Nintendo Okie

I have lived a gaming nightmare.  I accidently deleted all of my Xbox 360 save files.  Four years of gaming progress was gone in an instant.  While removing a Gamertag from my system memory, I selected “delete with items” option not knowing what the items were.  I am using Con-soul Searching this week to spread the word of how easy it was in hope that it won’t happen to anyone else.

Attempting to unlock a glitched Resident Evil 5 achievement (Getaway), I recovered my Gamertag to my hard drive while my original was stored on my 360’s memory card.  After the recovery process was complete, I booted up RE5 in hopes that the achievement would immediately unlock.  It did not.  I then inserted my memory card to see if I could salvage my theme settings from that version of my Gamertag.  Not surprisingly, that version of the Gamertag was no longer valid.  I went to delete the Gamertag from the memory card and in the process selected “delete with items” with the understanding that the mentioned items would be theme settings, auto sign in, etc.  I once again booted up RE5 with the idea that I had to play the game for a moment for the achievement to unlock.  Much to my horror, as the game congratulated me for the purchase of downloadable content, I quickly realized the depth of what “with items” truly meant.  Now four years of save files are gone, including my Borderlands character and my Resident Evil 5 save which both were 170+ hour investments.

Two questions come to mind in the aftermath of my mistake.  One, why is it so easy to delete all my save files at once?  Two, why wasn’t there a warning stating, “you are about to delete all of your save files”?  I am still sick from it.  I realize Microsoft monitors your Gamertag over the internet to keep players from cheating, but is it really necessary to attach these “items” to be deleted at the same time with little to no warning?  It is the equivalent of building a giant robot and installing a self destruct button labeled as “do not touch.”

This brings up the whole topic of digital media and usage rights to me.  I get that companies need to protect their products as well as their customers, but are such extremes necessary?  Recently, Ubisoft has released PC games that require an internet connection so that your license is constantly monitored to ensure your game is a legitimate copy.  Piracy of PC games is a huge issue, but is this what the industry has come too?  Do “Big Brother Servers” have to watch us day and night?  I am not against digital rights management but there has to be a better why than this, right?

Each company handles there online media differently.  Nintendo allows you to only download Virtual Console games and such to one console, but you can download it as many time as you want without limits.  Sony lets you download titles only 5 times but they can be on any system.  With Microsoft, as long as you are signed into Xbox Live, you can download a game anywhere you please.  These approaches are drastically different from each other.  It begs the question, which one is right?  My answer is none of them.  This is one of my problems with digital media.  You don’t actually own the object you paid for, you merely purchase a right to use the software.  One might argue that buying games on a disk or cartridge is the same thing.  To that I will argue that in twenty years I will still be able to play my NES copy of Super Mario Bros. We will see if my downloaded copy of N+ will still work once those servers no longer exist at Microsoft.  Don’t even try to tell me Microsoft won’t cut off support for the current version of Xbox live because they just did for the original Xbox.  That system isn’t even ten years old yet.

I have been using Xbox and Microsoft as an example a lot.  I am not trying to single them out.  All companies have their strengths and flaws when it comes to online management.  I am worried about the future of the industry.  DRM seems to be an Achilles’ heel that could not only destroy the gaming industry, but all other forms of entertainment with it.  If things have got to where I can delete fifty games worth of save data with two buttons, what will they be like in another thirty years?  Please warn everyone you can how easy it is to delete your 360 save files.  I have not been the first victim of the “delete with items” option, but hopefully I will be the last.

My saves are all gone

I worked so hard to earn them

They will be back soon