Support NeoGAF

[ProgenitorCastle]

 

[Fredrik]

Emulation gives us access to all of the classic games. I don’t get the problem.

Emulation is done through enthusiast gamers, for the most part the industry do nothing. If that’s a problem or not depends on what you think about downloading games you don’t own or buy expensive old used games and ripping gear to make your own rom files to use in emulators.

Personally I’d love a fully legitimate old games solution, like a multiplat Steam client which give you access to both games and emulators from all platforms where you can get everything out there cheap and have games installed and playable with one press of a button.

 

[Rudius]

The current solution is really.....

Good

 

[jm89]

Emulation.

Can't trust a single one of these companies to preserve shit.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Archive.org

 

[Opia]

Jack Sparrow says otherwise.

 

[MacReady13]

The "90% of that is crap not worthy of preserving anyway" argument is stupid.
Plenty of works have been deemed not worthy of preservation by official authorities throughout history and left to die in time, if not actively destroyed. Problem is, it's not authorities and copyright holders who decide a work's worth. Many rulers in history obviously wanted their enemies' works erased from existence and memory, this doesn't mean those works were worthless. If we are against modern cancel culture - which really is the equivalent of that - we should be in favor of preserving even the worst mobile crap ever, even if nobody will ever want to play it again.

So a random user on an internet forum would save 300 games out of thousands? Well guess what, in their very thread about this people disagree about this and that game. Imagine if that user was charged with deleting every copy of the games they deemed not worthy of preserving for the future, and had the power to do it. No single person and no group of people gets to decide what others should read, play, or listen to - that's the definition of cancel culture. Custer's Revenge is shit, doesn't mean we should go out of our way to delete every existing ROM of it and pretend it was never a thing.

If old games can't be recovered by no means that's one thing. But if there's a way to preserve them, even unofficially, well, there's no valid argument against it, and personal taste isn't even a valid argument. Great essays and books about old games have been written only because those games were preserved. Even if you'll never played them, knowing about them is interesting. Hell, we're lucky at least 1% of software is currently officially available, otherwise zoomers who think their favorite game from the 2020s is revolutionary would have free reign to spew their bs unchecked. Some old, very obscure games had shit that goes beyond what most of us here would even dare think putting in a game today.

Well said sir. The arguments against game preservation cause some deem those games "unplayable" by today's standards is a bullshit argument. Every single game is worth preserving. Whether or not they play well is besides the point-they are all relevant to someone.

 

[Demigod Mac]

I wish the gaming industry would take some notes from the film industry on preservation and redistribution.
High quality, 4K resolution scans of the original negatives of decades-old films (when preserved well) look like they could've been shot yesterday.
Always a shame when a game's original assets (especially source code) are lost to time.

 

[Fafalada]

The current solution is really.....

Strictly speaking - not even. The 'normal' piracy is still not doing a great job at actually preserving content as it tends to center on distributing popular rom-dumps.

Ironically though - there are business entities that commercially distribute such content (and in growing numbers now - you can literally buy Harddrives that go into 10s of TBytes filled with gaming history) and much as we malign the legal and moral problems with those - they are doing a better job on actual preservation than the consumers and industry combined.

 

[A.Romero]

The only viable approach is emulation. I wish there was a foundation that could unify emulation efforts with manufacturers' backing but I know fear of piracy won't allow that.

 

[cartman414]

No, and that wasn't to discourage people from acts of conservation where it matters to them - if you're passionate about something and want to preserve some part of it, either for posterity, pleasure or the benefit of generations to come, then all power. I just wouldn't worry that we can't preserve everything, and learn to accept that transience is a natural state of being. We take the things with us that we can't do without and let go of things we can.

That's still an absurdly fatalist attitude. That's like saying not to bother with endangered species protection because of some anti-environmental right wingnuts with too many corporate ties.

Game preservation IS possible, so we might as well try.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

Oh no i can't buy "imagine babies" anymore!

