Piracy vs Preservation - The difference between historical curation and "I want free shit!"

[Syriel]

This is something that has come up over the years, but the recent blowup over Glover 64 provides a great example for a discussion point.

The simple fact of the matter is that piracy != preservation.

Piracy can assist with preservation. Piracy can give us looks into historical windows that we might never have seen before. But it is not equal to preservation.

Preservation does not mean unlimited, free access for all, on demand. Preservation is more than just a dirty ROM dump. I'm sure Borman can go into great detail about the curation work involved in properly preserving just a single game image, let alone all the metadata and surrounding work that go into making it all up.

Preservation is the combination of the data, along with the story of how it came about. It is about the history of the item as well as the item itself.

Now, how does that relate to Glover 64?

Glover 64 was a pretty average game. It came out in 1998. It didn't impress, but it wasn't total crap (the PSX version OTOH got a lot harsher criticism). Still, it had a cancelled sequel in development.

...time passes...

A flash ROM with a build of Glover 64 on it was bought on the secondary market and dumped. Technically illegal, but no one seemed to care because the rights were tied up in corporate acquisitions. In 2017 Piko Interactive bought all the rights to Glover (including assets/source/etc.) with the plans of a future re-release. This is the company business plan: buy dead IP and re-release it so it is widely available for purchase.

In Dec 2020, they starting advertising the upcoming push for Glover.



This past week, Piko ran across a site hosting one of the older Glover 64 ROMs. Being the current rights holder, they sent a C&D. This did not go over well with retro fans.



While I can understand the frustration, the anger seems misplaced. This is a company is that actively reviving long dead games. They're keeping them on the market, and playable on the old systems.

Piko eventually decided to let the old ROM stay up, but they would have been well within their rights to insist it stay down. Yes, we all know with the 'net and pirate sites, that's more a case of whack-a-mole than anything else, but that's a distraction from the core point.



When it comes right down to it, it's hard to fault folks for wanting to check out something that they normally wouldn't have access to. The recent hurricane of activity around Goldeneye XBLA is proof of that. And most folks will probably shrug and say "no harm, no foul" since the game isn't ever likely going to see the light of day in any practical sense. Even then, if someone is hosting a copy of it, and gets a C&D, they'd be smart to just take it down.

With Glover 64 it's a similar situation, except the company issuing the C&D is actively working to re-release the game, and fix some issues that were discovered over the years. It's not like Piko is an IP troll that's just buying stuff and holding onto it. They buy, publish, and sell.

Ultimately, I find it hard to complain about Piko's original stance here. I think fans of preservation should be supporting more efforts like Piko, along with well funded museum efforts like the Museum of Play that Borman works at. Hell, it would be great to see museums partnering with rights holders and folks like Piko or LRG to re-release more physical editions of classics.

Curious to hear other thoughts as I think it could make for a solid round of discussion.

 

[Dennis8K]

Preservation is about the game still being available to play after the system is gone.

That is the problem. Often there is no monetary incentive to keep a game available for people to play after the platform holder has moved on.

 

[affeinvasion]

In a lot of key ways, the difference is time. Preservation is just about making sure that something works and can be accessed once it become legal to do so either through fair use or by the expiration of the copyright. I've known librarians/archivists who use cartridge ripping devices that I assume are identical to what are used by pirate groups. The difference is distribution.

 

[lambdaupsilon]

i guess you can call an inaccessible rom dump or a physical copy in a physical museum somewhere "preserved", but if you can't meaningfully access a work (in games' case, by playing them) then it's doing fuckall for any kind of cultural heritage

 

[AshenOne]

I really respect the time and effort you took to make this thread OP but if i may be sincere, an honest discussion regarding piracy cannot be had on this forum or any public forum because of the strict laws surrounding the discussion of it as some things can be interpreted as a sudden 'endorsement' of piracy and it itself is a complicated matter to discuss on Era already. But saying that i'll read this thread and what others have to say about it...

 

[julia crawford]

I honestly think that after a system has stopped being produced, the license owners should prove that they can support the software so it can be played in in currently commercially available consoles/hardware/operating systems to be able to fight back against free, noncommertial trading of their software under something like the MIT license.

 

[Tavernade]

I think the preservation/piracy divide would be easier to deal with if people actively preserving games for that purpose limited who had access to the ROMs in the same way museums don't just let people walk home with dinosaur bones.

Realistically the law needs to change and there needs to be organisations lobbying for changes that enforce preservation and accessibility. Gaming preservation is far more complex than for any other media and there has to be a big organisation that can take the reins on fixing it.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

Admittedly, if you had asked me years ago, I would've been on the licensing drum, but playing Valkyrie Profile changed my outlook. I was lucky to have a copy lended to me by my friend to be able to play this on original hardware, but it's starting to become a major grey area for me. Particularly when we're talking about companies that either no longer exist, or there are special considerations (more on this in a bit).

