Ownership vs Access - Enjoying Media by Finding and Preserving It Ourselves

In 2015, I wanted my mom to get me a new handheld gaming console.

There was a house rule forbidding video games during the school year, so portable gaming systems seemed to be a lot more reasonable to ask for, since consoles tended to gather up dust for months at a time.  I also figured that getting an older system that I knew could run homebrew on it would be ideal. The one that I wanted was something I had eyed since 2008, a PSP. It was already a media powerhouse when I was a child. Music, videos, basic web browsing in something that was originally made in 2004? It still felt modern at that point, and having a device like that would shape how I engaged with games and media, how I acquired them, and gaining a sense of appreciation for preserving them.

My mother however, didn't see the point in getting something that was old, and considering I wasn't too deep into retro gaming and didn't have my own income, I wasn't really able to convince her. Instead, her and my grandmother suggested I get a PlayStation Vita instead, and it was far more interesting than I initially thought.

Of course, I was begging for a jailbreak of some kind.  I wasn't exactly rich and I felt like the idea of asking for games would be too much, even if I found them at a cheap rate, since gaming was starting to be seen as something I needed to age out of.  I was only able to convince my mom to get one thing on the PSN, While I was still in high school, a partial hack did come out, but only via the Vita's hidden PSP environment. I was able to play PSP homebrew (and later PSP backups), but I was still satisfied. The form factor was nice, I loved the d-pad, and even if I didn't have an OLED screen I really liked the crisp visuals.  Even though the Vita experience was plenty enjoyable on an unmodified unit, having a modded unit turned that handheld into one of my most prized possessions.

On high school trips, especially my senior trip, it was a multimedia life saver. While people around me were making memories, I remember... playing Castlevania Aria of Sorrow and watching the final episodes of Kamen Rider Fourze on the lodge's wi-fi.  Considering how as I write this I've been watching Kamen Rider Gaim on a hacked Nintendo Switch, some things never change. It wasn't perfect though, Sony's proprietary Content Media Assistant dictated what sorts of files you could put on your Vita, and it was very slow to transfer movies, music, and photos. The internet browser wasn't feature-rich, especially compared to phones that came out during the time, but since I didn't have a smartphone I was able to make do with what I had with no issue.

A native hack for the PS Vita didn't pop up for my firmware until I was beginning to start college. I remember vividly people trying to share and dump backups, the first instance of native PS Vita emulators that... initially weren't true upgrades from the emulators made for PSP but were still conceptually impressive, I remember a very infamous incident where a fraudulent dump of Lego Harry Potter resulted in people formatting and bricking their Vitas, not a fun time to be in that space. Many of the nuisances like a lack of USB Mass Storage or easy media transfer would soon go away, and playing PSP backups on a Vita that weren't sold on PSN was how I experienced PSP games I never could have played before.

I won't sit here and say that I was an angel with what I downloaded on my Vita, but I did enjoy being able to play a lot on it once resources were more available. Shovel Knight was one of my favorite 2D platformers in the 2010s, despite never beating it. I can give the same praises for Rayman Origins. Under Night In Birth and Skullgirls kept me occupied during my college years and ended up sparking a years long adoration for fighting games, a genre I suck at but keep coming back to.  Not to mention, before I was able to get my GBA out of storage 2 years ago, the PS Vita was how I tried really hard to get back into Pokemon after simply not having the hardware to for many years.

Once I had disposable income through my job I was able to rectify some wrongs and actually buy some titles on the PSN, and I do appreciate how most games are still cheap. I know that ownership is a punchline to companies right now, but during this decade I not only had money to buy games, but I was tech savvy enough to back them up.  I got Symphony of the Night, Tekken 2, Ridge Racer Type 4, and Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. It may have been futile but I wanted to communicate a simple idea, if you give people the opportunity to purchase things, they will.

Sadly, I don't think my naive gesture worked.

