The biggest concern for me is, what happens when you want to play the game again in 10 years time, when the DRM servers are offline?
When you buy DRM'ed media, you are merely renting it for an unspecified duration.
When you buy DRM'ed media, you are merely renting it for an unspecified duration.
Being able to play a game in 10 years, play it offline, or sell it would always be surprising to me. So I wouldn't assume those things to be possible when I buy it.
That obviously makes fewer products worth buying, which saves me money. But quite often both for games and othewr media I come to the conclusion "Yes, I'm happy to pay $60 to play this for 2 weeks even if I never play it again". So long as that's the calculation, there is rarely any disappointment.
10 years passing in the real world shouldn't mean anything to a medium that's frozen in time (like all fiction is). It's still possible to play N64 cartridges, watch VHS tapes, read books. Until they fall apart, that's how long you've got to enjoy them, but they won't do so quickly if you take great care of them. You will be able to pass them on as heirlooms or co-experience them with your descendants. It's a treasured, very human activity. If we don't have memories AND something to care for in the present, what do we even live for? It's not enough to live in the present, we must remain in touch with our heritage.
No, I mean I think that's a shame - but I just factor it into the equation.
I'm not describing what's acceptable, I'm describing what I think I'm getting for my money, which can be a factor in whether I decide to purchase something at all, or whether I'm happy/disappointed with it. So if I buy a AAA game now for $80 I'll be happy if I can run it at all for 5 years. If that isn't enough for me to buy it, I won't.
There of course is a secondary question here too: should I buy these games even though I'm then contributing to this poor state of affairs when I buy DRM games rather than voting with my wallet? I don't consider that (Although I'd avoid e.g. buying the Oculus heeadset because of the Facebook thing, but that's a whole different level of evil and also affects me personally more).
> It's still possible to play N64 cartridges, watch VHS tapes, read book
And there are probably tons of things from the period after those (2000-2020) that are forever lost because their DRM servers are dead etc. And tbh. it doesn't make me even a little bit sad.
* If the current IP owner didn't make a mess of the remastering process (in an aesthetic or technical sense)
* If the remaster is free of defects that make the game unplayable for seasoned users of that game
* If you have the target platfrom of choice that the remaster targets.
In other words, you would have to be very lucky.