So why did I mention Valkyrie Profile? Turns out that the CD is far more sensitive than your typical PS1 CD, that a minor scratch can end up disrupting the data transmission process, and thus you could see interruptions (the famous CD spinning animation) or the game flatout won't work. The only option to keep the game alive and avoid these issues is to inevitably be able to rip and keep the bin/cue files of the game. THankfully, Tri-Ace/Square Enix did digital distribution of the first game, and the sequels (Silmeria, and Covenant of the Plume) are still quite easily available for reasonable prices.

The problem is what happens when a game belongs to a company that stopped existing, and where the only access is that original physical media? The difficult question is what should be done from both preservation and gameplay experience standpoints. I'm not trying to say that piracy is justified, all I'm asking is what viable solution is there for that specific scenario? Another issue that is problematic is understanding that these historical pieces are still commodities to the IP holder. For instance, using that same Valkyrie Profile example, Square Enix re-released the game for iOS and Android, and are still able to profit off of the game to this day. This makes preservation more complicated.

 

[ciddative]

Its feels weird when people talk about preservation with something like Switch games, seems too current to me I dunno

 

[Syriel]

i guess you can call an inaccessible rom dump or a physical copy in a physical museum somewhere "preserved", but if you can't meaningfully access a work (in games' case, by playing them) then it's doing fuckall for any kind of cultural heritage

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I suggest re-reading the OP. In this case (Glover 64) the company that sent the C&D is re-releasing the game. So access is not in question. That's their business model.

I really respect the time and effort you took to make this thread OP but if i may be sincere, an honest discussion regarding piracy cannot be had on this forum or any public forum because of the strict laws surrounding the discussion of it as some things can be interpreted as a sudden 'endorsement' of piracy and it itself is a complicated matter to discuss on Era already. But saying that i'll read this thread and what others have to say about it...

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As long as you're not actively liking to pirated content, you should be fine. Era doesn't have prohibitions on discussion. Just on actual piracy. And this thread isn't meant to be a how-to on piracy, but rather to take a critical look at the difference between real preservation (and what that means) versus simple piracy.

Preservation can cover museums and libraries. It can cover commercial emulation (like in the Xbox One case). It can cover commercial re-releases. Piko isn't the only one to do the latter. LRG has done it as well with the Star Wars games.

I honestly think that after a system has stopped being produced, the license owners should prove that they can support the software so it can be played in in currently commercially available consoles/hardware/operating systems to be able to fight back against free, noncommertial trading of their software under something like the MIT license.

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What kicked off this thread was the furor in the retro community about a company commercially re-releasing a game and asking sites hosting ROM dumps of that game to remove them.

I think the preservation/piracy divide would be easier to deal with if people actively preserving games for that purpose limited who had access to the ROMs in the same way museums don't just let people walk home with dinosaur bones.

Realistically the law needs to change and there needs to be organisations lobbying for changes that enforce preservation and accessibility. Gaming preservation is far more complex than for any other media and there has to be a big organisation that can take the reins on fixing it.

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No disagreement here. Would love to see discussion on how the issue can be solved that isn't a binary choice between "NO ONE EXCEPT THE RICH HAVE ACCESS" and "MAKE IT ALL FREE!"

 

[AmirMoosavi]

A couple of years back I considered pirating the Blade Runner PC game as I figured it was never getting a rerelease with how notorious the rightsholders are. I couldn't be bothered in the end, but as soon as it launched on GOG I bought it.

I have fond memories of the NOLF games but similarly have not bothered to pirate them. Again, though, would buy them in a heartbeat if rereleased on GOG/Steam (heck, even EGS).

It was odd seeing the MGS1 PC port on abandonware sites before its GOG release since it seemed like one of those games that would get a rerelease at some point, so calling it "abandonware" was always a stretch in my mind.

Once something is preserved, I suppose the question is, what should be done with it? If no one can ever play it for rights reasons, is it worth preserving? Is it a purely academic thing? Will video game historians of the future be the only people permitted to play prototypes amd cancelled games?

 

[LazyLain]

This is the kind of topic that I need to bite my tongue for, lest I get myself into hot water...

I'll just say that preservation without access is pointless (and the more accessible, the better), and that I think things should enter public domain a lot faster than they currently do.

 

[Draconis]

A good example of Preservation would be things like Starfox 2, or other games which never saw the light of day finally getting that chance, due to various groups keeping them alive.

