, it harms the space itself and it will harm you in the short and long term. I have to shop online a lot now, often even from overseas with extra shipping cost and time. I have to cross my fingers at game announcements that there will be a physical release. I have to constantly face FOMO and know that if I don’t buy soon my only option will be to pay whatever some arsehole on eBay wants, or move on with fingers crossed for a reprint. It hurts to imagine how expensive many games are going to be 20 years from now because of how limited current releases can be. The sheer magnitude of digital adoption has ruined things so much. Something I have loved my whole life is now worse and more difficult to enjoy. I know times change but that doesn’t mean I have to lie down and give it a thumbs up, especially when in this case it doesn’t need to change and the changes are for the worse.

The other issues that concern convenience and laziness but also practicality is the space for physical media and transporting it. People like to complain about where to put it and what to do in a house move. A Billy bookshelf from IKEA is a good start. I’m not trying to advertise for them. It is just what I use and is probably fairly globally available. There are definitely higher quality options or cheaper options or you can always build it yourself. This bookshelf is about 200cm tall, 80cm wide and 20cm deep which is a reasonable size and could find a place in many small units or apartments. Buy extra shelves with it, space them accordingly to fit standard game case height, done! You now have space for 400 neatly displayed, easy to access videogames. You could add an extension shelf and even stack games on top taking that space to 500 plus. If you really don’t have room for this there are smaller options and things like coffee tables and TV units with built in storage. There are containers that slide under beds and storage that hangs from doors. It’s a lame, lazy reason not to buy physical. If you literally don’t have space for even a very small collection then frankly you may have bigger and more immediate concerns than videogames. You know we all managed just fine before digital was an option and a home without physical media alongside the family photos, knick-knacks and personal items is a bit sad and dystopian.

When it comes to moving this is always a pain no matter what. I have moved with my physical collection more than once before; hundreds of games, hundreds of movies and then books, magazines, CDs, and more on top. Pack it into boxes or containers, put them in your car and make some trips or rent a vehicle or use a moving service. Hopefully you have friends and family willing to help too. It isn’t that big of a deal and I would much rather move a few hundred games then one large couch that doesn’t separate into smaller pieces. Setting up the collection again is honestly fun and gives you a chance to rethink how it is stored and displayed. Something that I really need to stress is that you don’t need one of those massive collections you might see on YouTube. Having a small collection of your favourites and the ones that mean the most to you is a very intelligent approach. You don’t have to keep every physical game you buy. You can sell them, gift them, donate them and trade them, which leads to the next important point.

How good is it to have an actual physical asset that you have the freedom to do things with? It’s really bloody good. Being able to sell games you no longer have interest in playing is fantastic and so is being able to buy games used. It makes a hobby that can be expensive easier to afford. It means you can recover some of the money lost on a game you didn’t end up getting into. Buying used games means that you can simply and legally try games you don’t actually want to support and then sell them right after, maybe getting away without any money lost. You can lend or trade physical videogames with friends and family. You can even donate games and consoles to brighten the lives of others. It’s not surprising that digital media is being pushed to eliminate all this. You can also brighten the lives of others by giving a physical game as a gift. It could be in a gift bag for a friend or wrapped under the tree for the kids to tear open. You get to watch them open it and see the realisation in their eyes that you know them well enough to have picked something they are into or have been wanting. It is much better, more personal and meaningful than a card for a digital store. You get to brighten up your own life when your collection sparks conversations with guests, when you get to see it every day, when you get to share it with others, when you use it yourself and when you see your collection appreciating in value. It’s nice to have the freedom and benefits of actual physical assets that can be insured. It’s nice to know that if your financial situation got really bad, as sad as it would be, some games could be sold to help keep you going. It’s just great to actually own games and enjoy all the positives that brings.

