While Nintendo has introduced its new Game-Key Cards as way for digital-only games to get physical releases, the move has been seen as controversial one by some. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the head of one studio referred to the move as “disheartening.”
Nightdive Studios CEO Stephen Kick, speaking about the concept from the perspective of preservation of games, said that he expected Nintendo to take it more seriously. “Seeing Nintendo do this is a little disheartening,” said Kick. “You would hope that a company that big, that has such a storied history, would take preservation a little more seriously.”
From the perspective of game preservation, the Game-Key Card system would be vulnerable to Nintendo deciding later that it no longer wants to keep servers that allow games to be downloaded. It’s done so in the past with consoles like the Wii U or the handheld 3DS no longer having servers live, so digitally purchased games can no longer be downloaded.
“Even when a cartridge does contain data on day one of release, games are so often patched, updated and expanded through downloads that the cart very often loses its connection to the game and functions more like a physical copy protection dongle for a digital object,” noted game development course leader at Bath Spa University and co-founder of the Videogame Heritage Society professor James Newman.
Director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at The Strong Museum based out of Rochester, New York, Jon-Paul Dyson, believes that Nintendo, with the Game-Key Card, is only the latest console maker is eyeing an all-digital future. “Nintendo was, in some ways, the slowest of the major console producers to go there,” he said.
While preserving older games tends to be a challenge, with Nintendo’s recent move, Kick believes that the company has taken “a step back.” He is, however, optimistic about the preservation of games moving forward.
“While that’s really nice, it would have also been nice if they did this 20 years ago, right?” Kick joked, referring to a commitment by Square Enix, Sega, Capcom, and Taito to archive materials that were used in the development of games. “But that could be said for everybody. I think everybody is definitely putting in way more effort these days to back up their stuff, which is great. It’ll make our jobs easier as a studio primarily focusing on remasters.”
“There won’t be that struggle, hopefully, to find source code and assets to create collections and that kind of stuff in the future.”
As the Switch 2 gets closer to its June 5 launch, buyers have begun noticing that several third-party games are being sold only through Game-Key Cards. The card won’t have any game data but acts as a key to download and play the game. As part of the system, the Game-Key Card emulates a regular game card, requiring the player to keep it inserted to keep playing.