The Importance of Game Preservation

 If there’s ever been a good argument for game preservation, it’s the number of MMO games that have been shut down over the years. There’s countless games that I’ve gotten invested in which ended up going offline either due to a studio wanting to phase it out in favor of a new title, or because the company was running deficits and could not justify keeping the live service going.

Alicia Online has shown me that any beloved game can be at risk of becoming lost media. While it technically isn’t (all players have access to the game files themselves, technically), it runs the real risk of becoming lost media. 

What if I told you that a good chunk of games that have been released since the late seventies have all but become lost to time? They became lost due to a few factors:

1. Limited time releases for physical copies. Meaning that only a finite amount of cartridges/CDs exist of the games; and even less than games that had two to four year sales cycles.

2. Hardware becoming outdated. As a console or PC model gets older, it can get harder to find parts to replace malfunctioning bits. Once it becomes more expensive to repair a console than to get a new one, it can quickly become obsolete on a wider scale. While it isn’t impossible to repair an Atari 2600 on a budget, you may have to jump through hoops to find the right tools and parts.

3. Game cartridges and CDs themselves degrade overtime and there’s not much that can be done unless you personally replace all parts. I’ve lately been seeing this happen with my GBA Pokémon games, and my copy of Pokémon Crystal cannot be played anymore due to this phenomenon. 

This is where Emulation and private servers step in. Thanks to Emulations I was able to experience excellent titles like Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Famicom Detective Club Part II. Thanks to Emulation I was able to play Super Metroid without sacrificing an arm and a leg. I was even able to play some obscure Sailor Moon Super Nintendo title that was never released to North America. 

Which is exactly why I’m against all of the lawsuits being brought against emulation groups. If gaming companies refuse to preserve titles, then it is up to digital pirates to do so. 

Alicia Online, like many other defunct MMOs, runs a very real risk of becoming lost and obscure media. Imagine if Pokémon Emerald suddenly was unplayable due to cartridge degradation and Nintendo suing the crap out of all emulation groups. While it seems impossible in the moment, it could be a different story within the next 20 years if Nintendo/Game Freak doesn’t put in any effort to preserve the game itself.