MMO's being still playable long after they were shut down, is also an example of preservation, and something I wish could be done to a far more fuller extent.

I think the age of the game, accessibility of the game ( example: How rare or difficult to find it is, like some movies that never saw a mainstream release in the US from Japan for example ), as well as it's history, can help determine this.

You can't say it's preservation, for example, for something so recent like Doom Eternal. But say, trying to do something like keeping the Original Blood alive, and even updating it's graphics with an Open GL engine or something that is capable of HD, is what I would say is a good example of preservation. Starfox 2 example aside.

 

[SteveWinwood]

companies promise to provide quality remasters all the time and yet very few of them are better, and a large deal of them are actively worse

old versions are important to hold onto, its not just to play the game it could be for a whole myriad of reasons

in the world of movies they get recut and recolored and changed in all sorts of fashions and losing the original for any reason (mostly because the studio wants you to buy the new one) would be a huge loss

i commend them for trying to bring glover back in an easy to play form. ill probably buy it on steam (if it makes it there) i have a soft spot for 3d platformers of the time and I never got to play it. not having to worry about anything other than pushing the play button is great (and a large reason, I would argue, piracy was largely down on pc. apparently). but thats no reason to try and actively erase older versions of it

so thats where i largely stand. make your product good enough to stand on its own and people will want to buy it, just like anything else. if theres some person out there that wants their complete n64 collection with every version and region of glover so he can do god knows what with it, more power to them as well, im not sure what they have to do with anything so why are you even bothering them?

 

[TheMadTitan]

They were putting the game back on the market; so I don't have a problem if it was available in ways that aren't inconvenient to prospective players to play on modern platforms.

If they were just pulling it down without providing an alternative, then I'd think there was a problem.

 

[Dogui]

I think the preservation/piracy divide would be easier to deal with if people actively preserving games for that purpose limited who had access to the ROMs in the same way museums don't just let people walk home with dinosaur bones.

Realistically the law needs to change and there needs to be organisations lobbying for changes that enforce preservation and accessibility. Gaming preservation is far more complex than for any other media and there has to be a big organisation that can take the reins on fixing it.

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If dinosaur bones could be easily replicated/cloned/whatever, what would be the problem, exactly? Imagine every school with access to fossils that you can only see in a museum...main difference here is that there's no company owning the intellectual property of dinosaur bones...yet, atleast.

 

[julia crawford]

What kicked off this thread was the furor in the retro community about a company commercially re-releasing a game and asking sites hosting ROM dumps of that game to remove them.

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Hmm. From what i understand they haven't release it yet, right? I wouldn't consider that proven ability to support a game. I think they would be ok to do it after having release dthe game and, hmm, perhaps demonstrating that it was the same iteration of the old version, that is, no significant additions or reconstructions that result in a notably different aesthetic or gameplay.

I wouldn't say for example that because Shadow of the Colossus Remake exists, the originals should not be able to be traded freely.

 

[lambdaupsilon]

I suggest re-reading the OP. In this case (Glover 64) the company that sent the C&D is re-releasing the game. So access is not in question. That's their business model.

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i did read the op. this is a company that wants to make money taking down a prototype that isn't what they're releasing
i don't think that this thread is made in good faith

 

[spam musubi]

Its feels weird when people talk about preservation with something like Switch games, seems too current to me I dunno

Click to shrink...

To be fair, the only right time to preserve a game is right now. You never know if it will get delisted, taken down etc. See The Sinking City, Devotion etc.

 

[Cantaim]

In a lot of key ways, the difference is time. Preservation is just about making sure that something works and can be accessed once it become legal to do so either through fair use or by the expiration of the copyright. I've known librarians/archivists who use cartridge ripping devices that I assume are identical to what are used by pirate groups. The difference is distribution.

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This

 

[Deleted member 23212]

I think it's rather pointless to have a thread of this topic on this forum.

 

[Deleted member 81119]

I loooove when classics are rereleased and remasters for modern hardware...more than new games even. So I definitely get the frustration with how many games just aren't available. Emulation seems like a good alternative for when games are stuck on ancient hardware.
But if a game is, or is soon to be available on modern systems....buy and play it there. Don't be a jackass and emulate when you don't need to.

 

[JustinH]

A good example of Preservation would be things like Starfox 2, or other games which never saw the light of day finally getting that chance, due to various groups keeping them alive.

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I think this would be an interesting episode for like... Game Sack (or whoever your favorite youtuber is), "zombie games." Meaning games that died and years later actually got an "official" release (or maybe not exactly "official?" I'm not sure).
The only two I can really think of are StarFox 2 and Ultracore (Hardcore) that was "packed-in" on the Mega SG, though. There just has to be more that are escaping my brain-grabbers right now...