 

[nial]

Big corporations suck for this kind of stuff, but sometimes you get nice things. I was really surprised when Sony re-released Coded Soul: Uketsugareshi Idea (an obscure Japan-only PSP game) on the Japanese PS Store last month.

 

[Shadowstar39]

For one, there's simply a lot of games that aren't worth saving. Save them for the sake of history, sure, but not because anyone actually wants to play them.

Beyond that, the issue isn't that games aren't being preserved. They are. The guy in your thumbnail bought the entire 3DS eShop before it shut down. The issue is that they aren't commercially distributed. Thing is, anyone who wants to play these games doesn't really need to look far. The internet archive (as well as plenty of other sources) are chock full and the MiSTer is doing an incredible job of making these games playable as close as humanly possible to their original form without relying on greying, decaying old hardware that won't be around forever. Resident @VGEsoterica does great videos on that posted regularly here.

The whole thing's a bit of an overreaction. I'm all for preservation but if publishers don't want to let us pay to access classics, screw 'em, they're available.

Whats messed up is a few years back I downloaded torrent copies of gran turismo 2 and a few other ps1 games to play on my psp. Wouldn't you know Sony complained to Comcast and I got a warning threat in the mail. Over gt2.. A game that Sony doesn't even sell online as they are too cheap to pay the song licensing fee to reissue these old games. A game like that has never been remade or ported, so why did they care?

I just don't get these companies. If you aren't giving us a way to pay for old games, I'm going to download the. I would of gladly payed for gt2. And other old games. I bought a tg16 mini and ps classic as I am willing to buy (of course I loaded thay sucker with 100+ games they don't sell anymore and all the older 8 and 16bit system software (the size of 2 or 3 ps1 games).

These companies could be making bank and instead they put shit on a sub service. If love to buy mega man legends, vagrant story, suikoden, etc... On ps5 or switch. Doesn't happen though. I got the FF pixel remasters and hopefully suiken ces to the states (where is the release date Konami?)

 

[Shadowstar39]

Gaming is an ephemeral pastime, and almost everything worth saving has already been saved.

It's like in that recent thread from the guy who played every Amiga game and came up with a list of 300 he still rated. Even from that heavily curated list I'd say that less than a dozen are still worthwhile in 2023. If only 1% of retro games have been reissued that's probably a fair reflection of the signal to noise ratio in the industry.

Most works of art are long gone. There are countless books that will never be read again, authors who have been forgotten, movies that have no surviving prints let alone an audience that would want to watch them. Great musicians who were never recorded.

It's just the way of things - you can't save everything, nor should you try to. You enjoy it at the time, you bore the kids with tales of the good old days, and then all but the brightest stars fade away.

Nah, some people who view gaming as throw away time wasting g maybe, but I don't see it like that at all. I go back and play dos games all the time. 16 color ega/256 color vga. Games like Ultimas, might and magics, homms, caeasar 3, older civs, doom, pools of radiance series of gold box games, and countless nes, genesis, tg16, and ps1 carts.

These games bring back memories of old friends, lovers, dead and gone family and peers. Good times and bad. I spent the first half of the ps2 Gen on the streets of Philadelphia with a needle in my arm. I went back to those games years later after I got straight. I still go back to old games. Every day. I was just playing Pharaoh remake earlier and sacred 1 today ( a game from 2003).

So I heavily disagree with your stance. Companies need to start hosting older games for sale. Especially ones from nes up. Luckily gog already has a ton of classics on it and steam has more modern classics, it's the console games is the problem.

 

[Shadowstar39]

I did not have "game preservation is a real issue" on my gamer bingo card. This is such a strange issue bubbling up and it's apparently getting clicks.

Some of us would rather play old sinlge player games then gaas.

 

[Fredrik]

I downloaded torrent copies of gran turismo 2 and a few other ps1 games to play on my psp. Wouldn't you know Sony complained to Comcast and I got a warning threat in the mail.

What are you serious? How did Sony know that you downloaded the games? And what kind of threat did you get?

 

[BbMajor7th]

That's still an absurdly fatalist attitude. That's like saying not to bother with endangered species protection because of some anti-environmental right wingnuts with too many corporate ties.

