Lost Media in Gaming – The Unfortunate Losses

In 1937, 20^th Century Fox had a major fire in a vault storing the original reels of many of their films. Something similar happened to MGM in 1965, though there are many others that caused some films to become known as Lost Media. Now, when we talk about Game Preservation, I find myself thinking back to the Film Studies course I took in college, where we discussed these fires.

Lost media is important in the gaming industry too. In recent years, we have seen game developers lose data for games that are now no longer available to the public. There is a whole section of the Lost Media Wiki specifically for video games that have now become lost media. Why am I talking about this, you ask?

Well, I was thinking a lot recently about how people say they are tired of remasters and remakes. However, to some extent, this is a form of game preservation. Remakes not as much as remasters, but keeping games accessible in some form preserves the hard work of the people crafting our favorite stories.

However, what constitutes good remaster/remake games? There are games we have strong nostalgia for that may not ever be remade/remastered. The first thing that comes to mind is sports games that have a year mark associated with them. Why would you remaster/remake FIFA 10 when yearly releases, all the way to FIFA 23, were released by EA Sports?

Despite that, people have memories associated with playing these games. Maybe you played with friends and family, or maybe they offered something new games don’t. We push for graphical fidelity more and more, but what if players just want to share older experiences with new generations?

Then there are games that are no longer available or accessible due to IP rights. I talk about this a lot, but the Shadow Hearts franchise is now owned by a gambling company that has no intention of using the IP (as far as anyone is aware). As such, the games are no longer available on modern consoles, and this leads to an inevitability: Emulation.

When games stop being available for people to purchase or play on modern systems, what other choice is there? As storefronts for older systems such as the 3DS eShop start to shut down, what other choice will people have but to emulate them? Unless we figure out a solution to preserving games, there isn’t a better option.

Don’t get me wrong, emulating games properly available for sale is piracy. Though some could argue that if purchasing a game digitally doesn’t let you own the game (thanks to certain wording in terms of service), you aren’t stealing by downloading it for free. I’m not encouraging you to go out and hit the high seas, but I can see the reason some might.

As the gaming industry progresses, more and more problems related to Lost Media are going to come up. If we want to treat gaming like an art form similar to cinema, we need to resolve this or at least try to figure out how to approach it. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.