Growing up I was a particular guy about my saves. I’m the type of player who would use the vast majority of my save slots, just in case one or two or three or six were to get corrupted. This served me pretty well and I can’t recall off the top of my head anytime where I’ve lost a save before. Or at least one that I care about. But it hit me a few days ago: nowadays with the rise of online gaming, just how in control of our saves are we anymore? For Skyrim you could save that bitch over and over and then back them up to the cloud and/or your own external storage devices. But what if something happens to my Genshin Impact account that I have over hundreds of hours in? To be honest I’d probably just pack it up and quit the game entirely. Same with Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel. However, this isn’t exactly a new concept. MMO players have been dealing with the loss of progress since the first MMO shutdown. You never “own” those types of games no matter how much you spend on transactions and thus you don’t own your save progress either. I have to hold back tears as I recall my now defunct Toontown and Nostale accounts where I lost hours and hours of progress. RIP in pieces, my lovelies.

So how do you guys feel about the fear that an account with hours and hours and hours of progress put into it being subject to a ban that ruins everything, or the game company suddenly deciding the project isn’t profitable enough and shutting it down? I have mixed feelings. As a kid, when I lost my MMO accounts it felt like the world was ending. I  was ready to off myself as my life was meaningless at that point. As I get older though, I realize that life has a fucking lot to offer. Sometimes losing one thing simply means accessing more time to spend on other things. Given the choice I absolutely want to keep all my saves and account progress intact. However, if my 250 hour Skyrim playthrough was deleted right this second…I wouldn’t feel that devastated. I’ve already beaten the game and the memories of that adventure will stay with me till the day I die (or get Old Timer's). You can’t delete those, baby. Since I’m still actively playing Genshin and discovering new content I would hate that a lot more but eventually I’d just have to take that spare time and redirect it elsewhere. Though…

And what an adventure it was.

One more thing… after some retrospection I believe I lied to you all earlier. I don’t think I’d “pack it up and quit the game entirely”. You see, I’m a bit of a psycho. I can deal with my account being deleted or the game shutting down… assuming a private server takes it place. The one thing I never hope to lose regarding my all time favorite games is access. The loss of Toontown and Nostale taught me about that magic little concept known as private servers and while I don’t have my OG accounts anymore, you can bet your ass I have some private server accounts where I can simply go in and relive the memories for a while. Are they as decked out as the originals? Oh fuck no. They exist merely to allow myself to step back into a time where I was a free boy all summer long without a care in the world. So if Genshin or Master Duel were to delete my progress tomorrow, you can bet your ass I’d be looking up Genshin Almost Impact and Yu-Gi-Oh Not Quite A Master Duel servers in order to still be able to go back and relive that magic again.

You were always more bussin' than Club Penguin, I'll never forget you.

As more and more games go online these days, we’re becoming less in control of our access to games and our saves than ever. Thankfully with the implementation of private servers I doubt that some games will ever truly die completely and become unplayable, however it sure does suck knowing your account is always at risk. At least your favorite memories aren’t. Have you noticed the trend of decreasing ownership with games and saves? Have you lost an account for a game you loved playing? How do you deal with MMO shutdowns? Save your game, save it in all available slots, back it up elsewhere, and leave a comment below!