I recently saw this video about the British Library. They collect everything that’s published in the UK (books, magazines, papers, leaflets, flyers, …). One of the librarians makes a pretty good case about the use of collecting and preserving everything. Even (or especially) the things you don’t think are worth preserving.
I disagree. I think games are definitely worth preserving, even if they aren’t that fun. Regardless, this game has historical significance and should at the very least be playable after it’s delisted.
“Good” is not the metric for preserving things. “Important” is. Marvel’s Avengers is important to preserve because this failure is a major historical milestone.
Like, imagine if somehow every copy of ET for the Atari 2600 vanished. Would anything fun be lost? Of course not. But would we lose some critical context in an important historical event? Yes. Very much so.
Fortunately, Atari games aren’t the kind of ephemeral media where we have to worry about that like cloud-service games or pre-code cellulite films.
so is piracy
also, not everything is worth preserving
I recently saw this video about the British Library. They collect everything that’s published in the UK (books, magazines, papers, leaflets, flyers, …). One of the librarians makes a pretty good case about the use of collecting and preserving everything. Even (or especially) the things you don’t think are worth preserving.
I disagree. I think games are definitely worth preserving, even if they aren’t that fun. Regardless, this game has historical significance and should at the very least be playable after it’s delisted.
“Good” is not the metric for preserving things. “Important” is. Marvel’s Avengers is important to preserve because this failure is a major historical milestone.
Like, imagine if somehow every copy of ET for the Atari 2600 vanished. Would anything fun be lost? Of course not. But would we lose some critical context in an important historical event? Yes. Very much so.
Fortunately, Atari games aren’t the kind of ephemeral media where we have to worry about that like cloud-service games or pre-code cellulite films.