- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- games@sh.itjust.works
- gaming@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- games@sh.itjust.works
- gaming@beehaw.org
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More proof that if they were a new idea, libraries would be fought tooth and nail by book publishers
Could you imagine trying to get there to be libraries today if the concept was new? “We can’t possibly just let people read for free! What, do you think literacy is a right? It’s a privilege!”
Same for firefighters.
“PAY people to sit around in case a fire breaks out?? That almost never happens! Also, ignore everything else they do. It’s everyone’s responsibility to keep fires out of their homes. We’ll sell them a new one if something happens, though. And their neighbors. And THEIR neighbors. Also, literally buy a fireplace from us, please.”
Ironically that was the case for a good long while, and has been the case on exceedingly rare occasion in the more modern era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighting_in_ancient_Rome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#United_States
see: the internet archive
preserved games might be used for entertainment
Umm, yeah, that’s what a lot of preserved media is used for. You think publishers are losing their shit over people enjoying Shakespeare?
I subscribe to a lot of YouTube channels that have silent films and films from the 1930s and 40s. Also I have a lot of movies from the 70s to 90s on my drive (and some more recent, too). I don’t always watch the more recent stuff.
It is ironic, too. Because when VHS first came out, it didn’t take long for film studios to start to release tons upon tons of their old classics (that were often shown on TV anyway) on tape and frequently capitalized on people’s desire for owning and watching older media. Sure people got the new stuff (for both rental and ownership) like there was no tomorrow, but if you were in the 80s and wanted to watch 40s stuff (which was like the 80s for people living in the 80s… feeling old yet?) you wouldn’t have had that hard of a time finding the classics.
This is what really baffles me about the industry. They could be making some real decent cash off of this old IP if they just made it accessible and put a tiny bit of effort into it. Imagine all the old games the switch already runs. Imagine it running EVERYTHING! ugh. Dummies!
Big Book hates him!
guess what publishers, your videogames are going to be preserved if you allow it or not.
I suppose you could have allowed it to happen to garner some goodwill from the community, but you have instead chosen to shit on that goodwill.
guess we’ll just do whatever we’ve been doing for the last 25 years and continue to “archive” your “property” that’s been abandoned.
What I don’t get is that they’re not sizing the opportunity to do this on their own terms and maybe make some cash off it. Idiots.
k I guess everyone will continue to dump roms and make emulators.
games being used for recreational purposes? the horror
Cool. Guess I’ll leave you and them in the past.
All the best games are cool about providing software resources to players, mod abilities, self-hosting, so on. It’s kind of like the Steam license thing. I love Steam but there’s no way I’m starting Helldivers 2 or Destiny 2 up in ten years to play nostalgia. But Shattered Pixel Dungeon? Deep Rock Galactic? Valheim? Minecraft. I’ll still be rocking those.
What’s the fucking point of preservation then?
Yeah because I go to the library and complain and scowl the whole time I’m reading. Occasionally I make sure to belt out “I’m not enjoying this! I only do it for preservation reasons!” bunch of greedy fucks.
Yo ho…
I wonder at what temperature do preserved video games burn?
Fahrenheit 999, then the score counter ticks back over to 0
198451° degrees
Oh, heaven forbid someone go to the library and enjoy a book they check out.
I m sry but the title of this post cannot be true unless it’s sarcasm because it sounds really stupid, what else games are used for!?
Among us
Imagine if you weren’t allowed to watch your favorite movies from the 80’s or earlier unless you managed to have a still working VCR and VHS copy from your childhood. No Goonies, no Godfather, no Star Wars original trilogy. They decided to wipe these films from the face of the earth so that you could no longer enjoy them and had to go buy their new movies, exclusively, if you wanted entertainment from a film. That’s what games publishers are trying to do, so they don’t have to compete for you attention with older classics.
Did you just link tvtropes with no warning?
yes Chief, yes I did… and I did it deliberately :)
It’s been hours …help.
I have dozens of tabs open in Edge on my phone and I use Edge there mostly for TV Tropes since the Preview Link lets me look at other tropes without having to open another tab. I’m currently reading Discworld tropes.
You can still watch those old films, as long as you are paying a subscription to a streaming service so the studio can keep making money off of them.
That’s what video game publishers want too. Nintendo doesn’t want to wipe SMB3 off the face of the earth. They just want to make sure the only way you can access it is to pay for Nintendo Switch Online.
*if they feel like offering it
And this is the real cost. Sorry Mario Brothers will pretty much always be available as long as Nintendo is around, but obscure games or classics with disputed Copyright will disappear.
Who is out there even trying to stream the old Sierra games? At least they are on GoG, but I know even GoG has tried to track down current copyright holders for old classics and the are plenty of orphan games where after several mergers and divestments, there is some uncertainty, and it’s not worth it for any of the potential copyright holders to sort it out and license it, and unfortunately it’s not worth it for GoG to publish it to find out if they’ll sue GoG.
