I give this statement a resounding:

Meh.

Moviebob already said this...

Who the hell are these people that are supposedly indifferent to gaming history? Most gamers I know are obsessed with it to the point of being irritating as fuck about it.

Eh, I think what he says has tons of merit to it, and it needs to happen more, but there are institutions, like the Smithsonian, that are making movements in trying to preserve as much as they can.

Ultimately its all a big part of the whole videogames/acceptance issue that has been going on for a long time now. Before recently no one really bothered with any of this because either no one really thought games would be accepted, or no one really cared if they did as long as they were making dough. Now we're worried about preservation because theres been such a big push behind this being an artform to preserve at all. But it all skirts the line in the "is it art?" debate. If its not art, its not worth the time and money to bother preserving -not many academics are probably all that worried about holding on to old iPhones either.

@Tristrix

Weren't you the one telling people that they should be so impressed by shiny new hardware that they shouldn't want to complain about not being able to play "obsolete" games? Indifference to preservation, thy name is...?

Anyway, man has a point. Not everyone in gaming has that dedication to preservation as, say, Nintendo. In the end, it is going to fall on us to drive the preservation scene, and honestly, we've been doing a pretty decent job of it. The retro indie game scene has put a lot of old styles of gaming back into focus, and there are legitimate pushes for gaming museums popping up here and there.

If anyone lives in the NYC area, and is old enough to get their faces drunk, Barcade in Brooklyn has a bunch of great classic arcade games, and a fucking awesome beer selection.

The digital preservation of games is a worthwhile endeavour in my opinion. I sincerely hope we can have means to accessing older games in the future once the machines and media they are played on crumbles. I mean can you imagine fifty years from now how many people will have TVs who can even play a working NES? I imagine very few.

Yeah, they shouldn't expect to play obsolete, antiquated games on their new systems. It's not a wise ass remark, its me referencing your indifference to something that isn't new.

And make no mistakes about it, I did miss you. Without you around, there wasn't really anyone spouting off inane nonsense outside of the usual trolls, and its no fun always talking to level headed logical folks all the time. If your believing that I'm stalking you after literally only responding to you twice in a few days keeps you around, shit man, I'll hide in your bushes all you'd like.

I called the media obsolete, champ. Not the games. Read the post. I think you'll have a hard time arguing that UMDs aren't obsolete. Those fucking things were obsolete the day the PSP launched.

But hey, like I said, if there's anyone around here that's uniquely qualified to take something I said and entirely reimagine and repurpose it to make a completely different point, it's you. Have at it.

You'll have to excuse me if I was confused. Telling people that they're a cancer for complaining about not being able to convert out of obsolete media cheaply like they can in Japan, under the argument that they shouldn't want to play games on obsolete media seems kinda confusing.

I'm not rearranging your points, It just didn't occur to me that you'd call people out over wanting to use antiquated media and call them a cancer when the article was about not being able to transfer out of said media. They agreed that the UMD was obsolete, that was the point of people complaining, then you called them the cancer that's killing the industry, or something.

But seriously, I think he's right in saying that when you take it in the context of consumer history. We will continue to be f'd until we do something about it. Look at Australlia, for instance, simply driven into a ditch because no one as seeked to try and stop it. Let us hope that we are more conscious of these things going forward and garner our consumer rights.

The thing is that we have emulation though. Can't say the same for early cinema or television.

so, buying games and new systems just ain't enough to support and preserve the history if games?

what media is he fucking talking about as "been lost". polaroid cameras?

we have museums that collect and hold the data, its on them, the devs and publishers to submit the hardwares and copywritten works they want to show and preserve.

its not on me to make sure i can still remember tecmo super bowl. its not on me to remember acclaim, hudson, capcom, midway, ea, activision, squarenix.
its on them to preserve the information, not me. i've given them alot of money over the years. maybe, just maybe, they can use a little of that money to preserve their works. if i try, i'll just get sued for trying to make a buck off of history.

i can remember them right now, they may not be able as if they can't see any profit in saving them. maybe we all should go out, give them our last penny and then see what they say. i bet it'll be something along the lines of "money is just not enough to help preserve the history, so we're just gonna spend that money on ourselves instead of give it back.

fuck that bullshit.