But say, trying to do something like keeping the Original Blood alive, and even updating it's graphics with an Open GL engine or something that is capable of HD, is what I would say is a good example of preservation. Starfox 2 example aside.

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That's an interesting perspective. I guess something like source ports (or like... SCUMMVM) would be something that helps out in preserving a game, since they help make games playable on newer systems. You'd need the game already to get them to work, too.

I don't think I can really look at Piko sideways for what they did. Kinda makes sense to me. I mean, Nintendo had the fan-made Another Metroid 2 Remake pulled from a lot of places before their own version came out, didn't they?

 

[Storm]

I think a prototype is a very different case to a full retail release. I love looking through analysis of prototypes on places like TCRF and learning how they've advanced throughout development. I don't think there's a huge conflict between a prototype and a modern Switch release in this case but that's just me

 

[Borman]

Preservation is about the game still being available to play after the system is gone.

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That is part of what game preservation is, but it isn't the entire thing. We have over 55,000 game related objects in the museum, and the games themselves aren't the most accessed materials in many cases. It is often the supporting material, the books, the documents, the videos. The game is certainly important, but my colleague likes to compare preservation of a game to preserving the preservation of a baseball game: It is more than just the game itself, as even with it you are missing huge pieces of important context. Even in cases where server emulation exists, illegally or otherwise, it isn't the same as it was, and judging it solely based on what is available in the emulator doesn't do it proper justice.

i guess you can call an inaccessible rom dump or a physical copy in a physical museum somewhere "preserved", but if you can't meaningfully access a work (in games' case, by playing them) then it's doing fuckall for any kind of cultural heritage

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We have over 550,000 guests at The Strong, and somewhere around 100 researchers (and more tours) every year, ignoring last year, with the hope to get to over 1,000,000 guests per year with our expansion. We provide access to research materials to just about anyone with a reason (and is willing to sign our paperwork), from traditional researchers, to YouTubers and superfans, some of which are happy to talk about what we offer when they see this.

But we don't have access to IP rights. We cannot give access to the general Internet because of that. But recognize that with most of the material that we end up with, it isn't a case of going to a museum or going to the Internet. It is often the case that it ends up with us, a different institution, or it gets disposed of. We are rarely competing with people online for game development material, not to say it doesn't happen, and it is often the case that people come to us because we respect the IP rights. Whether that is the individuals that donate to us, or the big companies like Activision whom we love to work with, we can give access to things in a controlled way that people would likely never have access to otherwise.

We're always looking ahead to what access may look like in the future. I picked up a MiSTer and an NT Mini to explore opening up more access to some rare prototype material, including arcade machine content, so you never know what may be coming!

I think the preservation/piracy divide would be easier to deal with if people actively preserving games for that purpose limited who had access to the ROMs in the same way museums don't just let people walk home with dinosaur bones.

Realistically the law needs to change and there needs to be organisations lobbying for changes that enforce preservation and accessibility. Gaming preservation is far more complex than for any other media and there has to be a big organisation that can take the reins on fixing it.

Click to shrink...

Obviously attempts have been made to change the law, and there are some exemptions in place (with more being reviewed), but yeah, we are limited by the law.

Ultimately, I find it hard to complain about Piko's original stance here. I think fans of preservation should be supporting more efforts like Piko, along with well funded museum efforts like the Museum of Play that Borman works at. Hell, it would be great to see museums partnering with rights holders and folks like Piko or LRG to re-release more physical editions of classics.

Curious to hear other thoughts as I think it could make for a solid round of discussion.

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We're happy to support things when possible, but issues surrounding rights can be complicated. That said, you may see some of that in the future!


Happy to talk generally about other things we do or don't do!

 

[lambdaupsilon]

We have over 550,000 guests at The Strong, and somewhere around 100 researchers (and more tours) every year, ignoring last year, with the hope to get to over 1,000,000 guests per year with our expansion. We provide access to research materials to just about anyone with a reason (and is willing to sign our paperwork), from traditional researchers, to YouTubers and superfans, some of which are happy to talk about what we offer when they see this.

But we don't have access to IP rights. We cannot give access to the general Internet because of that. But recognize that with most of the material that we end up with, it isn't a case of going to a museum or going to the Internet. It is often the case that it ends up with us, a different institution, or it gets disposed of. We are rarely competing with people online for game development material, not to say it doesn't happen, and it is often the case that people come to us because we respect the IP rights. Whether that is the individuals that donate to us, or the big companies like Activision whom we love to work with, we can give access to things in a controlled way that people would likely never have access to otherwise.

