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Library of Congress Considers Archiving Games

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the four-score-and-twenty-metroids-ago dept.

GamePolitics reports on talks at the U.S. Library of Congress concerning archiving our digital cultural heritage, including games. From the article: "The initiative is called 'Preserving Creative America,' and plans to compile (with industry help) a list of the commercial digital content most at risk of loss or degradation. The initiative will also develop ideas for preservation, business models to help maintain archives, and promote discussions between the archives and commercial content producers so that the archives are kept up to date. CM: Hopefully the Library of Congress will consider that many PC games were rushed to market before they were ready. Critical software patches should be included in the archive. That's right Sierra, I'm talking about you."

4 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Will they be playable in 100 years? by eln · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is a great idea, but in order to be worth anything, they would need to store the hardware and/or hardware emulators to play these games. A copy of, say, Super Mario Brothers is useless without an NES or NES emulator.

  2. Too good to be true? by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I mean, it looks nice on paper and at first, but ... why do I suddenly have a feeling like it's targeted at so called "abandonware" and those who enjoy it?

    Abandonware sites often claim they just do it "so those games don't go into extinction". With this reason gone, there's no reason anymore for game companies to shoot with big shells their way without getting bad rep. Because, they're no longer the "guardians of game culture", and game studios that want to shut them down are dirty, greedy corps that would rather see a game get forgotten before allowing it to exist for free.

    With this, abandonware sites are just pirates sites to be shut down soon. So start leeching now, as long as it still works!

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    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. It's a little late... by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They missed a bunch of stuff from the 80's-90's that is VERY hard to find now. For example, anyone remember the Apple II game "Floppy", with the little marshmallow-looking guy? If you have it, let me know... I'd be that the LOC has some freaking trouble finding stuff like that in 2006!

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    stuff |
  4. Mod's, S3ms, demo's by BrookHarty · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Would be nice if all the artwork and music for demos and boot loaders where kept around. The digital expression that kick started the video game industry and hackers turned video game producers should be kept around.

    Entire parts of the digital, pre-internet history are being lost with new technology.

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    Scene Music