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.
 

Noctosphere

Nova's Guardian
Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2013
Messages
6,719
Trophies
3
Age
30
Location
Biblically accurate Hell
XP
18,000
Country
Canada
I am among those who wish that when a game is no longer available to purchase legally, we should be legally allowed to download it for free
In this case, we should be allowed to download for free wii u games since they shut down the only way to buy them
(I'm not considering the used market ofc)
 

tech3475

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2009
Messages
3,602
Trophies
2
XP
5,959
Country
Out of curiosity, how big in gigabytes is each consoles library? Just asking....for a friend.

edit:

Funnily enough, I'm having issues with bad preservation right now, I can't find the latest stock rom update for my old semi-bricked XDA Exec. On one site it seemed like the wayback machine had archived everything except the ROM update.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Halbour

AshuraZro

Belongs in a museum.
Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2004
Messages
2,599
Trophies
3
Location
Ontario
XP
2,863
Country
Canada
An entertaining video and challenge. I understand the idea behind the video but I feel a little cynical about the end result. Anyone can spend money as they like but it feels like a waste to me without additional steps taken on protecting end results.

All of the storage should have disk images taken and stored multiple times over across different media/locations. Even then they only presently would work with the particular Wii U and 3DS console. Decrypting the titles is likely out of scope but for preservation and archival sake, it’d be the next step.
 

SaulFabre

I like Yoshis and the Wii/Wii U scene.
Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2019
Messages
3,135
Trophies
1
Age
25
Location
Ecuador
Website
saulfabreg-wiivc.blogspot.com
XP
7,552
Country
Ecuador
I am among those who wish that when a game is no longer available to purchase legally, we should be legally allowed to download it for free
Same.
It should be legal to get (freely) a game which it's not avaliable anymore (in this case on Wii U's and Nintendo 3DS's eShop).
Same thing happened to the WiiWare, Virtual Console, and Wii channels of Wii Shop Channel.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Henx and Nightcat

Dust2dust

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
2,373
Trophies
2
XP
4,263
Country
Canada
Just strange. All games released on a single console's lifespan are not meant to be owned by a single person. It's like a menu in a restaurant. You're not supposed to order everything on the menu and eat it. Besides, he will never have time to play everything he just bought. As for game preservation, most of these games are available to download with just a simple google search. There was no need to panic and buy everything.
 

SaulFabre

I like Yoshis and the Wii/Wii U scene.
Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2019
Messages
3,135
Trophies
1
Age
25
Location
Ecuador
Website
saulfabreg-wiivc.blogspot.com
XP
7,552
Country
Ecuador
Also, i've saw that a major lawsuit is trying to censor and delete forever the Internet Archive :(

And the Internet Archive is so far the biggest archive of things that are so many years old that u can get and use them, including old software
 

Sphaa

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
Mar 4, 2007
Messages
73
Trophies
1
XP
621
Country
Norway
This topic remained me of the torrent site underground-gamer. It was a site that focused on preserving old games, and they did a great job collecting, preserving and sharing older games. That was the place I found all rare games from my childhood, too bad they shut down.
Anyway, it's one thing to preserve games but it also must be accessible to the public in one way or another, and that is a problem with modern games. They are so big that it's problematic to find a place to store all of them and make them available to future generations.
 

SaulFabre

I like Yoshis and the Wii/Wii U scene.
Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2019
Messages
3,135
Trophies
1
Age
25
Location
Ecuador
Website
saulfabreg-wiivc.blogspot.com
XP
7,552
Country
Ecuador
That was the place I found all rare games from my childhood, too bad they shut down.
Anyway, it's one thing to preserve games but it also must be accessible to the public in one way or another, and that is a problem with modern games. They are so big that it's problematic to find a place to store all of them and make them available to future generations.
Sad.

Internet Archive, also a good and big library of the Internet for storing and preserving many things from the past including software, will be in a terrible destiny if we don't do something...
https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/17/heres-how-to-participate-in-mondays-oral-arguments/
 

NinStar

Ny'hrarr ♂
Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
Messages
550
Trophies
0
Age
23
Location
Rio de Janeiro
Website
ninstar.carrd.co
XP
2,045
Country
Brazil
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.
 

K3Nv2

Village Idiot
Member
Joined
May 26, 2013
Messages
1,399
Trophies
3
Age
32
XP
4,705
Country
United States
I recently watched a video where an entire GameCube collection could cost you around $20,000 so yeah tip your hat off to the people that put effort into preserving these.
 

Sphaa

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
Mar 4, 2007
Messages
73
Trophies
1
XP
621
Country
Norway
Internet archive is a really cool place, and I admire the job they do. But Unfortunately, commercial game preservation will properly always be illegal and I doubt we ever will see any sites like that, totally open, sharing those old commercial games.
 

The Catboy

GBAtemp Official Catboy™: RIP Akira Toriyama
Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
27,736
Trophies
4
Location
Making a non-binary fuss
XP
38,495
Country
Antarctica
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.
But how many people have documented how difficult this process is, then presented in an entertaining format?
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    straferz @ straferz: Anybody know why this is happening to my ACWW town...