‘But you don’t actually own it. It’s just a license, just like digital.’ My eyes roll so hard I hurt myself every time I see this. Damn I thought I owned Super Mario Bros. Wonder and could make and sell as many copies as I like. No shit I don’t ‘own’ the game that way but I sure as hell do own the container that my copy is in. Sony can’t stop me from using discs as Frisbees, Microsoft can’t stop me from using games as coasters and Nintendo can’t stop me from trying to eat Switch carts. I’m still buying and selling them used, still gifting them, still lending them out, controlling them, accessing them and playing them when I like. I still own them unless they start sending… agents, the police? Someone to my home to take them by force and if that were happening there would be much bigger concerns than videogames. I own my physical videogames even if you want to use a different interpretation of ownership to make yourself feel better about spending the past 15+ years and thousands of dollars on your digital rentals and subscription services. I also want to add on here that a lot of people seem to have latched onto ‘If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.’ You know what is even better than that. Buying physical to the have what I am outlining and to support and value the things you love with the hope that it will continue and you’ll get more things to love in the future.

The other thing physical is fantastic for is accessibility. Culture should be accessible to everyone, including those on lower incomes. I have already talked about used games, gifts and lending but then there is renting, libraries, physical archives, exhibitions and museums. Video rental stores were so good and their demise is disappointing. Being able to rent a game for weekend at a low price was wonderful. I’m sure that many who are old enough are right now remembering the visits to pick out some rentals; the take away food, the snacks, the walls of movies and games, the posters and displays, the knowledgeable staff, the warmth, the joy and the shared experience. You still had that respect and meaning because it was still a physical thing in your hands, that you had to go get and that you only had for a limited time. Libraries too can provide an even more affordable option to get your hands on games. Physical archives and museums are an excellent tool for research, education and preservation. Exhibitions are great at bringing people together and could allow people to get hands on with games and hardware they don’t have as well. How will this be done going forward if it’s all digital content controlled with an iron fist? Fucking hell, what will be left of our time and culture long term if it’s all controlled digital content?

Thinking about accessibility immediately makes me think about video game prices. Why is pricing so weird? I can go grab a physical game on launch day for less than digital except when it’s a smaller title/indie but I’m willing to support those when they make it physical because it’s worth it. In my country Sony’s big titles are $124.95 day one on the PlayStation store but can be found in physical stores or online for $99-$109. Physical and online stores have much better sales and clearances initially too. It’s only later once games start selling for very cheap digitally that it finally becomes the cheaper option but often still not a better deal because it doesn’t come with everything physical does. A complete lack of competition isn’t good. Can you imagine what they will be charging for games on consoles, and how often and by how much they will be discounted, when physical is eliminated? And what are you going to do about? There will be no other option but their digital stores or subscription.

It is surprising there hasn’t been stronger push back against this digital change. People have already had content they paid for taken away. Every time the Xbox or PlayStation network goes down complaints about not being able to play games pop up all over. There’s always someone there to say ‘just make sure to make your console primary.’ How about this bullshit not existing in the first place? People can’t make that change while things are down and they shouldn’t have to. On top of this, all the games you have paid for, that are not currently installed cannot be accessed. If a service is down or internet is out for you how much of what you have paid for can you enjoy and for how long? For me with my physical media internet for anything gaming related could be taken forever and I’m still good 99% of the time. I haven’t even touched on what happens to everything you have bought if your account is no longer accessible or they just start revoking licenses. This whole thing is so strange to me and I should probably be transparent about myself. I have never paid more than about $25 (AUD) for a digital game and never will and I don’t buy digital games at all very often. I have also never bought a digital movie, book, manga, comic or album either but to be fair though I have had subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon, Crunchyroll, Animelab, PlayStation Plus Essential and Nintendo Membership + Expansion.

I need to stop for a quick moment to address PC gamers that might be thinking this doesn’t include them and that space. The only reason digital games have been going okay (in some ways but not really overall) on PC is because PC gamers are ready to sail the high seas at a moment’s notice. Piracy is a pretty serious thing to compete against so they can’t mess around. But it is also illegal or in a grey area and we know how much corporations would love to see it cracked down hard on. Is it possible that this becomes something that is no longer worth the risk, particularly to those doing the heavy lifting? Will Steam, and the others, always be owned and run in the way it is now? Will they even always exist? If I was going to bet on the long term I would say that people are probably going to regret letting those disc drives become an endangered species (maybe at this point something other than a disc would be better though). Not to mention that you are currently missing all the physical media benefits already and you still have the harms of digital game consumption.

