Jakub Wasilewski
Phil SalvadorWe just dropped a big new study that proves that almost 9 out of 10 classic games are out of print, and it's not gonna get better.
Libraries/archives need more exemptions to close the game preservation gap! https://gamehistory.org/87percent/
Minty@shadsy That's a shame because it wouldn't take much effort to reverse that
Eric@shadsy In the meanwhile, the warez (or whatever it's called nowadays) and emulation communities are picking up the slack
Steven SandovalFor future reference, social media crawlers of the future, here's the paperʼs doi link: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7996492
Survey of the Video Game Reissue Market in the United States
This study examines the current extent of the video game reissue market in the United States. While the video game industry and cultural heritage institutions agree that video games should be preserved for both entertainment and study, there is disagreement about whether the commercial market preempts the need for libraries, museums, and archives to expand their preservation activities. To better inform these discussions, we gathered evidence about what portion of historical games are actually still in commercial distribution. We believe this is the first major study to analyze the availability rates for a broad sample of historical games in this manner. The results are stark: Only 13 percent of classic video games published in the United States are currently in release (n = 1500, ±2.5%, 95% CI). These low numbers are consistent across platform ecosystems and time periods. Troublingly, the reissue rate drops below 3 percent for games released prior to 1985—the foundational era of video games—indicating that the interests of the marketplace may not align with the needs of video game researchers. Our experiences gathering data for this study suggest that these problems will intensify over time due to a low diversity of reissue sources and the long-term volatility of digital game storefronts. Our results question whether the commercial market alone can adequately preserve the medium of video games, particularly for the needs of researchers. While this study does not make specific recommendations for improving the state of game availability, it instead offers statistics that can guide future discussions about the role of cultural institutions in video game preservation.
moralrecordings@shadsy Geez such a cynical study! I mean right now if I wanted a copy of uhhh... [spools through massive crossed-out list] Super Mario Bros 3 from 1988? I could simply buy a Switch and pay Nintendo $5.95/month and it's mine until they get bored! How is that not a perfect system?
@shadsy (for real though, this study is incredible and you should be proud)
@moralrecordings Thank you! It's been dispiriting to see the number of people who say "whatever I'll just pirate games" but great to see the growing numbers of people who do get what's at stake here
@shadsy I hope studies like this are a turning point for exemptions! Really feels like the ESA have been free to coast along with "nah there's a thriving market for older titles! See these 357 games on Wii Virtual Console? Preserved forever!" and the copyright office just taking their word for it
@moralrecordings Exactly. Our goal was to move this conversation out of anecdote and into the realm of statistics, and those statistics are not flattering
@shadsy I love the "comparable to the survival rate of silent-era films" statistic, if only because it's a reference that might resonate a bit with octogenarian decisionmakers
LP🔸Light up the night@shadsy Looks like the methodology behind that is just "is the game available in some form?" It's therefore probably worse if you want original versions for historic interest: for example, Valve will still happily sell you Half-Life on Steam, but it's heavily patched since the release boxed copy.
@LionsPhil Yes, we purposely did this as a best-case reading. If there's a reason to want a specific edition, it's definitely worse
Sofia "Soficious" 🎮🏳️🌈@shadsy This is actually pretty bad! It infuriates me that the only way to preserve #Videogames is through piracy, when it shouldn't be needed.
Maddy Waves [Alter Account]@shadsy I don't know if it's possible, but if we do introduce archives for classic games like you suggested (which I think is a great idea!), I'd love it if we could use this opportunity to make games that only have been released in certain regions (e.g. Japan exclusive games) available to the public. Since these games usually have no English translation, this would also mean giving people freedom to edit the ROM (so they can mod/hack it) - if we could achieve that, I'd be terribly happy.