Game preservation IS possible, so we might as well try.

It's not fatalist - it's simply realistic and probably quite healthy. I'm a big environmental conservationist myself, so I do get the impulse, but you also have to acknowledge the inherent chauvinism in wanting to preserve things the way that you found them.

Like all things there's a healthy middle ground, and I would say that middle ground expects to lose way more than it's able to preserve.

 

[8BiTw0LF]

I don't care - but I'm also a criminal..

 

[Chastten]

Honestly, pretty much any game worth (re)playing has been remade or redistributed in plenty of ways.

the other 87% mostly aren't really worth playing. I mean, I like walking into the videogame museum and seeing all these old things, but I have zero need to actually try and play most of that stuff at home.

 

[calistan]

Nah, some people who view gaming as throw away time wasting g maybe, but I don't see it like that at all. I go back and play dos games all the time. 16 color ega/256 color vga. Games like Ultimas, might and magics, homms, caeasar 3, older civs, doom, pools of radiance series of gold box games, and countless nes, genesis, tg16, and ps1 carts.

These games bring back memories of old friends, lovers, dead and gone family and peers. Good times and bad. I spent the first half of the ps2 Gen on the streets of Philadelphia with a needle in my arm. I went back to those games years later after I got straight. I still go back to old games. Every day. I was just playing Pharaoh remake earlier and sacred 1 today ( a game from 2003).

So I heavily disagree with your stance. Companies need to start hosting older games for sale. Especially ones from nes up. Luckily gog already has a ton of classics on it and steam has more modern classics, it's the console games is the problem.

I agree, an old game can evoke memories the same way a song or the smell of cooking can. But I don't think it should be up to companies to host these things. They need to make money to do that, and the amount they'd get from selling a bunch of obscure games from 40 years ago is most likely outweighed by the cost of hosting and supporting them.

There's a limited slice of gaming history that's frequently repackaged and sold, from Capcom, Sega, Atari, Taito, Nintendo and so on. That's your 1%, and it's a good representative sample. Sign up for every streaming service you can find and you'll might have access to a similar proportion of vintage movies (but you won't be able to save a copy for when it's delisted).

For everything else that hardly anyone is interested in, 20 seconds on Google it and it's yours. We already have excellent preservation in the world of gaming, but when we're talking about which titles are worth porting to new formats every few years, I think the market has spoken.

 

[NahaNago]

Also only 1% of games are reissued because only 1% are worth reissuing.

Case in point: The Switch has 4519 games.

Pretty much this. Even if the game was reissued the amount of money they would make from it wouldn't even be worth it. The majority of folk who would even play those games would be people who have nostagia for that time periods games and how many of them would even be willing to spend 5$ on a nearly 40 year old game.

I had no idea the switch had 4519 games already.

Maybe if the game was on a netflix type platform and it had ads on it so folks could play those old games for free.

 

[Opia]

Oh no i can't buy "imagine babies" anymore!

You never could, it's called Imagine Babyz

 

[Shadowstar39]

What are you serious? How did Sony know that you downloaded the games? And what kind of threat did you get?

Basically typical copyright law notice from Comcast. In the letter it said the complaintant was Sony of America, or whatever they were called back in 2018. Basically saying that I could loose my high speed internet if I get more complaints or taken to court for fines from the complaintant. I have no idea how they know, hell they may even be putting these files out there to bait people into downloading or have trackers on certain files.

All I wanted to do is put some games on the ps classic mini console (I thought it was psp, but I hadn't used that in a while by this time). Out of all the games it's the first party title that hadn't been printed on disc in over two decades, that isn't for sale digitally and never had been or probably won't ever because of the soundtrack and license issues.

No idea why soa cared at all. All they help is the physical used game market, as they aren't loosing money over an old rom.

 

[Fredrik]

Basically typical copyright law notice from Comcast. In the letter it said the complaintant was Sony of America, or whatever they were called back in 2018. Basically saying that I could loose my high speed internet if I get more complaints or taken to court for fines from the complaintant. I have no idea how they know, hell they may even be putting these files out there to bait people into downloading or have trackers on certain files.