So let’s dive into the other harmful impacts of changing how we buy things. The rise of digital consumption has definitely turned us into better little consumers. I remember reading something many years ago about the psychological differences of buying something in person with cash in comparison to clicking a button online that kind of stuck with me. How much thought did you put into your in store physical game purchases 15 or so years ago compared to how you buy now? Go through your digital game library and ask yourself how many of these did I buy because they were cheap and it was so easy. How much did all of it end up costing you despite many being cheap? How many of them did you complete? How many of them did you play for more than a couple of hours or so? How many of them did you even start? How many of them do you even care about? Would you even notice if some went missing? How much value does this digital collection have and what can you do with it? How difficult would it be for what you have paid for to be altered, edited, restricted, taken away and/or have a pay wall or advertisements added?

In person and across the internet, even for someone like me that avoids a lot of social media, I see complaints about how things are; complaints about the cost of living, not getting good value for money and the awful behaviour of corporations. Buying videogames physically is a pretty good way of not bowing to the will of corporations and refusing to walk down the digital path that they want you to might be wise. Surely everyone understands, even if you like and solely use digital, that this is not being done for your benefit. The shift to digital is being done to reshape you, your behaviour and spending. It is being done to enable greater and easier data collection and advertising. It is being done to ensure a greater level of control of the content and of you. It is being done to improve profits and it makes it easier to get away with releasing poor quality content. The shift to digital media in the way they want it to exist is a not for us. People do understand this, there are reasons why digital adopters/embracers get defensive and like to attack physical media, physical media enthusiasts, make excuses, spread misinformation and claim it is already over, I’ll touch on this more later.

Not handing over control of how and where you buy, access, use and own entertainment and art is probably a good idea… Nah they can be trusted to be given an iron fisted grip on culture right? It’s pretty easy to still buy physical games despite my earlier complaints, at least for the mainstream ones, and it isn’t a big change to your life. There is a better option available that is affordable, accessible, that does not put you where corporations want you and makes it way harder for them to overreach. You should probably expect to reap what you sow when it comes to digital media at some point. You have in some way already because of shifting to something inferior and more anti consumer.

Mass produced books put knowledge in the hands of anyone that could read and let us share them and pass them down. VHS tapes brought film into the homes of everyone, maybe with a bit of help from rental stores. Physical videogames are art and fun held in your fingers without the need for endless payment. We are willingly handing this un-editable, uncontrollable and unhindered art, entertainment, knowledge and culture over. People are convinced that this is fine, more convenient and better for them and that they should give it up when we should be fighting to our last fucking breathe to protect it. I just… I don’t have the words to describe the importance of this… Imagine having this level of control and ownership over things and then giving it up… I won’t go on with this paragraph and push it any further. Yes this is bigger than just videogames and includes all media. I’m going to try to keep this whole thing as videogame focused as I can though.

Where is this is going, what’s the end goal of this transition? It is getting people use to not having ownership and control over media before finally fully taking that away. So let’s talk about the cancer that is Xbox Game Pass. Remember the Xbox One reveal. Remember the way the internet collectively ridiculed it. Remember Sony’s little video about sharing games. Remember people’s reaction to the idea of having used games taken away. What the hell happened to this attitude? Xbox is still the same they just learned that you need a little sugar to help the medicine go down. Xbox Game Pass distracts you with all the games you can play now while taking everything from you and continually putting the price up, while also letting Microsoft curate the games you play. Game Pass never was and never will be a ‘good deal.’ Then there is the damage to the industry and the games themselves. We’ve already seen the way Microsoft has been buying shit up, closing things down, letting people go and cancelling games. Look at the way Microsoft is already treating developers and games. What is going to happen to developers, especially small ones, when trying to negotiate a deal for their game going on to Game Pass? How will games be further monetised when distributed through a service? What’s going to happen to games when they are explicitly made to fill a subscription service? Games that are subscription service exclusives that never get preserved are just around the corner but they’ll probably be shit pushed out to fill a service anyway.

