Why video game preservation matters for everyone

With the constant evolution of technology, you might think that it would be easier than ever to play video games. In one sense, that’s true. Whether it’s consoles from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, personal computers, smartphones and tablets or even streaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, the number of platforms on which you can play games has continued to rise.

However, with the advancement of technology and photorealistic games has also come the abandonment of many older titles. We’re not even talking retro games from some 30 years ago, either. According to a 2023 study from the Video Game History Foundation, a staggering 87 percent of games released in the United States before 2010 are out of print. To put that into context, the non-profit noted that even silent films — which were most popular in the 1920s — are more readily available than older games. Simply put, it’s an alarming figure that illustrates how poorly the video game industry has preserved its own history.

Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom, as a number of organizations are doing their part to improve game preservation. One of those is the aforementioned Video Game History Foundation, and another is Hit Save! Notably, I had the pleasure of learning a lot more about the latter non-profit at the wonderful IndieDevDay event in Barcelona last weekend. There, I sat in on an insightful ‘Video Game Preservation 101’ panel hosted by Canadian Amanda Farough, president, director of communications and board member of Hit Save! In addition to her work at Hit Save!, Farough’s prolific career includes many years in games journalism and, more recently, co-host of the Virtual Economy podcast, narrative design, producing and consultation. Therefore, she had a great deal of knowledge to share about game preservation, and I came away learning quite a bit, especially with respect to how we can all help.

Here are the main takeaways.

Why game preservation is important

While many people can likely get behind game preservation in a general sense, they may not understand the specific reasons why it’s essential. To that end, Farough highlighted four key reasons for game preservation:

Games are art, and like any other art form, they should be preserved for years to come so people can experience it. This will also allow fans, aspiring game developers and even just general audiences to learn about games, especially as they continue to be misunderstood to this day. Farough says “homebrew” retro games, interactive museums like Meow Wolf in New Mexico and glitch games (those made for the purpose of breaking and making art through play) are examples of how independent groups are enlivening games through preservation.

Games can be an important educational tool across the board, but especially for students. Naturally, having older games available provides the next generation of game developers with knowledge and inspiration. Specifically, Farough says students can learn everything from game design and development concepts, paradigms and implementation to best practices to avoid crunch (prolonged overtime) and toxic workplaces. “Everything is so obfuscated and that makes it harder to preserve,” Farough notes of the notoriously secretive gaming industry. She says having case studies and postmortems on games, especially those from the 2000s (like Bungie’s groundbreaking Halo: Combat Evolved), would be especially valuable to students.

Games can preserve culture. This goes back to the educational aspect. As Farough notes, there are many culturally rich stories being told in games right now, such as Toronto-made Venba (a Tamil cooking game about an Indo-Canadian immigrant mother), Dandara (a Metroidvania platformer rooted in Brazilian history) and Norco (a narrative point-and-click adventure set in the ethnically diverse New Orleans). With games being a uniquely interactive art form, they can be particularly effective empathetic tools, allowing players to learn about people and places they might not otherwise have encountered.

Preservation helps business. Above all else, companies care about that almighty dollar, and in that sense, preservation is also important. She points out that the influx of remasters and remakes we’ve gotten has been made possible because the original codebases have been preserved. On the flip side, she notes that companies’ rampant pursuit of live service games can have the adverse effect since they often go offline and are henceforth unplayable, as we saw most recently with PlayStation’s Concord.

How game preservation organizations help

I’ll confess that I had a rather simple understanding of what groups like Hit Save! do, and so I appreciated how Farough unpacked it all. Impressively, they help out in a variety of ways that I never even considered. First and foremost, Hit Save! will take old games and printed media like magazines and even memorabilia to preserve in its archive. It even has kits and guides for people looking to make donations to reference.

But beyond that, Hit Save! interviews developers and other creators to preserve their work and knowledge. The organization works with publishers like the recently shuttered Versus Evil, to preserve their catalogue of games, press materials and development documents. (To bring it closer to home, one of MobileSyrup‘s favourite games of the year, the Toronto-made Lil’ Guardsman, was developed with Versus Evil and may likely not have ever come out without such publisher support.)

Farough also noted that many other organizations are doing great game preservation work besides Hit Save!, including:

The new Syd Bolton Collection at @UTM includes nearly 14,000 games & hundreds of game consoles & systems, making it one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Game preservation is so important yet sorely lacking, so I’m overjoyed to see this, especially in my hometown! 🎮 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/W24WYBuOas

— Brad Shankar (@bradshankar) November 9, 2023

How we can all help

Of course, this all sounds great, but what can we actually do if we’re not part of one of those wonderful charitable organizations? According to Farough, there are many options.

From the industry side:

Developers — Record relevant development logs, Discord/Slack conversations, documentation, codebase and asset management, physical marketing materials and other physical and digital items. Periodically test your finished game on new OS and updated drivers. Self-publishing indies can consider donating old materials to organizations like Hit Save!

Publishers — Work with devs to preserve documentation in a single accessible place. Archive printed and digital marketing material, including press kits. Digitally catalogue and archive press and influencer content (and avoid links because the sites might become unavailable, as we sadly saw with Game Informer.) Ensure that people are properly credited in the games they work on, even if they left the project before completion.

But perhaps more relevant to most people reading this — what can the everyday gamer do? As Farough explains, quite a lot.

First, don’t throw out old games — donate them to preservation efforts. That includes old magazines, which can also be a treasure trove of information; donate or even scan them with Hit Save! tools. That even extends to freebies you might have gotten at a convention, like posters, postcards, flyers, business cards or any other promotional material. Making monetary donations to organizations like Hit Save! is also especially helpful. (Preservation efforts cost money, of course!) And, finally, spread the word — informing others why preservation is important can go a long way.

As you can see, there’s a lot that goes into video game preservation across the board. At the same time, an estimated three billion people around the world play games, which is, clearly, a massive figure. If even a fraction of them make strides towards preservation, that would be a big boon to the global efforts being undertaken by Hit Save! and its many counterparts. So, let’s all do our part in preserving this wonderful art form.