an analysis of historical video game availability shows that only 13% of classic video games are currently commercially available across consoles and time periods, and only 3% of games prior to 1985
As much as I support and endorse game preservation, this doesn’t seem like a shocking number. I wonder what percentage of those games are actually worth playing?
@bilb @Mugmoor
that’s fair. I think they are approaching it as archivists rather than as gamers - preserving cuktur artifacts regardless if they’re good or not
I think one set of examples that really push the boundaries of “is this really worth preserving?” are all of those GBA cartridges that just had really compressed videos on them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_Video
TONS. Think about all the games from ps3 backward. Im currently playing burnout 3 again on ps2. Its ridiculous fun, looks great on the emulator. What about Little Big Planet, chronicles of riddick, metal gear solid… The list is endless. You cant buy the game and the hardware to play it on from any store. And it depends on your definition of worth playing. Most games that arent fifa or nba will have fans that want to play it
While you may be able to buy all these games at a secondhand shop I think this article is about official commercial availability. I am not paying some random 200 for Chibi Robo on GameCube because Nintendo never released it
This is the part a lot of these corpo huggers are missing. I’m rarely willing to pay the full $60 for a game, let alone the hundreds some go for because of induced scarcity. Let’s be honest, there’s rarely a real reason for a game to not be available digitally even if they don’t want to keep print discs. GoG is made specifically for this kind of thing.
Yeah for every MGS4 there are hundreds of games on the level of E.T. There was a shit ton of crap flooding the market during the Atari era, because many publishers tried to crank out as many games as possible in a short time.
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As much as I support and endorse game preservation, this doesn’t seem like a shocking number. I wonder what percentage of those games are actually worth playing?
I’m actually a bit surprised by how high it is.
@bilb
@Mugmoor
that’s fair. I think they are approaching it as archivists rather than as gamers - preserving cuktur artifacts regardless if they’re good or not
@jonny@social.coop @bilb@lem.monster @Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com Right, “commercially available,” “freely available,” and “safely, but privately archived,” are different things.
I think one set of examples that really push the boundaries of “is this really worth preserving?” are all of those GBA cartridges that just had really compressed videos on them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_Video
TONS. Think about all the games from ps3 backward. Im currently playing burnout 3 again on ps2. Its ridiculous fun, looks great on the emulator. What about Little Big Planet, chronicles of riddick, metal gear solid… The list is endless. You cant buy the game and the hardware to play it on from any store. And it depends on your definition of worth playing. Most games that arent fifa or nba will have fans that want to play it
You just named a bunch of games that have been released on other consoles/pc.
What I’m referring to are all the garbage games released. Think licensed titles, and all the crap that led to the market crash in the 80’s.
Also you most certainly can buy old consoles and games at a store. I do it all the time.
One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure
While you may be able to buy all these games at a secondhand shop I think this article is about official commercial availability. I am not paying some random 200 for Chibi Robo on GameCube because Nintendo never released it
This is the part a lot of these corpo huggers are missing. I’m rarely willing to pay the full $60 for a game, let alone the hundreds some go for because of induced scarcity. Let’s be honest, there’s rarely a real reason for a game to not be available digitally even if they don’t want to keep print discs. GoG is made specifically for this kind of thing.
Yeah for every MGS4 there are hundreds of games on the level of E.T. There was a shit ton of crap flooding the market during the Atari era, because many publishers tried to crank out as many games as possible in a short time.
Man i had E.T. On PlayStation. I was too young to realise how crap it was then but thinking back…