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sorry, i didn't intend to disparage your work and i do think it's most of what can be achieved within current legal systems. i should clarify that my position is more "IP rights delenda est" or, like, make things public domain a lot sooner

 

[Borman]

sorry, i didn't intend to disparage your work and i do think it's most of what can be achieved within current legal systems. i should clarify that my position is more "IP rights delenda est" or, like, make things public domain a lot sooner

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I know, just clarifying what we do and what it means for access :) A lot of people think that most museums don't give access to things, but it often isn't true. I'm really proud of the work we do for access, and the wide range of groups that we give that access to. The last thing any of us want is for things to collect dust on a shelf, never to be seen.. We even have fellowship programs where we pay people a stipend to come do research, which is awesome!

 

[JustinH]

We have over 550,000 guests at The Strong, and somewhere around 100 researchers (and more tours) every year, ignoring last year, with the hope to get to over 1,000,000 guests per year with our expansion. We provide access to research materials to just about anyone with a reason (and is willing to sign our paperwork), from traditional researchers, to YouTubers and superfans, some of which are happy to talk about what we offer when they see this.

Click to shrink...

That's interesting. I didn't know people were actually given access to things... regularly?

It'd be nice to see The Strong museum expand and grow too, because I think having such a "definitive" authority would help in actually keeping these things preserved (as opposed to just like... ROMs just floating around the net). I think it continuing to gain attention would help with that.

 

[TheCongressman]

Its feels weird when people talk about preservation with something like Switch games, seems too current to me I dunno

Click to shrink...

Mario 35 is going away in a few months.

Mario 3D collection is a limited release, can't even get it digitally after the date. That could change, but Nintendo's said nothing about it thus far.

It's never too early to start talking about this in the streaming and digital media age.

 

[diablogg]

Hmm this is an interesting situation I havn't heard about so thanks for the read.

More broadly, my overall stance is that it's quite clear that even the very best of these companies don't do nearly enough to keep these old games and more importantly, your old purchases playable over time. Because of this, I personally don't care about the "legality" of these issues, if I've purchased a ROM/game on my PS3, my Wii or wherever the hell I'm happily going to be play it on whatever system I decide to hack or directly on my PC if I so choose.

 

[AmirMoosavi]

It's interesting to make the comparison to the world of music. We've seen recently a lot of bands release demos as part of rereleases, Deluxe Editions, boxsets, etc. A lot of these demos had been trading for years through bootleg cassettes, CDs, vinyls... You have something like Let It Be... Naked which belatedly got an official release.

Are there any examples of games where the prototypes have been made legally accessible/playable?

I'm a big Guns N' Roses fan, especially the Chinese Democracy era, and while the leaks up to that infamous album are well-known, there was also a set of leaks in the summer of 2019 of demos recorded fron 2000 to 2001. Some of these were demos of songs that eventually made the album, others for songs which are still not released two decades on. If these were all to be officially released I would buy them in a heartbeat as I find it fascinating seeing these songs evolve over the lengthy production process. Some fams prefer the stripped down earlier demos, similar to the situation with The Beatles' Let It Be and its Wall of Sound.

Prototypes of games I suppose tend to be less enjoyable to experience than song demos as they are more often clearly "unfinished", but there will still will be those curious to play. I would love for example to get my hands on the cancelled Shenmue remaster/remake of which Digital Foundry managed to get some footage, even in its unfinished state.

 

[Borman]

That's interesting. I didn't know people were actually given access to things... regularly?

It'd be nice to see The Strong museum expand and grow too, because I think having such a "definitive" authority would help in actually keeping these things preserved (as opposed to just like... ROMs just floating around the net). I think it continuing to gain attention would help with that.

Click to shrink...

Yep! In a more typical year, one of my jobs is helping setup original hardware for people that do want to access games directly. I always love the perspective people bring, as it isn't always people directly interested in video games that are asking for access. I've also helped people with prototype access too, which is exciting for me.

Part of what I find fun is going back through older collections with a fine-toothed comb. I've been able to find more Ms Pac Man Genesis prototypes, the unreleased San Francisco Rush for GBC, and games like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Interplay and Dawn of Man, an early Age of Empires prototype.

I think the hardest thing to convey is how large the museum is, and that it has already been around for decades. Even someone like myself, who lived in this world for most of my adult life, didn't realize how large the museum was, and I lived 3 hours away for 10 years!

Videos are a great way I have been trying to expand access.

See our video on Fallout Extreme, with tons of unseen content:




And just to add to the MiSTer conversation I started, this is a prototype for Wizard of Wor called Invisible Monsters which the museum owns. Unfortunately, putting a one-of-a-kind prototype arcade game out for play is challenging, but if we can create a clone of sorts...

