The Digital Revolution: Count Me Out.

The PlayStation Vita is coming to a store near you very soon, and with it Sony is saying goodbye to the UMD format. Taking a page from the failed PSP GO, the PlayStation Vita will make all games available through digital distribution, with an additional option to purchase titles on physical Vita game cards. All games can be downloaded from the PlayStation Network store, where they are then saved to proprietary flash memory cards.

There are many reasons why the PSP Go failed, and the existence of the Vita means that Sony doesn't think it has much to do with the digital-only distribution. Sony is putting a lot of money into the hybrid PlayStation Vita, and that means they really believe in it as a viable product. More importantly, it means they are testing the waters to see if a future console that solely features digital distribution can succeed.

The only way to make a portable console even more portable is to eliminate the need to carry around games. Testing the waters of digital distribution with a handheld console is appropriate, but it's likely not going to end there. With the recent rise in sales on the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, the message being sent by consumers is that they enjoy having software made available to them on demand. It's very possible that the next generation of home consoles will be digital only, or at the very least feature a much larger digital library than we see currently.

If you're like me, your multimedia life is digital already: my music library is on my PC, I stream movies more often than I watch DVDs, and I have bought my fair share of games from Xbox Live Arcade. The inevitable conquest of the virtual console is at hand, and your game discs will soon sit next to cartridges in a museum display. While this may please some of you, I will be dragged into this dark age of gaming kicking and screaming.

Taken at face value there is no real difference between a digital file and a physical copy. The difference amounts to a personal preference, with both formats having their own positive and negative attributes. Digital files can be stored and backed up in various ways, making them nearly as tangible as anything on a disc.

That is to say, unless you purchase a file that is protected by digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. 

Practically every online marketplace and virtual game store sells only DRM protected content. With that comes one very problematic restriction: DRM protected media cannot be backed up like normal digital files. The purchase of games in a virtual store means you are only renting that content per a licensing agreement, and you never own a copy of any game you buy. The games you buy on Xbox Live Arcade will exist for only as long as Microsoft wishes to offer them.  

Some of the games I have purchased from Xbox Live Arcade are no longer available for sale. While I can still play and enjoy them on my hard drive, I am completely at the mercy of Microsoft when it comes to enjoying them in the future. All hard drives are doomed to fail sooner or later, and backing up these games on a second hard drive is not an option.

Will you be able to play Braid in a few years?

Games purchased on discs will work even after Microsoft abandons the Xbox 360. This is likely not going to be the case for content purchased from the Xbox Live Arcade. Games purchased on XBLA are likely only good for as long as the Xbox 360 is sold in stores, after which Microsoft has little incentive to keep the games you downloaded alive. Where there is always a used market for games long after they are produced, DRM protected games will not be so lucky.

This may not bother some of you, but it will bother those of us who really love video game history. There are many creative, groundbreaking, titles released through the PSN and XBLA. I want to have these games available for years to come, not just sitting in a publisher's cold storage somewhere. Video games are works of art, and like any movie or book, there should always be some way to acquire every game, even if that just means scouring eBay for an old copy.

Sure, some of these games are likely to be made available again at some point on a new digital marketplace, but what are the odds that they can be experienced in their original form? If you've looked for your favorite classic game on XBLA, odds are you're going to find a graphically-enhanced special edition. And if the original, unaltered game is made available again, it's likely to have DRM protection.

It's sort of like Street Fighter II...

We all have seen the news about massive multiplayer online games being shut down. What happens when an MMORPG has its servers closed? The game vanishes forever. It then exists only in archived screenshots, the content of the game never made available to the public again. That game can never be experienced ever again; the innovations it put forth can only be recalled secondhand.   

An MMORPG requires a persistent server and thousands of players in order for the game to be playable. So, the permanent closing of these games is more understandable. When it comes to games that are stored and run from my home console, there is absolutely no reason why they have to suffer such a cruel fate. There should be a legitimate way to backup this content, making it playable like any disc or cartridge.

I understand that media piracy is a real problem, and I don't want to attack the idea of DRM completely. I just wish it were possible to own and utilize content purchased in a digital store just like anything you buy a physical copy of. There has to be a better a solution, even if the solution is to simply deactivate the DRM upon the content no longer being made available. There seems to be no valid reason to keep content protected if it's no longer available for purchase.

I'll close by saying that I love the PlayStation Vita. It's a sharp-looking handheld, and the games look incredible. The only turn-off for me will be the DRM-protected game content; I'll likely opt to purchase my games in the flash card form. While I am not turned off by selling games through digital distribution, I am concerned about restrictive DRM. A future where all games are made available only through digital distribution will absolutely change the way we buy and play games, and it will also change the way we can access and experience video game history.