87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games | Video Game History Foundation
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New study reveals most classic video games are completely unavailable
  • Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I would say it’s not new per se, just a new mechanism for an old phenomenon.

    If that one problem were solved, it would improve the situation, but not perfectly remedy it. This just makes it more noticeable, it reeks pretty badly of planned obsolescence.

    • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      But it isn’t the inevitable ravages of time that take away digital media. It is easier to preserve than anything before, and there’s no lack of interest to do it. The real obstacle are laws that put corporate profits above public interest and demand that we expect an untenable amount of time such that old media just completely decays. Often old digital media only gets preserved in direct defiance to the law.

      It really concerns me how this mindset has been spreading, where games and media get wiped away due to companies ceasing services with no interest in preservation, then people start to wax poetically about the inevitability as if this is Ozymandias’ statue from the poem. Not even Ozymandias himself is truly lost to time. No, a decade is nothing in terms of cultural loss, that’s not whats wiping out those works. What is responsible for it is a business strategy of disposability enabled by laws with no regards for our culture.

      • Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I genuinely think it’s inevitable, with our current technological, economic and legal frameworks. While that can change, I think the amount of effort it would require far outstrips the gain.

        The entire issue bugs me a little bit, actually. It only gets so much attention because its games and the internet has a lot of gamers. There are far bigger challenges to tackle though.

        • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          There are volunteer emulator developers. There are people who downright reverse-engineer online games whose servers close down. If loss was inevitable, this couldn’t happen. The limitations can’t possibly be so great that this is easier than, you know, the company releasing server code and technical information as they phase out projects

          The limitations are not technological in any sense, and they are only economic in so far as we are subjected to whatever the interests of wealthy executives and investors are as the main priority, because those pushing back against it manage to do a lot even having very little money compared to those businesses. The biggest obstacle is the law, and the law is not unchangeable. This is just a matter of the political tendencies of these years.

          While I personally care particularly about games, this isn’t really just about games. As the copyright length increased, we got to a point there are old movies that also got lost because they studios behind them didn’t preserve them properly and nobody else was allowed to, so they rot away. This applies to all digital media. While I could see some limits like backing up the whole of YouTube, there is no reason why major movies or online games should just become lost by delisting.

          And maybe even backing up the whole of YouTube could be possible if there was a major concerted effort among international governments to preserve all forms of digital media, rather than leaving it to the efforts of hobbyist archivers. But no, apparently all that international governments will come together to is to enforce copyright and punish piracy.