devipotato:

seeing people downplay the significance of archiving and preserving video games (ie by keeping roms/copies of old games accessible and legally playable) in the wake of emuparadise stuff is kind of sad

video games are so steeped in consumer culture that it’s really hard for some people to see them as culturally significant, but it really is. there has been no form of media quite like video games in all of human history. the medium itself is so young (<50 years) and we’re already losing chunks of its history both because publishers don’t care about their old software and because many people who consume games see them as products more than experiences

it’s just sad. i know there’s more places to get roms or whatever but the process of publishers explicitly shutting down ways for people to experience their older work says a lot about how they see games as a medium