It's interesting to make the comparison to the world of music. We've seen recently a lot of bands release demos as part of rereleases, Deluxe Editions, boxsets, etc. A lot of these demos had been trading for years through bootleg cassettes, CDs, vinyls... You have something like Let It Be... Naked which belatedly got an official release.

Are there any examples of games where the prototypes have been made legally accessible/playable?

I'm a big Guns N' Roses fan, especially the Chinese Democracy era, and while the leaks up to that infamous album are well-known, there was also a set of leaks in the summer of 2019 of demos recorded fron 2000 to 2001. Some of these were demos of songs that eventually made the album, others for songs which are still not released two decades on. If these were all to be officially released I would buy them in a heartbeat as I f8nd ot fascinating seeing these songs evolve over the lengthy production process. Some fams prefer the stripped down earlier demos, similar to the situation with The Beatles' Let It Be and its Wall of Sound.

Prototypes of games I suppose tend to be less enjoyable to experience than song demps as they are more often clearly "unfinished", but there will still will be those curious to play. I would love for example to get my hands on the cancelled Shenmue remaster/remake of which Digital Foundry managed to get some footage, even in its unfinished state.

Click to shrink...

Nintendo has put out Star Fox 2. Sega has put out various things over the years. We saw Saints Row PSP legally released. Lots of 3d Realms stuff has prototypes out there. It does happen.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Borman

Since you're in this thread already and it kinda fits with the discussion, is there any chance you can do another stream of the English Release of Dinosaur Hunting? I appreciate the attempt to preserve it, but the stream is on the lower side quality wise and the majority of tje screen is taken up by the overlay.

Just something I'd figure I'd bring up, since you're the only person I know of with a copy. As even the Japanese release is hard to get a hold of legally these days.

 

[Stopdoor]

I think it's rather pointless to have a thread of this topic on this forum.

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Tbh this thread is probably the most in-depth discussion I've seen on Era for awhile, when's the last time you've seen this many multi-paragraph posts and not just another "what's ur fav 3d mario?" and it's just a list thread?

 

[Jimnymebob]

I've never cared for piracy or downloading ROMs or whatever, even if I can't really blame people for doing it in certain situations due to the fact there are countless games that just aren't available for the general public outside of going down that route, but for me, if a games owner or company or publisher or whatever ceases to exist, their catalogue should instantly either be released for free if it's a legacy title, or be hosted on every major web store permanently. With back compatability getting a push in recent years, getting all your titles available on every hardware possible, both current and future, should be a priority.

I know that's basically an impossible task though.

 

[Borman]

Borman

Since you're in this thread already and it kinda fits with the discussion, is there any chance you can do another stream of the English Release of Dinosaur Hunting? I appreciate the attempt to preserve it, but the stream is on the lower side quality wise and the majority of tje screen is taken up by the overlay.

Just something I'd figure I'd bring up, since you're the only person I know of with a copy. As even the Japanese release is hard to get a hold of legally these days.

Click to shrink...

Some day Ill record more of it. The Japanese release comes up a few times a year on eBay, more on YAJ. I think I have a sealed copy of it.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Some day Ill record more of it. The Japanese release comes up a few times a year on eBay, more on YAJ. I think I have a sealed copy of it.

Click to shrink...

Rad. I'll keep an eye out for that too.

 

[JustinH]

Yep! In a more typical year, one of my jobs is helping setup original hardware for people that do want to access games directly. I always love the perspective people bring, as it isn't always people directly interested in video games that are asking for access. I've also helped people with prototype access too, which is exciting for me.

Part of what I find fun is going back through older collections with a fine-toothed comb. I've been able to find more Ms Pac Man Genesis prototypes, the unreleased San Francisco Rush for GBC, and games like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Interplay and Dawn of Man, an early Age of Empires prototype.

I think the hardest thing to convey is how large the museum is, and that it has already been around for decades. Even someone like myself, who lived in this world for most of my adult life, didn't realize how large the museum was, and I lived 3 hours away for 10 years!

Videos are a great way I have been trying to expand access.

See our video on Fallout Extreme, with tons of unseen content:

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Thanks for replying with this!

This is super neat. I guess I just realized I didn't know anything about The Strong before. I just recognize the name from the Video Game Hall of Fame articles that show up from time to time.

I had no idea how big it was either. Again, it's not like I really paid attention before, but I just thought it was a smallish like 3-room building or something.

I'm gonna have to keep an eye on that youtube channel from now on, lol.

