The difficulties of legal game preservation and backups showcased in latest Completionist video



The Nintendo Wii U and 3DS eShops are closing next week, which means hundreds upon thousands of games will imminently be forever lost to the shutdown of the respective console's storefronts. Many here are aware of how important game preservation is, and with both the Wii U and 3DS being easy to put CFW and load backups on, it's a fairly simple task to obtain near-complete libraries of either. Of course, while backing up those games may be a legal grey area, playing them without owning them is unlawful, and audiences not tuned into the world of homebrew may not even know about such things to begin with.

Which is why YouTube personality The Completionist has decided to purchase every single available game on both the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Wii U eShops. This endeavor consisted of purchasing 866 Wii U digital titles, and 1,547 3DS games, including all DLC and Virtual Console releases, totaling at over $22,000. The video showcases the difficulties in legally compiling a complete backup of both the Wii U and 3DS, ranging from the problems arising from trying to obtain $18,000 worth of eShop cards, to trying to actually make purchases since you can only load $250 worth of eShop credit at a time, being locked out by Nintendo from making so many transactions at a time, slow downloads from Nintendo's servers, the limitations of the 3DS, and other obstacles.

The video is an important display of why video game preservation is so important, and the arduous process of backing up media so that it does not become lost forever.
 

duwen

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The amount of YT content creators milking the eshop shutdown is getting bonkers.
It's a constant stream of "3DS titles you MUST download before the eshop closes", "The best Wii U games to grab before the eshop closes", "DLC you NEED to get before the eshop closes", etc...

As for this clown... if he's truly "the completionist" there'd be a fair chunk of those libraries that he'd already own physically (as well as the sizable chunk of the libraries that's ONLY available physically).

Digital 'preservation' is kind of pointless from the perspective taken in the video as it's only accessible by the account that originally downloaded it - and once you can no longer access that account it doesn't matter how many backups of the content you made, you won't be able to access any of it without resorting to exploiting the hardware.
 

Shahaan

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The things people do for views lol...
The amount of money dumped into this far outweighs what it will ever make back, it's been a long process on someone who's already really busy, it's been a few months in the making so the guy's just doing it out of passion at this point, and I applaud him for it
 
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ZeroFX

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The amount of money dumped into this far outweighs what it will ever make back, it's been a long process on someone who's already really busy, it's been a few months in the making so the guy's just doing it out of passion at this point, and I applaud him for it
if it makes him feel better about himself, well i won't applaud or even watch him but, congrats i guess lol. That will benefit nobody, including him.
Well, the things people do for views.
 
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Marc_LFD

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Attachment is a problem for humans, people need to learn how to let go. When something is gone, let it go.

When we die, all memories of this life is gone. Stop being so attached to things.
By that logic, families owning land should not happen because "people need go learn to let it go."

Nah, dude, we need to preserve all good things in life when and if possible for future generations to appreciate and experience it.
 

Ettino

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Wait. He donated the HDD to the video game preservation society? I sure hope he donated the console with it as well because that HDD is forever linked to that one console. LMAO, this whole thing is a mess.
 
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godreborn

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Wait. He donated the HDD to the video game preservation society? I sure hope he donated the console with it as well because that HDD is forever linked to that one console. LMAO, this whole thing is a mess.
you can get the content with the otp.bin and seeprom, so the console isn't needed.
 
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godreborn

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Ah gotcha. What about the NNID? Aren't all the games also linked to his account?
they're linked to the account through the ticket, but all they'd need to do is use dumpsterU to dump the entirety of the game, minus the paired ticket, then use nuspacker to make it installable again with a fake ticket. since we know how they work, it's not a problem. they would need the console just to dump the otp.bin and seeprom.bin, but if he provided them, then it's no longer needed. I think dumpsterU was created by @GaryOderNichts btw. there's also dumpling and wfs-extract that can do this as well.
 
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Marc_LFD

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The amount of YT content creators milking the eshop shutdown is getting bonkers.
It's a constant stream of "3DS titles you MUST download before the eshop closes", "The best Wii U games to grab before the eshop closes", "DLC you NEED to get before the eshop closes", etc...

As for this clown... if he's truly "the completionist" there'd be a fair chunk of those libraries that he'd already own physically (as well as the sizable chunk of the libraries that's ONLY available physically).

Digital 'preservation' is kind of pointless from the perspective taken in the video as it's only accessible by the account that originally downloaded it - and once you can no longer access that account it doesn't matter how many backups of the content you made, you won't be able to access any of it without resorting to exploiting the hardware.
It's the first time I became aware of it via GBATemp.

Don't really give a crap about Nintendo on YT. I do watch What Happened and Now in the 90's, but that's about it.
 

Kioku

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Attachment is a problem for humans, people need to learn how to let go. When something is gone, let it go.

When we die, all memories of this life is gone. Stop being so attached to things.

“Don’t live your life because you’ll inevitably die.”

Much inspiration
 

Snintendog

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Unnecessary waste of money and everyone else time, the only winner in this situation is Nintendo themselves.

I really don't get what is trying to been proven here, everyone already know how difficult preserving some medias can be, but people didn't start doing it yesterday, most of the Wii U and 3DS library are already preserved everywhere on the internet since forever.
The completionist is known for moral grand standing while also NOT helping the Archives he has the Strict NO piracy Period stance in the past actively thumbing his nose down on those wishing for even Earthbound and other essentially abandonware games to be only for collectors. This vid shows a 180 over the dumb views he has held for a LONG time for a Slightly Less dumb view.
 

godreborn

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The completionist is known for moral grand standing while also NOT helping the Archives he has the Strict NO piracy Period stance in the past actively thumbing his nose down on those wishing for even Earthbound and other essentially abandonware games to be only for collectors. This vid shows a 180 over the dumb views he has held for a LONG time for a Slightly Less dumb view.
I think I may own a copy of eartthbound, the snes cartridge. I need to find it, because that things listed for like $400 for cartridge only.
 

raxadian

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To make things worse, while we don't know how durable an unhacked 3DS is, a Wii U that has not been used in a while may become bricked. So in the end, with the systems going offline forever, the only way to truly preserve those games will involve hacking.
 
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