Anyone who has ever searched for old video games will have noticed that it is sometimes not that easy to get hold of original copies legally.
Current figures from the US Video Game History Foundation show how big this problem really is. This examined how good (or bad) old video games are still available. Old in this case means that they were released in the USA before 2010.
The result is not exactly positive. Accordingly, 87 percent of the 4,000 games examined are no longer commercially available. Or to put it another way: only almost every tenth game that was released between 1960 and 2009 can still be purchased today without major problems. This means that the availability of old video games is even slightly worse than that of old silent films.
The newer the games, the better the availability. For example, PS2 games are easier to get at than Game Boy games. But even with the most recent games from the statistics (release between 2005 and 2009), the availability is only 20 percent. You can find the full study here.
“This is where libraries and archives should come in,” the Video Game History Foundation concludes. “Everyone should be able to explore, research, and play classic video games just as one can read classic novels, listen to classic albums, and watch classic movies. But outdated copyright laws prevent institutions like ours from doing their jobs.”
Quelle: Video Game History Foundation