 

[Sleepwalker]

This all varies case to case, but only relying on rights holders to preserve their games seems a bit... well unreliable. After all, it's their decision whether to do anything with the game or just let it rot and be forgotten, and let's just say I have a lot more confidence in online communities when it comes to making old delisted games widely available.

The example from the OP is an interesting and more nuanced situation than most, but on the whole, I'm grateful for piracy in this regard.

 

[Borman]

Thanks for replying with this!

This is super neat. I guess I just realized I didn't know anything about The Strong before. I just recognize the name from the Video Game Hall of Fame articles that show up from time to time.

I had no idea how big it was either. Again, it's not like I really paid attention before, but I just thought it was a smallish like 3-room building or something.

I'm gonna have to keep an eye on that youtube channel from now on, lol.

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I recommend taking a virtual tour on our Google Arts and Culture page! It's a bit outdated at this point, but it gives a good idea of how large the public area is. Video games on the second floor ;)

The Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester , United States - Google Arts & Culture

The Strong® is a highly interactive, collections-based museum devoted to the history and exploration of play. It is one of the largest history museums in t...

artsandculture.google.com

A portion of our objects are also there, along with some great curated online exhibits!

Not everything gets posted to YouTube unfortunately, but our blogs are a great way to keep up with what we are doing:

Blog - The Strong National Museum of Play

The Strong museum’s blog highlights its artifact collection, including toys, dolls, board games, video games, and other artifacts and archives related to the history of play, as well as the importance of play in American culture through the expertise and stories of its curators, librarians...

www.museumofplay.org

My last one was on the papers we received from Denise Chaudhari, designer of the Xbox Duke!

 

[Venom.]

A deceased game was shared for preservation and then a company brought the rights and wanted to exercise their copyright.

It's now time for the big console manufacturers and publishers to come together to agree a working code for abandoned software. For example what Venom suggests is: 10 years after a game is abandoned (definition must be agreed on) the original game can be shared without profit, with no fear of legal action if the rights holder resurfaces. This right to archive gives no ownership rights and does not forfeit copyright from the legal rights holder.

 

[blitzblake]

This dilemma is the Schrödinger's cat of video games. The rights holders very awareness of the product makes preservation difficult, however if they remain unaware, then the game can easily be preserved. But once a game is remembered, it is immediately pushed into awareness. So forgetting a game is the only way to preserve it.

 

[AmirMoosavi]

Nintendo has put out Star Fox 2. Sega has put out various things over the years. We saw Saints Row PSP legally released. Lots of 3d Realms stuff has prototypes out there. It does happen.

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Yeah, now you mention it I remember the release of the 3D Altered Beast prototype last year, but after the kerfuffle over that I wonder if Sega would do ot again. What are the other Sega prototypes that have been released? Had not heard about Saints Row PSP, that is interesting.

Seems a shame no one seems to know if a Saturn build of Shenmue exists anywhere. I wonder if that footage from Shenmue II was taken from an already edited internal video presentation, or if they captured it directly from a build specifically as bonus footage for that game.

 

[blueredandgold]

The Goldeneye thread is there.

The Goldeneye rom is out.

Not everyone has the time or the mental prowesss to follow either development.

Similarly, the Glover news does seem interesting, but the history seems key to understanding the greater points in here.

This is a cornucopia of discussion points on topics that are separately interesting, but to come across as ignorant or at worse, insensitive, I don't think most people want to do that.

Long way of saying this is a great read.

 

[Arebours]

Era doesn't have prohibitions on discussion. Just on actual piracy.

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Oh really? I've been banned for suggesting that there are times when piracy could be justified. I think the reason stated for the ban was "endorsing piracy", even though my comment was nuanced and didn't endorse anything.

Era leadership cares more about maintaining some kind of industry relationships, much like game media who depend on conditional access, then having any kind of real discussion on these issues. So much for being a progressive community.

 

[D.Lo]

Exactly right, nailed it OP.

So many conflate 'accessibility' with 'preservation'. Accessibility is not required for something to be very safely preserved. If technically piracy is necessary to actually preserve something for real (eg some niche C64 tape game only sold in Norway, no copies on ebay or online), it sounds entirely justifiable. It doesn't need to be released to the public to have been safely saved from destruction, though it would likely do little harm in such a case.

And then on top of this 'accessibility' becomes more and more loose until the argument is 'If this game is not available for sale on the platform I want at the price I want I am therefore justified in pirating it because it needs to be accessible to be 'properly preserved' as if access has anything to do with preservation.

