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The Video Game History Foundation, in partnership with the Software Preservation Network, have unveiled a new study regarding the current state of classic video games and their commercial availability today.

The results obtained in the study for the US; which goes into great detail going all the way back in 1960, going through each of the video game generations up to 2009, and how much of their library has been preserved or is available to any extend in the modern day, has shown that overall a minuscule 13% of all classic video games up to that date are currently available in some form in the modern day. To make matters worse, their study revealed that no video game generation has even surpassed the 20% mark when it comes to availability.

Availability rate of historical games, by period, between 1960 and 2009. (n = 1500, ±2.5%, 95% CI)
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Basically, it means that nearly around 8 or 9 out of 10 games, the user has to go out of their way to access these classics, from options going to retaining the original releases (alongside their hardware, both in working conditions that is), to travel to another country's library, and of course, the most common form of piracy, or "self-preservation" as some might call it.

The goal of this study is expand the exceptions that libraries and organizations focused on preservation get, which for some reason seem to be heavily limited compared to other media, like movies, books and music, and while the US Copyright Office claims that the industry already does enough to preserve the games, the study shows quite the contrary, with absolutely no sign of it getting better to any extend.

The study brings up this important facts about gaming preservation:

• 87% of classic games are not in release, and are considered critically endangered
• Availability is low across every platform and time period tracked in the study
• Libraries and archives can digitally preserve, but not digitally share video games, and can provide on-premises access only
• Libraries and archives are allowed to digitally share other media types, such as books, film, and audio, and are not restricted to on-premises access
• The Entertainment Software Association, the video game industry’s lobbying group, has consistently fought against expanding video game preservation within libraries and archives

The culprit of the limitation is the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), Title 17, section 1201 according to VGHF. The DMCA will have a new rulemaking proceedure scheduled for 2024, which they hope the study will help to make a change into the limiting DMCA law.

Video Game History Foundation Study

 

[Kioku]

"87% of classic games are not in release, and are considered critically endangered"

That's what they said. Unavailable on steam, PSN and switch is not the same as "critically endangered".
By that logic, something around 99% of the books every released are critically endangered, as you can't buy them in bookstores.

No, but you can find those books in other store fronts or services and it’s legal. Can’t do that with games.

 

[Deleted member 194275]

Video games don't have ubiquitous government-funded public libraries lol

Thank god for that.

 

[raging_chaos]

By that logic, something around 99% of the books every released are critically endangered, as you can't buy them in bookstores.

No, but you can find those books in other store fronts or services and it’s legal.

The privatization and monetization of books by private companies has affected the availability of free information and it's effectively led to an information gap that directly disadvantages those who can't afford access. Books shouldn't be stuck behind paywalls and only available to those with cash, they should also be available in public libraries like they always had been.

It would be interesting to see a report detailing numbers on how much written content is now stuck behind one of these "legal services" and are now completely unavailable freely to the public. Books and games are alike being taken away from us.

 

[cearp]

more than 86% of classic video games are unavailable in the US

obviously they haven't been looking at my hard drives

(joke alert, I do not have anything I should not, I limit myself to the games currently available on eshop, do not back up any purchases, delete games from my system when they are delisted from the eshop and when eshop goes down at end-of-life I destroy my device too for good measure)

 

[The Catboy]

Copyright should be cut down drastically too.

Copyright should be abolished

 

[smileyhead]

I like the thought, but I can understand why devs wouldn't be keen on this if they intend to release classic collections, or plan to remaster or remake such past classic games.

I don’t disagree but all they’d have to do is find a loophole, and they will…

That's kind of the point. Either re-release the games so we can buy them or sod off and let us pirate if you won't take our money, anyway.

 

[ZeroT21]

Limiting the availabilty can be profiting

 

[Smoker1]

And they wonder why there are Emulators and Backups of the Games??????

 

[Marc_LFD]

With digital preservation and the used marketplace, this isn't really an issue.

 

[Jayro]

Man... It's almost like Forest of Illusion closing it's doors was a BAD IDEA.

 

[Foxi4]

They really need to revamp the copyright law to prevent media from being permanently lost. The Internet Archive has an exemption already, it needs to be broadened to average Joes and Janes. If a product is not commercially available for, say, 10-20 years (studios will usually cook up a remaster around the 10-year mark), it should be exempt from any and all piracy-related penalties up until the point when it is made available again.

