Topic: Statement : "You shouldn't have to pay for games you already have or had"

I'm playing Nintendo games for twenty years now, and i thought the other day that it is quite absurd paying to download titles you previously owned and thus paid for, maybe 20...to 13 years ago...

What's your take on this?

I don't really have a problem with that, because they are digital, and look better on today's TVs, so it's not like it's exactly the same, and no one's forcing you to buy it. The problem I have, though, is that you don't really own it; you just own the license to play it on your console, which is really lame.

Isn't most stuff you buy these days just licensed to you?

No...I don't know of anything else that is. Maybe music from an online store, but I don't ever buy from any online stores for that reason. I want a CD in my hands.

Oh, okay, maybe I got confused. And on subject, I have many copies of different games, it's how people make money. They're not forcing you to pay anyway. I think it's nice that they put old games on the DL services, but if you would rather go play the original, no one is stopping you.

personally i do like to purchase games on the VC even if i have them already or had them.
There's one major advantage of the VC versions in comparison to their original counterparts and that is the lack of a disc/cartridge that can be damaged. Therefore the VC games do not get corrupted due to damages on the hardware they are saved on. Unfortunately most of my SNES and N64 games have this kind of damage and therefore they appear all blurry, keep freezing and whatnot.

I don't buy VC games I already own. Got many SNES games with the original cartridge which I don't replace by the VC counterparts.

I don't ever have a problem with any of my discs or cartridges getting damaged, because I keep everything in order, almost like a museum display. I know a lot of people who just lay their games around everywhere and don't worry about what they do with them or where to put anything, so I can understand why those kind of people would like it in digital form, but I'm not one of them. It makes sense that they would charge for those games, because their main purpose is really for people who don't own the games.

if I want to play it on a current-gen console, i have no problems with re-purchasing it. if i want to play it on the original console, i have no problems with hauling the thing out and setting it up so that i can. they've been re-releasing older games on newer consoles forever now -- the Namco Museum and Super Mario Advance series-es say hello, y'know -- so it's not like there's no precedent or anything.

I dislike it but I do it anyway - when Sega stopped the Dreamcast, I re-bought most of what I could on the GameCube. I have a feeling we wont have to do this much any more - backwards compatibility is becoming an essential feature of new consoles and I think it is an important one. I mean I would have bought an XBox 360 instead if the Wii wasn't backwards compatible - hopefully now all future Nintendo consoles will be able to play their back catalogue like the Wii does.

"You shouldn't have to pay for games you already have or had"

You don't have to pay for the cartridge / CD that you already own. If you want a second copy of the game, be it another cartridge, CD or download then obviously you have to pay for it again. If a kid owns a toy and they lose it, it gets broken or they just want another one the same, are they entitled to just grabbing another one for free from the store because they already owned it once before?

For the record, I do download games I already own or used to own. I never play my SNES anymore and have since sold many of my old collection. I have the Super Mario All*Star cartridge but still I long for it on the Virtual Console. I've not played the cartridge in a long time and have no plans for doing so despite it still working (I just need to buy another cable to connect to the TV to get the SNES to work; last time I did, I unwittingly bought a dodgy knock-off that broke soon after I got it, but even if I did get one that worked, I'd still not play my SNES much). I also made a profit on some of the games I used to own - on Ebay, my Paper Mario went for four times more than it cost me to re-purchase it on the Virtual Console.

I suppose for me, its like if you want to listen to a song you own on cassette or record but now prefer to have it on CD. Or if you have a movie on VHS but would rather watch it on DVD.

False.

First off, as stated, no one's forcing you to buy them.

Second, there are many reasons why someone would buy them. You could be like me, and not have been alive back then, in which case you never played the games. Or, there's some games that just slipped under your radar back then, and you want to play them now. Or, you just want to have all your great games in one place.

this is also a good point. we've been re-buying things in newer formats/for newer technology since forever now, really. how is re-buying a video game any different?

You can't really compare VHS and DVD/Blu-Ray to games. With movies, they really improve certain aspects. Better image quality, better audio quality, extra content enz. enz. With VC games they are mostly one-on-one ports, some even worse then their original counterpart.

@Sneaker13: with the VC, though, being able to play games just as they were played back on their original consoles (same slowdown issues, graphical quirks, etc. and so forth) was a selling point (though granted, i don't know much about the Hz thing people argue about here all the time, nor do i care). other games have seen improvements/graphics upgrades/whatever in past re-releases, though, and to be quite honest, i can't say that I re-buy old movies just for the making-of featurettes or better audio quality. i just re-buy them so that i can watch them again.

In related news, I don't think I should have to pay for food I already ate. If I already paid for Alaskan King Crab legs once, maybe 20 to 13 years ago, why should I have to pay for it again when I want to experience it a second time? Despite the fact that I'm getting it prepared and served to me all over again, and that I'm likely buying it in a totally different restaurant. It's madness!

I though this topic was about games you already own. Rebuyin them on VC. I still have my SNES, so there is no way that I'm going to rebuy those games when they hit VC. I don't know many VC games with improvements but from what I've read, there aren't many of them.

Movies on the other hand are a different story. The quality between VHS and DVD is huge (can't speak of DVD and Blu-ray).

LOL, Chicken!
But yeah, you want it again, you gotta pay for it again.

@Sneaker13: by past re-releases, i meant retail versions. not all of us enjoyed the graphical upgrades some re-releases featured, and sometimes there were other drawbacks (like Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, with the smaller screen area naturally hampering your view and making you have to scroll around to see everything). yes, most of us either bought or were gifted all these classic games before, but that doesn't entitle us to be able to download them again for free just because we owned them on their original console.

i think the fact that games being re-released for newer systems is nothing new at retail kinda helps this topic to span more than just the VC... that's kinda the tangent i was leaning toward with my other replies. short answer: the statement is false.