This isn’t 5000BC where only like a handful of people know how to read and write; there’s no end to the culture of this period, I don’t think a handful of items being permanently lost will forever obscure the culture of this period. It’s hardly the 90%-99% loss of ancient writing like what happened with works from ancient Greece, Persia, etc.
I think future historians will be able to get over this loss.
No, the physical artefacts like this one that got all slashed up are all that will remain after Google/Meta/etc turn off their servers once the old content becomes unprofitable. Future historians will indeed call the early 21st century a dark age, because while books, sculptures, and paintings can last a thousand years, digital media in “the cloud” fucking won’t.
The amount of writing lost is also immense. Not to mention media like movies, tv and so on. The idea that “oh they will manage” is not a new one. Look into the victorian “third spice”.
I admit I haven’t read these studies in full, but these seem to be referring to actual hard copies of the games; isn’t there far more of this stuff located on people’s hard drives via pirated copies, roms, etc? I’ve no idea how long hard drives can last, especially compared to hard copies of that content, but surely it’ll still be available for future historians (depending on how far in history we’re talking; I don’t think any of this stuff, not even the dvds or cartridges will be viable in 200 years)
As for stuff before 1985 that never got uploaded to the internet somewhere, preserving that would’ve been shockingly difficult I would imagine and definitely very easy to lose forever regardless of what form it exists in
I don’t have it anymore, but there’s a really interesting interview with an archivist of a major museum going into lot of good reasons why we can’t rely on piracy to preserve video-games. Among the reasons for this were:
Software piracy often receives crackdowns, making large collections suddenly disappear
Piracy mostly functions out of a question of interest. More niche products will not be saved on seedboxes and so on. To confirm this for yourself, try to find academic literature in a language that isn’t english on pdf-piracy sites. I’ve struggled trying to find specfic german, danish and french manuals that never got reprinted into english or broader circulation.
Some games are near impossible to emulate and so you need the hardware in order to run them.
Even if their archives are not destroyed, a power outage or wifi-outage makes it unavailable.
As for stuff before 1985 that never got uploaded to the internet somewhere, preserving that would’ve been shockingly difficult I would imagine and definitely very easy to lose forever regardless of what form it exists in
That is exactly the point people are making. In 1985 people in arcades were going “eh the historians will manage.”
Look at the many stories of all copies of films being destroyed. Famously a lot of doctor who is just gone because BBC taped over their shows.
This isn’t 5000BC where only like a handful of people know how to read and write; there’s no end to the culture of this period, I don’t think a handful of items being permanently lost will forever obscure the culture of this period. It’s hardly the 90%-99% loss of ancient writing like what happened with works from ancient Greece, Persia, etc.
I think future historians will be able to get over this loss.
No, the physical artefacts like this one that got all slashed up are all that will remain after Google/Meta/etc turn off their servers once the old content becomes unprofitable. Future historians will indeed call the early 21st century a dark age, because while books, sculptures, and paintings can last a thousand years, digital media in “the cloud” fucking won’t.
Not to mention how often piracy-sites/aggregators and so on get shut down or removed.
That attitude is what leads to us losing so much of our cultural archives.
Only 3% of games from before 1985 are still available for reissue. And only about 13% of games issued from before 2010 The rest of these games are considered, by archivists, “critically endangered”.
Only 5% of physical art is likely to survive the next century
The amount of writing lost is also immense. Not to mention media like movies, tv and so on. The idea that “oh they will manage” is not a new one. Look into the victorian “third spice”.
I admit I haven’t read these studies in full, but these seem to be referring to actual hard copies of the games; isn’t there far more of this stuff located on people’s hard drives via pirated copies, roms, etc? I’ve no idea how long hard drives can last, especially compared to hard copies of that content, but surely it’ll still be available for future historians (depending on how far in history we’re talking; I don’t think any of this stuff, not even the dvds or cartridges will be viable in 200 years)
As for stuff before 1985 that never got uploaded to the internet somewhere, preserving that would’ve been shockingly difficult I would imagine and definitely very easy to lose forever regardless of what form it exists in
I don’t have it anymore, but there’s a really interesting interview with an archivist of a major museum going into lot of good reasons why we can’t rely on piracy to preserve video-games. Among the reasons for this were:
That is exactly the point people are making. In 1985 people in arcades were going “eh the historians will manage.”
Look at the many stories of all copies of films being destroyed. Famously a lot of doctor who is just gone because BBC taped over their shows.
Here is a video essay on the subject, that also references the studies
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: