Volunteers from the Stop Killing Games movement looked at over 700 games requiring internet to see how many are playable after support ends. The results are...
You’re damn right I don’t like it, I especially don’t like how it destroys art history, which is why I’m part of this campaign to make that practice illegal.
The general minimum for a National Landmark is 50 years. This would make any game released prior to 1975 eligible. That is a good chunk of games. That said, protecting works of art are usually much shorter terms. Works of art can be justified to be protected almost immediately depending on the artist and work.
Okay thats fair, I actually didnt know there were video games that old. I wouldnt day all of them should be archived as a rule but if they are available why not.
I don’t know any current publishers that would qualify for the day one protection you mentioned. Can you give an example of something being declared historical nearly immediately though?
I know I could find examples, but I am exhausted after coding all day on one thorny problem, so I am just going to make educated guesses from what I know of US history. I would bet that the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore received National Landmark status before the general 50 year mark. I would hazard that the presidential monuments on DC did as well.
That said, this was an exercise in examples of things that need to be protected as part of history. Works of art have a much lower bar than national landmarks for this. Games that are transformative or innovative in a way that we still feel today, or games that are massive parts of the cultural zeitgeist for a period definitely deserve preservation. Rogue, Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII, Super Mario Brothers, Zork, etc. The reason this is such a big deal is that it might be hard to measure in a moment what is or is not going to have that long reaching impact. Imagine you are an art historian in 30 years and you are doing a paper on the growth and history of game mechanics. How are you going to research that. If you were doing one on painting and how techniques grow over time, you go look at the paintings, study them. The game paper will have no source material to study to draw new conclusions or find previously unnoticed connections if 70+% of the source media disappears in the next 10 years.
One persons historical piece is another’s bit of oppression, using mount Rushmore is a great example of this. I’m pointing out that I find it impossible to agree on what’s historical as a country when it comes to things like that. I literally never touched dark souls the entire time its been popular, its not historical for me.
Then theres the fact that you can’t really delete anything from the internet. Sure online games can be “disconnected” but even the crew has a private server going live this year. WoW did the same thing and eventually the company started supporting their old games again. Funny thing about that, they didnt have the old code anymore and had to rewrite it.
I would like the same result as you would, I just don’t want laws to force it that way. I think its already changing and its unnecessary to regulate. This might not be the case in this instance but regulations tend to be easier to handle by larger companies as well, and I wouldnt want to unduly stress small development teams. Art should largely be unrestricted.
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You’re damn right I don’t like it, I especially don’t like how it destroys art history, which is why I’m part of this campaign to make that practice illegal.
Its sort of like complaining your favorite pub got shut down though, isn’t it?
If that pub has been around long enough that it can reasonably be argued that it is part of regional heritage, then yes.
I don’t know any video game thats been around long enough to be called a historical landmark or whatever terminology.
The general minimum for a National Landmark is 50 years. This would make any game released prior to 1975 eligible. That is a good chunk of games. That said, protecting works of art are usually much shorter terms. Works of art can be justified to be protected almost immediately depending on the artist and work.
Okay thats fair, I actually didnt know there were video games that old. I wouldnt day all of them should be archived as a rule but if they are available why not.
I don’t know any current publishers that would qualify for the day one protection you mentioned. Can you give an example of something being declared historical nearly immediately though?
I know I could find examples, but I am exhausted after coding all day on one thorny problem, so I am just going to make educated guesses from what I know of US history. I would bet that the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore received National Landmark status before the general 50 year mark. I would hazard that the presidential monuments on DC did as well.
That said, this was an exercise in examples of things that need to be protected as part of history. Works of art have a much lower bar than national landmarks for this. Games that are transformative or innovative in a way that we still feel today, or games that are massive parts of the cultural zeitgeist for a period definitely deserve preservation. Rogue, Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII, Super Mario Brothers, Zork, etc. The reason this is such a big deal is that it might be hard to measure in a moment what is or is not going to have that long reaching impact. Imagine you are an art historian in 30 years and you are doing a paper on the growth and history of game mechanics. How are you going to research that. If you were doing one on painting and how techniques grow over time, you go look at the paintings, study them. The game paper will have no source material to study to draw new conclusions or find previously unnoticed connections if 70+% of the source media disappears in the next 10 years.
One persons historical piece is another’s bit of oppression, using mount Rushmore is a great example of this. I’m pointing out that I find it impossible to agree on what’s historical as a country when it comes to things like that. I literally never touched dark souls the entire time its been popular, its not historical for me.
Then theres the fact that you can’t really delete anything from the internet. Sure online games can be “disconnected” but even the crew has a private server going live this year. WoW did the same thing and eventually the company started supporting their old games again. Funny thing about that, they didnt have the old code anymore and had to rewrite it.
I would like the same result as you would, I just don’t want laws to force it that way. I think its already changing and its unnecessary to regulate. This might not be the case in this instance but regulations tend to be easier to handle by larger companies as well, and I wouldnt want to unduly stress small development teams. Art should largely be unrestricted.