The change to how we buy things isn’t just impacting us and how we consume it is also impacting the games. It should not be surprising that if you treat a form of entertainment as disposable then it will become disposable in quality. Videogames have already become similar to the Netflix experience for many. You know the average Netflix experience; you sit down in front of the screen at the end of the day, scroll through a sea of mediocrity for far too long and then finally pick something to put on only for it to be ‘meh.’ Not that it matters because you already pulled out your phone. Then you keep watching it just so you can talk to others later about how ‘mid’ it is and you keep sitting there half watching, half scrolling on your phone, never properly engaging with anything. Nobody cares because it is a small, but ever increasing, monthly fee and there is a sea of content available so you can just barely engage with the next thing and the next and so on. Look at what happened with music, the industry, artists and how we engage with music and what has happened to the idea of the album. Look at how things changed from books, newspapers and magazines compared to what we have now. Look at the immediacy, the click bait, lack of depth, lack of quality, the misinformation, the level of engagement and media literacy. We have not and will not develop the same level of behaviours, attachment and engagement with digital media and digital content in subscriptions. For videogames it would most likely be twitch or a podcast in the background while casually playing something you don’t own or really care about and that won’t be preserved. Psychologically humans place more value on physical things than digital. Going from there I would say that physical things are more likely to get more engagement, better engagement, better attachment and better criticism. What’s been happening the past 15 or so years seems to support this and I would say that videogames, like other media, have already had their ‘value’ lowered.

If you buy games digitally or use a subscription, and in particular if you then superficially engage with them, I think that sends a strong message to the industry. Maybe making really good games isn’t necessary anymore. An average game is good enough now (more than ever before when the critics will often still praise it highly) if you have locked yourself into accessing most games through a subscription. Consuming games and other media digitally makes it highly likely that you won’t form an as strong connection with it and attachment to it. It is likely that you won’t place the same value on it and you won’t give it the same level of investment. It is more likely to be treated as disposable. Playing a videogame for 10 minutes then calling it shit and moving on is not going to be healthy for the medium. Buying and playing a physical game are much more intentional acts; more thought, time, attention and effort. Moving away from this so detrimental to how we consume and engage with something. All this flows on to effect the quality of the media we consume and continues in a downward spiral. It is one of the many causes as to why videogames, most notably in the mainstream space, have declined in quality when compared to 20 years ago. It’s not just how good they are but also the state they’re in too.

We’ve all seen the complaints about the current state of games and what always pops up is; they release broken, buggy, poorly optimised, incomplete. Imagine a world where everyone buys physical. In this world if a game released broken or full of bugs or missing features or unfinished then people could return it to the store. Imagine hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, in the space of a few days after launch, from all over the world, marching back to their local retailer claiming a refund because a game was faulty or didn’t include advertised features. No reading bullshit apology posts, no listening to how it will be fixed, no waiting for a patch, no dealing with digital market place terms or their awful customer service. Just take your physical copy back and get your money back. Imagine the pressure that could be placed on the industry to not do this shit ever. The shift to digital and online requirements enabled the release it now fix it/finish it later approach.

This partially addresses the ‘games aren’t actually complete on physical discs anyway’ argument, which also always has me rolling my eyes. Maybe if we didn’t go down this digital path and put up with this crap then we wouldn’t be in this mess. More importantly it isn’t even true. I guess it’s coming from a lot of PC or digital only gamers that are out of touch with what it is like with physical media. In my personal experience almost all of my PS4 or PS5 or Switch games work fine with no internet ever required. There is a website tracking this (doesitplay.org) that shows the majority of physical games will work very well or at least good enough to play through and that the majority is also complete on the disc or cart. Again though, buy physical and demand that it works. If not then return it for being faulty and/or incomplete. Do not have the attitude of we’re screwed either way and do not excuse or defend corporations. Stop spreading misinformation on this too. It drives me crazy every time I see the ignorant comments about this.