This is why Abandonware is such an important concept.
Oni, Alien Vs. Predator 2, No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, MechWarrior 2/3/4, Black & White 1 and 2…
And that’s just at the top of my head. Copyright hell is awful.
One thing I’ve heard is it’s sometimes a weird stalemate where companies might have the property in their basement somewhere, but if there’s interest in it, suddenly the value will shoot up, so nobody wants to confirm it in case they’re the loser and will have it extorted from them.
I’m probably explaining it wrong. (Because it’s absolute nonsense.) But someone might know a better explanation than I.
I know there are several seminal works locked in archives or even just lost.
I couldn’t think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but I was considering the fate of Microprose, Sierra On-Line, and other studios that were gobbled up, disbanded, broken up, etc.
Your Mechwarrior example is a good example of licensing, where you might have defunct TTRPG studios (FASA) licensing a property to a have company it studio that has also gone though several mergers.
There should be a “use it or lose it” provision in copyright law, kind of like back in the day with what happened to “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The only reason IAWL became a Christmas classic isbecause it became public domain.
Except that that is largely not even true.
87% of games made before 2010 are completely commercially unavailable.
They do not even want to be in control of retro games to be able to sell them indefinitely.
With the exception of certain, wildly popular games they know they can still charge a high price for, they do not want the vast majority of retro games to be legally available at all.
Further, with books, film, other kinds of art… a legal carve out exception does exist for the purposes of academic study and research.
Basically, accredited academic institutions have the ability to rent those out to students, people writing studies on media and cultural history.
Video games? As of this ruling, nope, they are special, studying the history of video games functionally requires breaking the law.
They just get shoved into the vault, never to be seen again, by anyone, ever.
This reminds me that 90% of silent movies are lost forever because there was no effort to preserve them at the time.
If it wasn’t for people going as far deliding chips and breaking encryption, a good chunk of gaming history would be lost by now.
87% of games made before 2010 are completely commercially unavailable.
Would be interesting to know how many are unavailable because of licensing or rights issue. Racing games like NFS Underground or Most Wanted, for example, aren’t available anymore because of music license wasn’t renewed by studio.
Or many games aren’t available because the developer/publisher studio doesn’t exist anymore.
This is such an incredibly naive take that has already been proven wrong by multiple publishers going out of their way to do exactly what you just said. There’s also a ton of abandonware which is not being sold and never will be again.
You can still watch those old films, as long as you are paying a subscription to a streaming service…
And they feel like releasing the content you want to watch. And they don’t try to ruin the experience by remastering it. And they don’t try to ruin the experience by upscaling or recreating the film in a different style. And they don’t triple the price of content that used to cost a quarter of what it does now. And your device is compatible with their platform, service, and encoding formats. And the DRM implementation is compatible with your device, your cables, your speakers, and your ears. And you can pay to access that content in the location you happen to be living in, which is not always your choice. And you don’t have to buy a peripheral device just to access the content. And you trust them not to enshittify everything that you held dear about the original.
And and and… so the studio can keep making money off of them.
It’s just bonkers to me because they do everything for profit anyway; what the fuck profit do they get from not selling shit anymore? I said this not long ago about Nintendo, but other companies are guilty of it too. Spending money attempting to stop piracy, instead of making money by just giving customers what they fucking want. What crazy company secrets are they hiding that not continuing to sell a product is better than selling it?
It’s like a toxic romantic partner: if I can’t make a lot of money doing this one thing, then no one can.
Come to think of it, a lot of late stage capitalism behavior is like a toxic partner.
Not in any way defending Nintendo - seriously, fuck them, I will pirate their entire catalogue and not feel one iota of guilt.
But, what mix of those 87% of games no longer commercially available fall into one of these three categories:
- yearly releases of game franchises (e.g. FIFA/NFL/NHL/NBA ‘94, ‘95, ‘96 etc.)
- unofficial releases (e.g. bootleg Christian NES carts)
- impossible to re-release 1:1 due to music licensing issues (anything with EA TRAX, Vice City/San Andreas etc.)
So I guess what I’m asking is, what percentage of those games aren’t economically viable to resell, or are stuck in licence limbo?
Sort of like how they erased all the evidence of “Sinbad’s Shazaam” and then gaslit everyone that remembered it?
Oh c’mon don’t screw with my head like that. I specifically remember seeing the “Shaq Genie movie”… Wait that was Kazaam! Dang it!
Buystream their new movies.FTFY
No Goonies, no Godfather, no Star Wars original trilogy
i would be okay with this. we should still preserve games of course, but i wouldn’t mind losing out on those movies
Eat shit, troll.
Good for you?