 

[Bladexdsl]

sux for people who don't know about emulation than

 

[Xzi]

Nintendo be like, "ONLY 86%?"

 

[Pl4yst4tionRox]

They only made up these numbers so the graphic can look like Pac-Man. We won't be fooled.

Your avatar looks like Pac Man chomping on a wolfs head. LOL

 

[Whole lotta love]

*Unavailable to purchase.

The vast majority of these games are widely available and easy to access on a variety of devices. Thank goodness for piracy.

 

[DS1]

I went into some of the links they posted - the original article had a click-bait-y title that followed with "...and why that's important", and the "why that's important" had to do with making these games available for "research". For example, like a university library, universities affiliated with proposed or existing game archives would make their libraries available to any registered student. The response to that proposal by the lobbyists was, paraphrased, "College students are a huge demographic for the companies we represent, giving them access to unlimited gaming is completely off the table", along with, "yeah and uhh, how many people would actually be using said archive for research?"

Anyway it's a losing battle when corporations are involved! Even though it's only the surface of the iceburg, I wish more companies would go about re-releasing cult classics. I was absolutely floored when Acquire released an HD Kamiwaza last year which, among other things, fixed the framerate issues of the original!

With digital preservation and the used marketplace, this isn't really an issue.

Maybe true, for people with:

a) a limited knowledge of how many titles are out there, unpreserved, or imaged from bad copies with game-breaking bugs that nobody knows about because most people are only concerned with the popular titles* and don't actually play a majority of the 86%.

b) People with the means and methods to access the grey-area or illegal archives and/or the used marketplace. Random DS games that cost US$30-100? That's easy (for someone like me living in the US and making enough money that that's a drop in the bucket))! Obscure games (again, the 86%) that aren't part of the "used marketplace" or cost closer to US$1000? That's nonsense...

*the ones these companies are ACTUALLY fighting to keep out of archivist's hands

 

[pustal]

Copyright should be abolished

I wouldn't go as far. It needs to be limited in years and scope. 70 years post-mortem is a bad joke, you are literally not benefiting from it in any way, shape or form, you are dead and have been dead for 70 years. The original 20 years while living is more than enough. You create something, you explore it in its peak and then after 20 years of having the cake for yourself, you share it with the world. Sounds reasonable.

Copyright just is this abuse because of Disney, that fought hard to preserve their little mouse, while profiting massively out of creative commons works.

And part of the scope I defend reducing is this one. If you are not exploring your creation and left it to die, copyright should release it at the very least for non-profit projects.

 

[Foxi4]

I wouldn't go as far. It needs to be limited in years and scope. 70 years post-mortem is a bad joke, you are literally not benefiting from it in any way, shape or form, you are dead and have been dead for 70 years. The original 20 years while living is more than enough. You create something, you explore it in its peak and then after 20 years of having the cake fod yourself, you share it with the world. Sounds reasonable.

Copyright just is this abuse because of Disney, that fought hard to preserve their little mouse, while profiting massively out of creative commons works.

And part of the scope I defend reducing is this one. If you are not exploring your creation and left it to die, copyright should release it at the very least for non-profit projects.

If copyright is supposed to last 70 years post mortem, I expect the product to be available on the market 70 years post mortem - it’s pretty simple to me. Disney doesn’t hold their end of the bargain by putting “inactive” properties in their “vault”, so the natural response should be to pirate it. It’s always morally justified to pirate Disney products until they start properly caring for their customer base.

 

[Chaoticus]

Yaaaaarrrrrr!!! Raise the

 

[pustal]

If copyright is supposed to last 70 years post mortem, I expect the product to be available on the market 70 years post mortem - it’s pretty simple to me. Disney doesn’t hold their end of the bargain by putting “inactive” properties in their “vault”, so the natural response should be to pirate it. It’s always morally justified to pirate Disney products until they start properly caring for their customer base.

The thing is, even if they do care, why would they have exclusive rights on it? Walt created it, walt profited from it, Walt died and remained dead. Disney continued without him, it had his estate, his corporate riches, his infrastructure. Didn't needed Mickey and whatever he created exclusivity. Quite in fact when on to produce much more, and specially replying on stuff they didn't had exclusivity on, proving themselves they didn't need it for what they had.