This reminds me of another issue, that frustrating bastard DRM. I think that DRM and digital distribution are on the same path. Or that they are two connected battles in a war for customer rights and control over things we have paid for. Again I have to say that maybe if we didn’t go down this digital path and put up with this crap then we wouldn’t be in this mess. It is just going to be more difficult to impose DRM on physical media. It is harder to impose it on something people have the expectation of using offline at anytime. It will be harder to get away with when doing it to things people have a greater connection to, hold in higher value and may want to buy and sell used. If you don’t like DRM in videogames then don’t send the message to the industry that you don’t care about access, control and ownership. What better way of sending the right message is there then both buying physical and of course also holding them accountable. Yes, DRM free digital is great, when available, but that will go the same way as physical if the industry has its way.

What’s that other silly argument, oh yeah, ‘physical media is no good for preservation because it deteriorates and will eventually stop working.’ Digital embracers love to bring up disc rot. Damn you got me here… hang on this is still in a Bomber Raid review. That cartridge from the late 80s that still works in my Master System that also still works. Hold on my PS1, PS2, GameCube and Xbox games still work too and I have never had a DVD or CD go bad on me. I’m in my 30s, are you saying that the games I buy right now might stop working around the time I’m 70 or 80 or later? Oh shit, I better pack it in, sell what I have and go all digital. This issue is so overstated. It is likely that physical media that is looked after and manufactured correctly will last close to a lifetime. The hardware needed to play it can be repaired and maintained and there is always the possibility of new hardware being produced for old media. I also need to point out that even a piece of physical media that has stopped working still has sentimental, historical, cultural, collectable and monetary value.

More important is how physical media actually does work very well in helping preservation. First of all is how physical media is more likely to be treasured, kept, looked after and passed on. But the main point is that right now you can buy things physically like the Tomb Raider collection or an Atari game collection or a Capcom game collection and so many others. Why can you buy these now? It is because many people bought them back in the day and loved them and because many people continue to buy physical media. If you support physical media and the games you like now then it makes it far more likely that physical media will continue into the future and those games you like now will be ported, remastered and/or put in a collection so they can be released again and again and again. This is how physical media can work for preservation, how each generation can revisit old games and how they can be kept in circulation. It is how I have watched many films made decades before I was born. This would be better than corporations trying to control digital games with an iron fist. Just sell them again physically in a fair and high quality way. Everyone can support what they love, money is made, no one needs to worry about the legality of their actions and no one gets sued into ruin. What’s that well known quote "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.” Ideally of course once a certain time has passed, while they still re-release physically, they also go to easily accessible archives and can be freely shareable like other really old media should. Archives will also be more likely to happen if we don’t treat videogames as disposable and unworthy of owning and preserving.

Physical media also helps to preserve the original intent of the developers. We are deep into a time of remasters, remakes and reimaginings. There are already so many games that if you want to play them as the developer originally intended then you need a physical copy. Remakes and reimaginings can often be wildly different from the original work and even remasters can have problems. Changes, even subtle ones, to the music, menus, lighting, colour, dialogue, gameplay, controls, etc. means that the original vision and intent is gone or messed with. Owning a physical copy that can’t be changed prevents editing, alterations and cuts. It stops ‘offensive’ or ‘outdated’ content or social, political, cultural, adult and LGBTQIA+ content from being removed or altered by corporations or governments because they don’t like it, because it is critical of them or just because of pressure from lobby groups. It stops the artists or others from messing with the work down the line. Games also get changed very quickly now with things like re-balancing, difficulties getting altered, exploits and skips being removed, gameplay tweaks and sometimes even story or character changes. There are so many games made to be played using specific hardware as well. There is so much that looks like it is going to be lost once those last discs and carts stop working. Videogames are being treated as software products that need updating instead of works of art from a particular time, place and team. It isn’t surprising that the industry wants to sell things again but in a way and with changes that’s more palatable to the current market. The industry needs to respect the works they have produced better and the audience needs to do better. Stop shitting on old graphics, old controls, older style gameplay and get out your comfort zone. People that don’t or ‘can’t’ enjoy older games sound a lot like the type people that don’t watch older films or films in a different language. I know it’s often going to be up to passionate gamers to preserve these works in their original form unfortunately, maybe with businesses and talented individuals providing products to help this too, but even when doing this people often can’t help themselves and make changes to the original work. Which is why high quality, completely intact physical re-releases would be better.

