We need a DRM-free console game ROM store like GoG
GoG.com makes buying computer games reasonable and DRM-Free. We need a video game console ROM equivalent.
GoG.com (originally known as “Good Old Games”) provides DRM-Free, easy to locally archive, computer video games for sale.
We all know GoG. GoG is amazing.
My personal collection of games which I have purchased via that surface is a varied (and glorious) trip into computer gaming. From the early 1980s through to modern titles.
But, you know what we don’t have?
A store, like GoG, that provides downloadable, DRM-Free, locally archivable games for video game consoles.
Sure, companies like Nintendo have been selling their older titles for newer systems. But always in restrictive ways. Subscription services or DRM-locked, on-line-activated purchases that are always locked to specific hardware (like the Nintendo Switch).
And, even then, the available selection of titles represents a teensy-tiny fraction of the great games which have been released for oh-so-many consoles over oh-so-many years. Effectively making it nearly impossible for gamers to experience and enjoy most video game titles (at least in a legal way).
Plus, it deprives video game developers and publishers with the kind of residual income that music, book, movie, and TV creators get to enjoy.
This situation, in a word, stinks.
For everyone.
Imagine a store. Filled with video games (from multiple publishers) released for multiple consoles.
Sega Master System. Atari Lynx. Turbo Grafx 16. Neo Geo. So many others.
Sure, some publishers would rather die than release their games in a DRM-free fashion… even their long abandoned titles (I’m looking at you Nintendo). But there are hundreds, if not thousands, of publishers that are no longer deriving any revenue, of any kind, from some of the amazing video games of years past.
Why not put them up for sale, gaining at least some revenue, while allowing a whole new generation of gamers to experience those amazing games (and us older gamers to relive portions of our childhood)?
Someone should do this.
Maybe GoG.com could add a console category. Maybe a new company can form to publish DRM-free game ROMs. Working with game publishers to breath new life into so many amazing games.
Either way, I know I want this. Very badly.
Please. Someone. Take my money.