The Game Availability Study published in partnership by the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network found that 87% of video games released in the US before 2010[…]simply aren’t in print anymore.
Thank the heavens for people who dump ROMs and share them online. Seriously. When people think emulators they think piracy, but it’s vital to conservation too.
Whether ethical or unethical future generations will be able to have better chance at having access to historical digital archives that would have just disappeared thanks to pirates.
Much like how if a pirate from the past was copying down literature despite not being given permission to. Then a fire burns down and the official archives are lost except for the ancient pirate’s copies. Wonder if there has been cases like that where illicit copying led to being the backup.
That’s pretty much how ancient texts survived. People would write to each other at the time, asking “hey, do you know that guy who has a copy of Epictetus’s Enchiridion? Could you have him send it to me, I’ll make a copy and send his back”. There are many ancient works that we know existed in this way because we have the letters asking for them, but the actual text of the work didn’t survive.
You just summed up how all knowlledge of everything has ever and will ever manage to exist does.
This has gotten me thinking about legal deposit requirements, such as those that have existed for centuries in certain countries where published works must have a copy submitted to a national library for conservation purposes. Does anyone know if there are initiatives like this for video games? How are they going?
The ESA lobbies the fuck against video game preservation.
Probably less copyright and more-so that it is not feasible to continue to manufacture all video games forever.
My view on games and the “preservation” thereof is that I buy new when and as I can. That said, once the system is dead and gone from retailers, I treat it as fair game for flashcarts, mods and so on. Figure at that point it is like going to a library for a copy of an out of print book instead of paying top dollar to a collector for their copy.
Oh no, the destruction of old creative works is the point I’m afraid, not a side effect! Old content competes with new content that studios are putting out, particularly on price. Why pay $20 to watch a new movie in the theaters in 2023 when you can pay $1 to watch a movie from 1980? (This is also why the writers/actors strike will be much less effective - they are competing not just against scabs but against a hundred-year-long catalogue.) At the demand of movie studios, we have raised the copyright age longer and longer, now up to life of author + 70 years, and what have they done with it?
Half of all movies before 1950 are lost forever, and 90% of movies before 1929. No, the Fox studio did not literally set the 1937 archive fire, but that’s the result of giving them exclusive copying rights, which they chose not to exercise and to keep all their sole copies in one place. It would be one thing if studios were like Smaug sleeping on their pile of treasure for X+70 years if at least in the end we knew it would enter into the public domain, but the way business is going it’s much more likely it will be lost entirely at some point before that time.
The movie studios are choosing not to digitize old films. The game studios are choosing not to scan ROMs from old cartridges and put them up for sale online (emulators have zero manufacture cost!), are choosing not to release a patch that removes DRM from old games when they shut down the verification servers, are choosing not to release their old games into the public domain along with source code despite knowing that they will never see another cent off them. They prefer that their creative product disappear into bitrot rather than give the public something for free. We have given them exclusive copying right to be a steward over the content and THEY ARE SQUANDERING IT!
I treat it as fair game
The work of pirates is absolutely invaluable in preserving the legacy of human creative expression for future generations, but I must remind you that under current laws it is also horribly illegal. You know those “$100K fine” FBI anti-piracy warnings? They are talking about YOU. “But… but I was just like going to the library!” is not a defense in court unfortunately.
Yes judge it’s an archive of classic games. Well yes, I have to play them so I can archive save files as well. It’s an archive, not a rom library. 🙂
