RE: What Happens When a Game is Gone?

I have run into similar issues with digital music. I buy a lot of songs from iTunes, and I THOUGHT I was safe and would be able to listen to those songs forever, thanks to the feature on iTunes that allows you to redownload media you've purchased to new machines and such. Unfortunately, I did have my laptop stolen a couple of years ago, and I THOUGHT I'd be able to reload all my songs on my new machine, but a bunch of the songs I'd bought had fallen off the iTunes catalogue, and now those tracks (that I paid for) are GONE. At least with digital music you can back your purchases up by burning them onto CD, (or just buy the music on CD in the first place and rip it to your machine), but I don't know if you can back up a GAME you download for Xbox... Can you? Regardless, physical media is the best way to protect your entertainment investment!

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You can, after a fashion. It was much harder on Xbox 360. With Xbox One you can load a game to an external hard drive. It's still going to have the DRM and such, but at least it's somewhere.

With the original Xbox Live Arcade circa 2004, I had purchased and downloaded a game called Alien Sky. It's not available to play on Xbox 360 or Xbox One, and I therefore haven't been able to play it. Not only that, but the original Xbox Live servers are no longer active and I'm unsure if I'd be able to reclaim it if desired. Fortunately, pirates have taken care of this situation for me. Still, I shouldn't be able to lose the things that I pay for due to the actions of the company through which I purchased it.

Sorry to hear about your songs. That's lame.