![]() ![]() There may be question of expired licenses (both the Xbox’s joyous OutRun 2 and the Dreamcast’s solemn Ferrari 355 Challenge were based on expensive and time-limited authorisations from the Italian carmaker). By contrast, every video game system is different, so bringing, say, a Spectrum game to a PlayStation 5 requires various acts of technological reshaping. The technology for distributing books and films is straightforward and mostly unchanging. The reasons for the vacuum are myriad – and slightly tedious. It’s practically guaranteed that something you grew up with is gone, for ever.” As the foundation’s co-director Frank Cifaldi tweeted: “Nine out of 10 classic video games are no longer available to consumers, and that number is unlikely to get any better. The 13% availability rate of classic video games is one percentage point less than that of American silent films. According to the report, less than 5% of games from the Commodore 64 are still available today. The void is not unique to video games – there are books that are no longer published even in digital form, some films can only be watched on defunct formats, others disappear from streaming services mere months after release – but the scale of the video game void is unmatched in other media. ![]() ![]() It’s an excruciating loss of source material for the people who worked on these games, as well as for historians and archivists, for gem-hunters and for any younger player who might wish to enjoy interactive works created in different socio-political circumstances, against different technological constraints and fashions or within different market conditions. This equates to a lacuna of tens of thousands of works, many of which represent key moments in the medium’s evolution. Grim news heralded in a report published this week by the Video Game History Foundation, which claims that 87% of video games released before 2010 are no longer commercially available. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |