Video Games and Preservation
This post is gonna be a little different from some of my other posts, but I wanted to use whatever small platform I have, if any at all to spread awareness about something I'm passionate about. It is no surprise if you've read any post on this blog that I love video games the history of them. Video Games as a medium for entertainment are still a generally new concept when compared to other forms of entertainment like literature, music or movies. However, the medium of video games has a rich history behind it, and its still recent enough that my parents were alive and were able to experience the rise of video games in the entertainment industry. Last year in 2022 the video game industry as a whole made $220.79 billion and is expected to hit the $500 billion mark within the next few years. With an industry that has changed so much over its lifespan of 50 years or so in pop culture, why is it so hard to view or experience the steps that were taken to get to where we are today? Recently, the Video Game History Foundation conducted an excellent study as far as how many classic games were available on the market today. I highly recommended checking the study out for yourself as its really insightful, but of the games that they researched for this study they found that around 13% of them were playable in some way on modern platforms today. To put that into perspective this is comparable to the percentage of pre-WW2 audio recording availability (10%) as well as the survival rate of American silent films (14%) which to me is just insane. Imagine if movies or TV shows were in a similar state where a majority of them weren't viewable outside of very major releases. I understand that games are a unique medium because unlike film, games have their own formats and consoles that can make experiencing them tricky. Emulators solve a majority of the problems that accessing old games have, but the industry doesn't approve of and actively fights/lobbies against them. Just recently Dolphin, a GameCube and Wii emulator, announced that it was going to get released on Steam. Nintendo advised Steam to not release the emulator citing DMCA as a reason not to release, and thus Steam refused Dolphin to have a store page. Once the industry stops lobbying and starts allowing emulators to be used on a wider basis is when we will see some classic games become more available. Video game remakes and remasters don't solve the issue either, especially for historians who need the original hardware and its limitations. Personally I say enjoy video games however you can, emulators and the retro aftermarket has made things much more accessible than in the past.
I've included some links with sources along with additional resources that dive deeper into this topic, and I highly recommend reading the Video Game History Foundations post in full for their summary of findings. Thanks for reading!
Video Game History Foundation initial blog post
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