Undoubtedly one of the news this year is the definitive closure of Google Stadia, which continues to swell its graveyard of services that have not finished working after its launch. The problem in this case is that the games that people bought online to play streaming have been left in limbo. This reopens the debate on the need to have physical games, and that they will never be lost, or if streaming is going to be lost.
Online video game services have undoubtedly established themselves in our daily lives, with large platforms such as Steam for the computer field, or the stores of each of the consoles on the market. The problem is that when buying a digital version, it is that in the future this may end up disappearing as has happened with Google Stadia. But this is not something that happens with physical games.
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Physical games return to prominence
Currently, physical games have been practically relegated to a matter of collecting. It is not comfortable to have to be putting a CD in a console to be able to switch between two video games, and even most computers no longer have a CD drive. The immediacy of switching between two games that are stored online prevails. This is due to the great trust we have placed in services like Steam that have earned the trust of many people.
The problem that arises is when one of these companies on which we have placed all the trust to buy a game and storing it on their servers ends up going bankrupt and disappearing. In the case of Google Stadia, they have announced that they are going to return the money to all users who have purchased a game in their online store. But they could not have done it that way, since in the end they paid for a service that you have been able to enjoy.
This does not happen with physical games where when you buy them you are given a copy on a CD or a cartridge to be able to use on the console, even if it is no longer supported through software updates. In this way you are not buying something that is inertly on a server, but you have it in your own hand and you will be able to store and play it in 20 years without much problem. This in the online field remains to be seen if the games you bought 20 years ago are going to continue to be enjoyed in the future.
Yes ok, physical games are not perfect and that is why the online world appeared. The fact that they accumulate a space, that when you buy it you have to wait a few days for it to arrive at your home or that on many occasions they cannot receive updates also make it a negative option to use.
In short, this closure makes you wonder if you really love a game, it’s worth having it physically even if you have already bought it online. This is the best way to make it last in your library, and even if 30 years go by you can play it on your console. In this way you make sure that it doesn’t disappear from the web, since there will come a time when there are so many video games that online platforms may have to sacrifice the oldest ones to make savings on their servers.