Videogame preservation: an overview of some of its major challenges

While videogame preservation is still in its infancy, in the last period this topic has become more prominent than ever before, following some major events which brought attention to the subject. However, in its brief lifespan, videogame preservation has also encountered many obstacles, with some caused both by a firm refusal of the videogame industry to support it and both by its intrinsically tricky relationship with intellectual property laws. In this paper, after introducing videogame preservation as a topic and connecting it to some recent events that brought popularity to the subject, we present some of the most prominent challenges it has to face at the moment and that it will have to face in the future. In particular, we focus on the legal state of emulation and of ROM’s usage – with a brief analysis of the recent legal case involving Nintendo and the producer of a Nintendo Switch emulator called “Yuzu” -, on how DRM systems are used in the industry and how always online DRMs negatively impact the possibility of preserving certain types of videogames. Then, we focus on the tricky relationship between orphan works, abandonware and technological obsolescence that exists in the videogame sector, analysing how technological obsolescence is intrinsically part of it and the various ways in which a game can end up becoming abandonware. Finally, we present some ways to try and improve the overall situation both through technological measures and possible legal changes.