I’m not going to make this completely one sided and it may surprise you after everything I have said so far but I am not 100% against digital. I have no problem with digital existing and use it/buy this way myself. The problem is digital being the overwhelmingly dominant, or only way, is not good at all. I’m extremely concerned about that and unhappy about my choice being taken away.

The first point to concede is that digital is likely better for the environment. I am guessing that producing and then shipping games all over the world has a bigger impact, not that digital has zero impact though. It would be interesting to see a comprehensive comparison of a life of physical game consumption versus a life of digital consumption. This is an area where physical media has quite a bit of room for improvement. Packing, production and materials used probably could improve. As much as I am happy to give the point to digital here, I will also happily ignore it. It’s not worth it to give up physical and everything that brings.

One of the true redeeming qualities of digital is a different type of accessibility. More recently there has been great progress in the accessibility options in videogames. On top of this we have seen new controller designs as well. Things are now better than ever, and continuing to improve, for gamers who are elderly, disabled and/or impaired. I have the privilege of having no issues with driving, walking, using public transport, opening boxes and getting up to change discs. I can enjoy physical media easily but for some I can imagine that digital is a blessing that makes their lives and the enjoyment of videogames much easier.

The best thing for the medium itself is how digital has opened up the possibility for anyone to make a game and get it out there. This is a double edged sword because not everyone should make games and digital market places are flooded with garbage. But this has led to so many great games gracing our screens and there has been plenty of innovation coming from those smaller games. Those brilliant little games struggling for attention, in an ocean filled with giants and a ton of shit, without the means to put out a physical release are what should make up your digital purchases. This is the time to buy digital and is what it should almost entirely be used for. It is fantastic to see many of these smaller titles go on to get physical releases too.

The final thing I want to mention in favour of digital is how easy it is to get game demos. They can be put out quickly and experienced quickly. It’s great to have before putting down the money for the full game. It also might encourage people to try things outside their comfort zone and yes this point can apply to subscriptions too, not even close to being worth the damage though. Unfortunately these demos can also be quickly pulled or only available for a short time and they just aren’t as good or as cool as getting a demo disc with a video game magazine was. While I’m on that, video game magazines were better than current day video game journalism and reviews. Yes magazines were far from perfect and they didn’t have the same number of or diversity of voices as we have now but they were better quality and helped get better engagement. Moving away from physical media always messes up media literacy, how we value and interact with media, how we consume media, how it is sold, how it is made and why it is made.

I’ve done an okay job of covering things, I hope. But now before I wrap up I need to get into why there are disagreements that can be heated. There are some things that are at the core of this and that are uncomfortable for both sides. First up is me and my love of physical and aversion to digital. Part of this may stem from a need for a sense of control over my environment, surroundings and things. I may want/need that greater level of security and comfort. To add to this I come from a lower socio-economic background, at least by the standards of my country, which honestly isn’t that detrimental compared with many places on earth. But it was not exactly raining videogames, or anything else, during my childhood. Getting a game was special, the used market was important and so was renting, hand me downs, sharing and borrowing. This may be adding to why I need something tangible and why I find it mentally difficult to spend a decent amount of money on things that are not physical and don’t have the versatility of physical. I may see physical media as an extension of myself and personality too and it could be impacting my passionate response. I am open to the idea that there is the potential that there’s something unhealthy about my passion for physical videogames. Obviously this doesn’t just apply to me. Some of or all of these things, and more, could apply to many people enthusiastic about physical media and critical of digital.

