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"My Name Is Ozymandias..." - How to Archive Games for Future Generations - Extra Credits
Key insights
6 takeaways- 01Until systemic industry solutions are established, individual engagement with historical works remains the most effective method for preserving foundational design lessons.
- 02The reliance on specialized input methods, such as trackballs or unique arcade controllers, prevents modern ports and emulations from accurately replicating the original design experience.
- 03Video games face a high risk of permanent loss because they are tethered to obsolete hardware and degrading physical media, unlike traditional art forms that remain accessible over centuries.
- 04Mandatory online connectivity and server-based multiplayer create 'dead-end' software that becomes functionally unplayable once developers shutter the supporting servers.
- 05Current archiving efforts are insufficient because emulation projects require constant maintenance for OS compatibility and fail to capture the essential social context of multiplayer gameplay.
- 06The high barrier to entry for accessing legacy titles prevents seminal works from being integrated into the shared design language of contemporary developers.
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Transcript
[Music] there's a problem I've been thinking about a great deal these days and it's a problem that doesn't only apply to games it applies to all modern media but it is perhaps particular in the way that it affects games this is the problem of preservation we have books that have been handed down to us through the Millennia we have paintings that have been painstakingly preserved over dozens of generations these things help us to understand who we are as a culture and more than that they help us to understand the medium they're a part of they are a Living testament to how that art grew and developed they are a guide and a reference for future students of that Medium they show us the missteps and the Masterworks of past ages things which may never be able to be created again because they come from a completely different culture and a different time they illumin and inform our work allowing us to stand on the shoulders of giants and create greater things but today this has become difficult even ignoring copyright issues in any digital medium it becomes a question of either storage or encoding some of you who've been gaming since since the early days might have many
fond memories of games you played on 5 and 1/2 in floppies how many people still have a machine that runs those things how many of us long ago cleaned out our closets and got rid of such Antiquated technology and as much as we think of emulation sites and abandoned Weare hubs preserving this Heritage there are thousands of games which have simply disappeared there are also many games that are falling into the technological Mists and as great as things like dosbox are they will require someone to go in soon and update them to run on a modern Os or Hardware that simply couldn't be conceived of at the time these games were created beyond that though games have a unique challenge because games are all designed with interface in mind playing centipede without a track ball or playing one of the BattleTech pods on a home PC is just a different experience it often doesn't provide the richness and depth of the original creation it gives us a pale Shadow an image and a warped mirror of what these games were supposed to be I mean look at many of the Great classic console games that are now ported to the iPad or iPhone where they're played with a virtual touchscreen d-pad and buttons those of you who remember the originals know what a loss those ports are and those of you who are playing them for
the first time in this context May well and with Merit ask yourself why did people think these games were so good then there's the even more modern problem of contivity first there's MMOs sure there are a number of projects going on to preserve old MMOs but what really is an MMO without the players the same can be said for any primarily multiplayer game what is Call of Duty or even Demon Souls without other people beyond that though there's the fact that more and more games are requiring connectivity today it's our most recent approach to fighting piracy and actually it's one of our better ideas in that regard but what happens when the servers these games are hard-coded to connect to are nothing more than cobwebs and dust someone's going to have to hack open these products and find some way of removing this requirement for connectivity or they'll have to go back and find the server code and set up new servers which will allow these products to once again come to life and if that sort of thing hasn't already been achieved now while these products are popular what hope is there of achieving it when there's some dim and near forgotten memory but perhaps even more important than all of that more important than simply keeping extent is the question of ease of access even if we do manage to preserve game games in
an academic setting even if there is a version of a game that can be accessed with the right equipment and level of technical expertise what good is that if the barrier to doing so is too high for students or lovers of the medium to really do so every painter every critic and lover of that Medium has seen star Knight perhaps not the original in the Museum of Modern Art but at least a fact simile that comes very near to the real thing a simuler that has none of the flaws I've mentioned for games but think about it James works with many many students and aspiring designers and he rarely meets young designers who have played mule wizard of war or even things like the original XCOM that is disastrous for our medium that wealth of knowledge and those incredible landmarks in game design should be our common Heritage I should be able to reference something in gr Fandango and have it be a part of our shared language our common understanding as designers we should be able to talk about some element of System Shock 2 or Earthbound and have that be as much a part of our communal reference set as the monol Lisa or Hamlet I don't know how we solve this problem I'm not even sure there is a concrete answer and a medium that's evolving as rapidly as ours I guess all I can say say is that I encourage all of
you whenever you find a gap in your gaming schedule during the summer doldrums or the spring release L to go back and look at the classic works of our medium I know it can be a headache to get some of these things up and running but pass that knowledge on there's a lot of great gaming experiences out there and a lot of knowledge we're missing out on because we're losing our past see you next [Music] week [Music]
Summary
The preservation of video games represents a critical challenge for the medium, as the rapid evolution of hardware and software threatens to erase the cultural and historical record of game design. Unlike traditional art forms such as painting or literature, which remain accessible across centuries, games are tethered to specific, often obsolete, technological ecosystems. This dependency creates a significant risk of permanent loss, as physical media degrades and the hardware required to run legacy titles becomes increasingly rare or non-functional.
The industry faces three primary obstacles to effective preservation. First, the reliance on specific input methods—such as trackballs or specialized arcade controllers—means that modern ports or emulated versions often fail to replicate the intended experience, resulting in a distorted understanding of the original work. Second, the rise of mandatory online connectivity and server-based multiplayer creates a "dead-end" for software; once developers shutter servers, games become functionally unplayable without extensive, unauthorized modification. Finally, the high barrier to entry for accessing these titles prevents them from becoming part of a shared design language.
The current state of game archiving is insufficient to support a robust academic or creative culture. While emulation projects exist, they require constant updates to remain compatible with modern operating systems, and they often fail to capture the social context of multiplayer experiences. Consequently, many seminal works are missing from the collective knowledge of contemporary designers. To mitigate this loss, the industry must prioritize accessibility and documentation, ensuring that classic titles remain part of a common heritage. Until systemic solutions are established, individual engagement with historical works remains the most effective way to preserve the medium’s foundational design lessons for future generations.
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