TITLE
87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games
AUTHOR
Kelsey Lewin
PUBLICATION
Video Game History Foundation
YEAR
2023
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
The Video Game History Foundation, in partnership with the Software Preservation Network, has conducted the first ever study on the commercial availability of classic video games, and the results are bleak. 87% of classic video games released in the United States are critically endangered.Imagine if the only way to watch Titanic was to find a used VHS tape, and maintain your own vintage equipment so that you could still watch it. And what if no library, not even the Library of Congress, could do any better — they could keep and digitize that VHS of Titanic, but you’d have to go all the way there to watch it. It sounds crazy, but that’s the reality we live in with video games, a $180 billion industry, while the games and their history disappear.
TOPICS MENTIONED
Preservation
SEE ALSO
The Game Availability Study, Explained – Video Game History Foundation (2023)
Survey of the Video Game Reissue Market in the United States – Zendodo (2023)