Essays 08 June 2020, 19:30

Victims of Digital Distribution – Games You Can't Buy Anymore

When a game released exclusively digitally disappears from distribution, it becomes impossible to play it legally. Actually, quite a few gems have disappeared in this manner, with the legendary P.T. being just the beginning of the story.

WiiWare

Konami released a number of previously unavailable remaster of its classics as part of the WiiWare.

WiiWare, available for Wii and WiiU, was Nintendo's first attempt to conquer the digital distribution. The service was launched in 2008 and, despite some criticism from developers (mainly focused on the maximum game size set at merciless 40 megabytes, and the need to sell a few thousand copies in order to actually get a cut from Nintendo), it enjoyed considerable popularity.

WiiWare brought to Wii quite a few games popular on other platforms, including Cave Story, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Mega Man 9 and 10, World of Goo or the Ace Attorney series. However, the repertoire of available productions was not limited to conversions. Konami also released successful remasters of its classic titles – Gradius ReBirth, Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth and Contra ReBirth, and Nintendo brought back Excitebike: World Rally in quite a style. We could also find exclusive, well-rated gems such as Bonsai Barber, Tomena Sanner or the Art Style series.

Excitebike: World Rally was a successful return of the series, and many players using NES clones were raised on the speedway racer.

Little did we know, all these game would disappear like tears in the rain. In 2019, Nintendo pulled the plug on the WiiWare service, making it impossible to buy hundreds of releases. Currently, it is still possible to download titles purchased when the service was active, but the Japanese corporation leaves no room for illusions – this will not be permanent, and in the unspecified future, this option will also stop.

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WiiWare