TheXbox 360era was one of the most exciting times in gaming. The launch of Microsoft’s second home console ushered in theXbox LiveMarketplace and, more importantly, the Xbox Live Arcade. This platform allowed developers big and small to get creative byallowing them to design and digitally distributegames that publishers may not have typically deemed worthy of a physical release.
Last month, however,Microsoftunceremoniouslyslammed the door shut on the Xbox 360 marketplace, and dozens of games were lost to the annals of time. Estimates suggest that anywhere between47and220games will no longer be available for purchase anywhere as they existed solely on Microsoft’s 360 storefront.
This closure has once again emphasized the need for better game preservation options. Players will no longer be able to buy Diabolical Pitch, created by legendary developer Suda51. Licensed games fromSouth Parkand Happy Tree Friends are gone. And many developers' first forays into the gaming world have disappeared into the ether entirely. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Following its closure, we spoke to several developers who lost their games in the closure to reminisce about the Xbox Live Arcade, and discuss the need for better preservation.
A Time Remembered Fondly
For developers, the Xbox Live Arcade represented creative expression. It was a place where budding creators could hone their craft and release games that might have otherwise not seen the light of day.
Ska Studio’s founder James Silva remembers what it was like to have success within Xbox Live Arcade. After several of Silva’s games failed financially, the indie studio released The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, a stylish beat ‘em up, which found an audience on the platform.
“To say I remember it fondly would be an understatement,” Silva says. “Since I was ten years old, it had been my dream to have a career as a game developer, and for a decade and a half almost all of my free time went toward making games. It looked like a hobby, but it was the pursuit of a dream. And when Dead Samurai launched, it was as if all of those years of obsession had finally paid off.”
And pay off it did. The success of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai allowed Silva to continue his dream, and, after years of hard work, in 2016, Ska Studios released the critically acclaimed Salt and Sanctuary, a dark mashup of the Metroidvania and Soulslike genres, and with its success,the studio established itselfas a mainstay in the indie scene.
It looked like a hobby, but it was the pursuit of a dream.
Jeff Pobst, CEO of Hidden Path Entertainment, had a slightly different experience to Silva’s, but one he remembers just as affectionately. Microsoft reached out to Pobst in the early stages of Xbox Live Arcade to see if he and his team would be willing to create video games based on popular board games, something he thought “Xbox was going to have a large initiative around”.
Pobst recalls his time creating games for the platform, specifically Wits & Wagers, which can no longer be purchased anywhere. “Wits & Wagers was part of the very early days of Xbox Live Arcade when it was still figuring out what games should go on it. It was a video game based on a popular board game that was a co-op family game in front of the TV,” Pobst says. Unfortunately, the board game to video game initiative never came to pass, which meant Wits & Wagers was “a bit of an odd game in the Xbox Live ecosystem.”
Although the game felt slightly out of place, Pobst says, “It was fun though, and people said they really had a lot of fun with it.”
A Relic Of Time
Both Silva and Pobst told me that the fact that their game may, at some point in the future, no longer be available never crossed their minds. But that doesn’t make it any less upsetting.
“It feels weird. Dead Samurai is what launched my career, and now you can no longer buy it. That’s not OK,” Silva told me. The closure of the store has, however, given him the impetus to finally work on porting Dead Samurai to PC, something he’s been planning to do for years. He even created aSteamApp ID for the game while we spoke.
“I don’t think any of us who made games in the 90s thought that the games being made then could last 30 or more years – computers and consoles were always changing, and the concept of backwards compatibility didn’t really take hold until later on,” Pobst tells me. He feels that, though it’s sad the game can’t be purchased anymore, it’s not much different to the past. Those who owned physical titles could still play their games, much like those who purchased and downloaded a game digitally could still play it. “We could boot up the old consoles and play them [old physical games] though – and I expect that could still happen today with Wits & Wagers, it’s on my Xbox 360,” Pobst says.
It feels weird. Dead Samurai is what launched my career, and now you can no longer buy it. That’s not OK.
Alongside Silva and Pobst, I spoke to Jon Flook of Silver Dollar games, whose most recent releases includeOne Finger Death Punch. He told me that while it’s “unfortunate" that the studio’s game Blazing Birds is lost to time, he has no time to dwell on it as he is “far too busy looking toward the future.” However, the experience has left a lasting impression on the studio, with Flook telling me, “Since then, I would never consider doing a platform-specific game [again].”
Flook’s experience is very similar to that of Mark Edmonds, another developer I spoke to, who helped create the Microsoft-funded Fusion Genesis. Edmonds said, “It’s a shame that it will no longer be available - it would have been great if it could have been made backwards compatible for the newer consoles.” Microsoft’s funding, plus the multiplayer elements of the game, means that “it is up to Microsoft” what happens to the game and that “reproducing the server matchmaking functionality might be a problem.”
The Need For Preservation
Concerns over the value of game preservation have been circulating for years now. Big companies are quick to delist their games from storefronts or close online servers in a pinch, meaning there are countless games thatcan simply no longer be accessed, at least not through legal means.
Interestingly, despite the conversation popping up regularly online, Edmonds tells me that in his roughly 30 years as a game developer, 14 of which were spent atRare, he hasn’t heard the preservation debate “talked about much, or at all” during the process of developing a game.
While it may not be discussed much among development teams, Silva believes, “It would have been nice if Microsoft could support my Xbox 360 games through backward compatibility, but it didn’t happen.” He speculates that the reason many XBLA games weren’t made backwards compatible by Microsoft is because of the way they were developed. “If you look at the list of games built using the XNA framework, you’ll notice that none of them have received backward compatibility support. There was probably some technical issue involved, and the library of XNA games on XBLA was so small that it didn’t warrant the effort it required.”
Flook has a similar theory. “Preservation is difficult because the tools used to create them are often tied to other companies. I just can’t see these companies spending money on preservation,” he says. And Edmund is the third developer to echo a similar sentiment, implying that console manufacturers and game developers need to standardize things so “the standard platform code libraries all developers use will easily migrate to future platforms, and the same for backend servers.”
Preservation is difficult because the tools used to create them are often tied to other companies. I just can’t see these companies spending money on preservation,
In terms of future preservation, Silva says, “The best thing developers can do is just release the source code,” although that does come with its own baggage. Releasing the source code “feels a bit like opening up your bedroom closet to the world,” Silva tells me. However, he says that he’d “rather have people invade this metaphorical closet” as he’s seen “a lot of folks decompile my work to tinker with it, and I’m really grateful to see that happen.”
On the other hand, Pobst’s full focus is on “entertaining people by making games of all genres” and not necessarily dwelling on the past. He does, however, cite places like theStrong Museum of Playin Rochester, New York, and people like Don Daglow, a game industry veteran, as doing really important work in the preservation space. These museums, and Foundations like theVideo Game History Foundation, seek to archive and preserve as many video games as possible, be it physically or digitally, alongside important design documents, marketing blasts and other materials related to games.
It’s vital that work like this continues to be supported, as video games, as much as any other form of media, are an art, and as such, should be treated that way.