Sony's going to be shutting down the PS3 and Vita stores within the next year and will also be sunsetting physical game production by 2028, leaning all in on AI on top of that. To say that I am disgusted would be a huge understatement.  I don't want to make it sound like I'm personally more devestated about the effects of capitalism now that it's affecting my toys. I'm a queer Haitian-American that lives in Brooklyn and works in animation, capitalism isn't my friend to begin with. I just lament this happening because this is an instance where my increased technological paranoia that I got through lurking many retro gaming and computing spaces during my formative years was proven correct.

Of course, I realize that not everyone's going to be super knowledgeable about computers, not everyone knows how emulators work, and obtaining games need to be accessible. Regardless, I genuinely feel that many people are going to have to start doing a bit more work to engage with media, regardless of its age.

Everything has some sort of asterisk, or catch. There's no ethical consumption after all. I've been a long time fan of GoG, but their current leadership seems to love AI, so I'm not exactly happy about that. I'm still in an internal state of turmoil over SNK's purchase by Saudi Arabia, and the subsequent purchase and co-opting of EVO and the Fighting Game Community. Of course, there's the very real chance that what you want to watch or play is flat out inaccessible due to legality or corporations dictating access for one reason or another. Where do your values lie?

To mention one of my non-gaming interests again, the 2010s tokusatsu movement wouldn't have happened if not for easy access to these shows. Tsubaraya has always been good with access to Ultraman, with simulcasts, physical releases, and even English dubs. Toei has less in comparison, but we're currently watching a Kamen Rider simulcast on YouTube every Saturday, with multiple seasons streaming or released on Blu-Ray, which is huge. At the same time, many of these avenues for watching Toei toku (mainly Super Sentai) have been vanishing due to Shout Factory's changing values, among other elements that are far beyiond my understanding. While many die-hards in this niche were able to access these shows through fansubs and file sharing, average Joes won't or can't do that and want something easy to watch. I realize being saddened by the lack of legal tokusatsu access is trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it's relevant in how media can vanish without a trace, and that archival is morally important even if it isn't always supported under the law.

I'm getting flashbacks to when the ESA called private Minecraft servers illegal.

The only solution I really pose is that we all need to get more comfortable with a couple of ideas:

playing games that are years old

playing games on old systems we either already own or can easily emulate

supporting more indies

learn how to use emulators if you don't know how already

get comfortable not playing the newest game immediately

I'll humble myself when I say this, I know how to do a lot of this stuff because I was a huge, socially awkward, possibly neurodivergent nerd for most of my life. Nerd stuff is generally not only more acceptable now, but a lot of those skills that one may have accidentally developed as a kid are going to be incredibly important now. I'm not *cooler* for knowing how to use uTorrent as a teenager, but I am happy I learned and am more than willing to let people know what they can learn.

I'm also not really in the market for super new experiences, to be honest. There's a lot of stuff that I've only been able to play because game prices are cheaper, hardware got better, and I was able to dedicate a bit of time. Even still, there's huge blind spots in my gaming backlog, mainly avoiding horror like the plague. I want to give these games a shot, even if my blood pressure desperately wants me to reconsider! In the past couple of years I've either started using or have begun refurbishing a Dreamcast, a PSP, a Wii, and an Original Xbox. Between that *and* a Steam Deck, emulation is going to have me set, even if I selfishly want a MiSTER as well.

Other people have different priorities and that's understandable. I want to maintain that the current landscape of technology isn't just screwing over people who play games. The sooner we are able to reject the idea of accepting everything these companies are giving us, and take back some agency with how we use our technology, the better. Some ecosystems may always have a hook in us, especially those of us working professionally, but this doesn't mean we have to be okay with that or sit around and wait for the perfect all-in-one solution. Whether this means dusting off an old Game Boy, finally learning how to solder or just using a Linux dual boot for the first time, any step you take into learning more about the devices you use is a step forward. Create a solution that works for you.