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87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games
(gamehistory.org)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Commercial availability specifically. Thanks to archivers and the such, there are usually options to play most things. While I personally don't care about commercially buying most of these classics, I do find it odd how little ip owners seem to want to make some of these older titles available
Well most of the comments here don't have an insight into this. The reason they don't re-release video games or old movies is because they don't want you enjoying old things. It's capitalism, but it's not arbitrary like the scarcity. Because it's not just video games, no company wants to re-release anything. Not a tractor, not a movie, not a dishwasher, nothing.
Why? Because then you don't buy the new thing with higher margins. Then you don't watch the new movie and they can't sell the new ads with the new character designs promoting it. Or you don't get locked in to their new cartridge system. Or subscription plan. Whatever. The song is different, the story is the same, new stuff make line go up faster. With tons of waste involved as well.
You're assuming nefarious intent. I suspect the reality is that it's not worth the rights holders' time or money to invest in re-releasing old titles that very few people would buy.
Right, I figure re-releasing a game takes some amount of labor, which means someone needs to make a case for spending time on that instead of whatever the current priorities are.
That makes the efforts of archivists all the more commendable, and it's all the more frustrating when you see a company dedicating resources to shutting them down.
Yes, definitely sucks when they do that. I struggle to understand why unless there's some legal reason to protect all of your intellectual property instead of just the stuff that's still making money.
I mean some of them claim that if they don't do that they'll lose the copyright, but I looked it up a bit ago and there doesn't appear to be any evidence that that is the case, so make of that what you will. ~Strawberry