87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games

audaxdreik@pawb.social to Gaming@beehaw.org – 86 points –
87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games | Video Game History Foundation
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The reason they don’t re-release video games or old movies is because they don’t want you enjoying old things.

You're assuming nefarious intent. I suspect the reality is that it's not worth the rights holders' time or money to invest in re-releasing old titles that very few people would buy.

Yeah, im going with this one. Even if it takes a company a total of 5 hours work to wrap an old game in an emulator and release it on steam, it's not going to be worth it when only 5 people buy it.

Right, I figure re-releasing a game takes some amount of labor, which means someone needs to make a case for spending time on that instead of whatever the current priorities are.

That makes the efforts of archivists all the more commendable, and it's all the more frustrating when you see a company dedicating resources to shutting them down.

it’s all the more frustrating when you see a company dedicating resources to shutting them down.

Yes, definitely sucks when they do that. I struggle to understand why unless there's some legal reason to protect all of your intellectual property instead of just the stuff that's still making money.

I mean some of them claim that if they don't do that they'll lose the copyright, but I looked it up a bit ago and there doesn't appear to be any evidence that that is the case, so make of that what you will. ~Strawberry