And of course that argument is rarely applied to nearly lost games whose literal only access point for 99.999% of people would be piracy, like our Norwegian C64 game. Or stuff in rights limbo. Nobody is going to complain about emulating a translation of an obscrure PC88 game by a defunct developer. No, it's mostly applied to stuff currently or very recently for sale. Heard it applied to Metroid Fusion, which is literally for sale right now by the original creators, for whom most of the staff who made the game still work - just not on the preferred platform of the 'preservationist', who then of course also went on a rant about how it's fine anyway because 'only ebay resellers benefit from used game sales the original developers get nothing from legally buying an original'.

In a lot of key ways, the difference is time. Preservation is just about making sure that something works and can be accessed once it become legal to do so either through fair use or by the expiration of the copyright. I've known librarians/archivists who use cartridge ripping devices that I assume are identical to what are used by pirate groups. The difference is distribution.

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Perfectly fine to hold onto backup copies of legally obtained copies until their copyright expires. Then you can release freely, as the circumstances under which the work was funded and produced (like 70 year copyright in most countries) have expired, entirely fairly.

A deceased game was shared for preservation and then a company brought the rights and wanted to exercise their copyright.

It's now time for the big console manufacturers and publishers to come together to agree a working code for abandoned software. For example what Venom suggests is: 10 years after a game is abandoned (definition must be agreed on) the original game can be shared without profit, with no fear of legal action if the rights holder resurfaces. This right to archive gives no ownership rights and does not forfeit copyright from the legal rights holder.

Click to shrink...

It doesn't matter anyway. As far as I'm aware nobody is getting prosecuted for releasing abandonware, they just may get a C&D to stop hosting it.

Instead people went so far in the other direction they went to bat for hardcore piracy outfits like Emuparadise who profited for years on stolen work.

 

[SkoomaBlade]

Accessibility is key here. I agree with an earlier poster in that preservation is pointless unless people can actually play it. Gaming is an inherently interactive media and needs to played to be experienced.

I think its great that there's more focus on bringing back older games but a lot of the time these re-releases can be lacking or far too altered. I think there's an inherent value in playing it as it was originally developed and if rights holder won't provide relative ease of access, well...

 

[D.Lo]

Accessibility is key here. I agree with an earlier poster in that preservation is pointless unless people can actually play it. Gaming is an inherently interactive media and needs to played to be experienced.

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Preservation without accessibility (accessibility to whom? In what form?) is not pointless. Preservation has value in and of itself, history being saved.

And playing any particular game is not some human right. If you don't have the right to play something, that's it, you don't get to. 'It was meant to be played!' isn't an argument against that.

Might just as well say 'cars are meant to be driven so therefore everyone should be able to experience driving a Lamborghini'. Reality is you have to pay if you want that experience, and nobody has a right to have any particular experience if someone else owns it.

 

[The FuzzPig]

Personally I don't have any problems with someone who has to resort to other means to play a game that's stupidly expensive and hasn't been available to buy for 10, 20 plus years ( panzer dragoon saga is the common example here, but there are plenty of others.)
Legally they are in the wrong, but I personally dont have any problems with people doing that. ( no game is so good as to be worth £150 plus).

What I do have a problem with is people who download a game off some random rom site and then try to pretend they're not pirating the game, they're preserving it.
We see it when every time some company sends a C&D to whatever rom site has caught there eye the argument is always "but what about preservation" as if awesomeamazingfreeroms .com is the video game equivalent of a museum or the national archives, and not just a quick way for someone to make money with the amount of ads that are crammed onto every page.
Trying to pretend these sites are anything even remotely to do about preservation is rather insulting to actual preservation projects.

If you want to download some roms, go ahead I personally dont care, you may need to inconvenience yourself by googling for a new site if the old one you used has been taken down by a rights holder, play the the game, have fun. Don't try and claim you're preserving the game.

 

[D.Lo]

Personally I don't have any problems with someone who has to resort to other means to play a game that's stupidly expensive and hasn't been available to buy for 10, 20 plus years ( panzer dragoon saga is the common example here, but there are plenty of others.)
Legally they are in the wrong, but I personally dont have any problems with people doing that. ( no game is so good as to be worth £150 plus).

What I do have a problem with is people who download a game off some random rom site and then try to pretend they're not pirating the game, they're preserving it.
We see it when every time some company sends a C&D to whatever rom site has caught there eye the argument is always "but what about preservation" as if awesomeamazingfreeroms .com is the video game equivalent of a museum or the national archives, and not just a quick way for someone to make money with the amount of ads that are crammed onto every page.
Trying to pretend these sites are anything even remotely to do about preservation is rather insulting to actual preservation projects.

If you want to download some roms, go ahead I personally dont care, you may need to inconvenience yourself by googling for a new site if the old one you used has been taken down by a rights holder, play the the game, have fun. Don't try and claim you're preserving the game.

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Well put.