A study finds that just 13% of video games from the pre-2010 era are commercially available, and it's hurting efforts to preserve video gaming history.
from the Video Game History Foundation working alongside the Software Preservation Network claims that the vast majority of games from the 1970s going all the way up until 2009 are largely kept out of players’ and historians’ hands. Only 13% of games released in the U.S. before the age of vast digital distribution are
legally and commercially available. The other 87% are only playable through some museums or through industry-derided piracy. Otherwise, you would need to spend inordinate amounts of time and money to collect old software and hardware to experience relics of gaming’s past.In a phone interview with Gizmodo, Phil Salvador—the library director at the VGHF—compared the situation to film where there is much more buy-in from the movie industry at large for preservation.
, the closest availability comparison to other historical media artifacts would be a century old, such as pre-WWII audio at 10% and silent films at 14%. “It goes to show, even with all the interest in some of these older titles, you’re not going to cross the barrier of 30% or more,” Salvador said.There are currently centers of video game history, like the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, but the problem is access. A researcher shouldn’t have to fly hundreds or even thousands of miles then saddle up for what could be 10, 20, or even 50 hours of play for the sake of understanding gaming’s past.
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