Video game preservation
Old games from before 2010 are being lost to time, almost 90% of them are impossible to play now
A study has revealed the worrying numbers regarding video game preservation, with classics becoming increasingly difficult to experience today.
For a long time, executives of the leading video game companies in the industry have touted their support for the preservation of their titles, but the reality is quite different. In fact, A study carried out by two foundations has revealed that it is still only possible to find a very small percentage of the games released before the year 2010. Specifically, 13%.
The preservation of video games is almost non-existent
For example, if we go back many years, back to the 1980s, we discover that only 4.5% of games on a platform like the Commodore 64 can still be found, in digital format, of course. Let’s go a little further, this time to the 90s: if we want to enjoy the Game Boy family of console’s catalog, we will only be able to do it for 5.8% of their games, something that has worsened due to the recent closure of the Wii U and 3DS eShop. Since then, we will only find them through the catalog of the Nintendo Switch Online service.
“Imagine if the only way to see Titanic is to find a used VHS tape, maintain your own vintage equipment so that you could still watch it,” says Kelsey Lewin, the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF)’s co-director. “It sounds crazy, but that’s the reality we live in with games, a $180 billion industry, while the games and their history disappear.”
Nothing will be able to change until 2024, when the legislation governing the preservation and access to video games, the DMCA -Digital Millennium Copyright Act- is to be reviewed.Lewin said she’s hopeful that the study will encourage change and interest in the preservation of video games, all with the objective of maintaining history that could otherwise be lost entirely to time.
“I hope this study wakes people up,” says Frank Cifaldi, co-director of the VGHF. For years, we’ve known that the availability of classic video games in a legal, safe way has been dire, but no one has ever put a number to that The results are worse than probably any other medium.”