All I wanted to do is put some games on the ps classic mini console (I thought it was psp, but I hadn't used that in a while by this time). Out of all the games it's the first party title that hadn't been printed on disc in over two decades, that isn't for sale digitally and never had been or probably won't ever because of the soundtrack and license issues.

No idea why soa cared at all. All they help is the physical used game market, as they aren't loosing money over an old rom.

Sony fished up your IP among all others on the torrent for downloading GT2 and your ISP had your email and sent the warning?
That would never happen where I live, but it’s a pirate nest or bay and to sell the service ISPs boast about how they won’t give out any info.

 

[AJUMP23]

50% of all Reissues are from Sony and the Last of Us.

 

[dorkimoe]

The entertainment industry gives no fucks about the past. Try and find some old classic tv shows on streaming services. Licensing rights are out of control, thats the main issue.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

Basically typical copyright law notice from Comcast. In the letter it said the complaintant was Sony of America, or whatever they were called back in 2018. Basically saying that I could loose my high speed internet if I get more complaints or taken to court for fines from the complaintant. I have no idea how they know, hell they may even be putting these files out there to bait people into downloading or have trackers on certain files.

All I wanted to do is put some games on the ps classic mini console (I thought it was psp, but I hadn't used that in a while by this time). Out of all the games it's the first party title that hadn't been printed on disc in over two decades, that isn't for sale digitally and never had been or probably won't ever because of the soundtrack and license issues.

No idea why soa cared at all. All they help is the physical used game market, as they aren't loosing money over an old rom.

I'll probably be explaining this poorly but as far as I know they join the torrents as leechers and get your IP when you're uploading while you leech as well.

Very unlikely they act on it but they want to scare people away from doing it. Those notices are all automated.

 

[Melon Husk]

You can blame the freakishly longterm IP rights for this. Rom piracy of abandonware is a grey area solution to an invented problem. For example, we have Amiga emulators sharing free games that work via internet browsers and nobody bats an eye. This gray market activity is even advertised on gaming sites. These double standards make sense, as present day IP have been written for megacorps like Disney (and why not Nintendo), not for some forgotten 1980s indie game developers.

 

[Azelover]

Give me Panzer Dragoon Saga remastered... NOW!!

Spoiler

please

 

[Fredrik]

You can blame the freakishly longterm IP rights for this. Rom piracy of abandonware is a grey area solution to an invented problem. For example, we have Amiga emulators sharing free games that work via internet browsers and nobody bats an eye. This gray market activity is even advertised on gaming sites. These double standards make sense, as present day IP have been written for megacorps like Disney (and why not Nintendo), not for some forgotten 1980s indie game developers.

Yeah there seems to be some leeway for the Amiga, maybe because Commodore don’t exist. The Pimiga SD card images by Chris Edwards are linked openly from detailed videos on Youtube on how you set it all up, with thousands of games included. If that was done for a SNES variant Nintendo would send the ninjas instantly.

 

[Fatal Chuck Yeager]

I'm assuming that's including computers otherwise the number would be higher but still low.

Computers at least have those Amiga communities, and GoG and some releases on steam and other ways to play old games. Playing older consoles is limited to a few key games resold at questionable prices or no backwards compatibility whatsoever.

It would be great if companies came together to collaborate some form of archive.

 

[cartman414]

It's not fatalist - it's simply realistic and probably quite healthy. I'm a big environmental conservationist myself, so I do get the impulse, but you also have to acknowledge the inherent chauvinism in wanting to preserve things the way that you found them.

Like all things there's a healthy middle ground, and I would say that middle ground expects to lose way more than it's able to preserve.

Okay but that first part is a different discussion. (I guess a better metaphor would be firefighters saving lives - one doesn't give up on trying to save as many as humanly possible.)

The point is that just because "not everything can be saved" doesn't mean you don't try, and there is more than enough storage to save it all. If some old work was lost to bit rot, sure, it sucks, move on, but you don't give up on the rest.