Okay now for the digital side. If you have gone all or mostly digital and have spent a decent amount of time and money on digital games and/or subscriptions then you have enabled and encouraged things to get where they are now and where they are going. Is digital feudalism the correct term or valid? I don’t know but what I do know is that things are shit and are getting even more shit. We might be getting pushed but some of us have resisted harder than others. I’m not perfect and I don’t feel great about some of my choices and some things I still use, only you yourself know where you are at, what you have done and how you feel. There is the idea that because you struggled to resist the ease, convenience, change, push for and downsides of digital therefore you have come to think it is not that bad, and maybe it is actually good and everyone should do the same.

There is the issue of how buying things is psychologically different depending on how it is done, from paying in person with cash, then card, then tap and go pay, then online, then online and only waiting for a download, then instant with subscription. Then they made the place you play games the same place you buy them and see advertisements for them as well. It is impacting us and causes you to think about conscientiousness, impulsiveness, laziness and accountability but also exploitation and underhandedness. There are psychological tricks being used here somewhat comparable to how microtransactions work. With microtransactions your money buys the game’s currency/materials/resources and then this can be traded for something else, potentially with multiple layers to deliberately obfuscate things and make it difficult to understand the value of things in-game. You could argue that buying videogames digitally removes the value of the game or obfuscates what it is and places it squarely on the revocable, temporary license. So then what is the actual value of the game? (Not just in monetary terms too). It used to be clearer with physical games that were an irrevocable copy of the game in a physical container (disc, cart, etc.), along with a case or box, manual and maybe more and this was bought for a price, yours forever and could be resold. Why are we being charged the same for a digital release and why are you paying it? There is a reason why Microsoft originally tried to get away with using Microsoft Points on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Again I will repeat that the change to digital media is not being done for your benefit, it is the exact opposite. No one is going to want to admit that choices they have made have been detrimental, not in their interest, made in indifference and that their behaviour and spending may have been changed. No one is going to want to admit they’ve kowtowed or that they have willingly walked into some kind of digital serfdom.

There are things on both sides that are uncomfortable, not great or even unhealthy. There is a reason why this issue gets divisive and heated. I know this thing of mine has been abrasive and then topped off with these last two paragraphs as well but it has to be. This is a serious issue with large, long term ramifications that people feel strongly about. But just because I really don’t like your choices that doesn’t mean I hate you or think less of you as a person. We should remember that people are in their own unique situations, we are all under a variety of pressures and most frustration should be directed to the corporations pushing this upon us. It must be remembered that physical media isn’t dying, it is being killed. But of course that also does not mean things should be dismissed or that we are completely absolved.

This is issue is often framed as a debate. As digital versus physical but it isn’t a debate or a battle. On one hand there is not just a clear better option but the only option that allows you to fully and properly enjoy videogames and everything surrounding them. On the other hand there is seriously harmful enshittification that hands over the power, ownership and control we had and that causes culture to be lost. Digital should never be more than a convenient side option that is supplementary to physical media. Subscription services can go completely. Ideally I would like to see both digital and physical coexist and have a physically dominant, or at least more even, share of spending. If this was the case the two options could help keep each other honest and if this was the case this issue and my ramblings wouldn’t exist.

I love physical media and the irreplaceable and unbeatable benefits it has and I love that I have physical media that is special to me like Bomber Raid. I hope everyone out there has their own physical media that’s special to them and I hope we can all continue to enjoy this into the future. Getting back to how things used to be is unrealistic but by continuing to support physical media, and maybe with enough resurgence, we can prevent it from becoming even more endangered or extinct.

There is still time before we end up locked into digital media and subscriptions with ever increasing prices, a lack of competition, algorithms to influence you, advertisements, filled with mediocre content made by people that had no passion for what they were doing, content that you may not even be able to download as it’s only streaming, content that doesn’t get preserved, content that gets edited losing the original developer’s intent and all the older games we love are trapped in there too. There is still time before we lose the culture, control and ownership that we had, become completely dependent, without autonomy and privacy, while data and value is extracted from us.

Convenience doesn’t come without a serious cost. They want you to own nothing. Keep your support and enabling of that to a minimum, don’t make it easy for them and don’t give anything up. For the sake of videogames, for the sake of everyone that enjoys them and for your own sake do your best to make the majority of your purchases physical.