A new study sounds the alarm and warns that in the future we may lose almost 90% of classic games released before 2010. They become inaccessible to modern players. According to the study, the video game industry is in the same situation as silent films and sound recordings before World War II.
The study covers games released in the US up to 2010 for various systems, including the PlayStation 2 and Game Boy consoles, and even the 1982 Commodore 64 computer. Only 13% of these games can be purchased., such as the physical version in stores or the digital version. Rest 87% of video game history is legally inaccessible. The only option is to own a historical work in your collection or pirate it and rely on various emulators.
Experts from the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network they call classic games endangered and the situation desperate. They point to a lot of problems that prevent older games from being commercially available these days. As an example, they cite the classic event golden eye 007 from the Nintendo 64 console, which has only recently been updated to Switch and Xbox. This was due to complex rights issues owned by six different companies. Such a classic spy action Nobody lives forever has three rights holders, none of whom are sure who has the rights to the brand to bring it to life.
The problem lies in rights ambiguities, technical issues and the disproportionately high cost of porting games to new consoles, where a single port can cost up to $350,000 (about CZK 7,617,400). Because of this, only the most popular retro games are re-released on modern platforms.
The Foundation compared old plays to the availability and survival of silent films.. This is about 14%, while in the case of pre-war sound recordings, approximately 10% or less survived. This could partially solve the problem with availability and especially with the loss of games. game rental, for example through libraries, as is the case with films and music. But the video game industry is throwing sticks under the feet of these efforts, and companies are de facto not interested in their games being saved and continue to be sold.
“Imagine the only way to watch Titanic is to find a used videotape and keep your old VCR to play it.” Kelsey Levine of the Video Game History Foundation describes the situation in the video game industry. “What if no library, not even the US Library of Congress, improved the situation, but simply stored and preserved the film digitally. You will have to visit the library to watch the movie. Sounds crazy, but that’s the reality of video games. The industry is worth $180 billion and games and their history are being lost.”
Source :Indian TV
