• @kryptonianCodeMonkey
    link
    English
    2451 month ago

    Imagine if you weren’t allowed to watch your favorite movies from the 80’s or earlier unless you managed to have a still working VCR and VHS copy from your childhood. No Goonies, no Godfather, no Star Wars original trilogy. They decided to wipe these films from the face of the earth so that you could no longer enjoy them and had to go buy their new movies, exclusively, if you wanted entertainment from a film. That’s what games publishers are trying to do, so they don’t have to compete for you attention with older classics.

    • @rImITywR
      link
      English
      331 month ago

      You can still watch those old films, as long as you are paying a subscription to a streaming service so the studio can keep making money off of them.

      That’s what video game publishers want too. Nintendo doesn’t want to wipe SMB3 off the face of the earth. They just want to make sure the only way you can access it is to pay for Nintendo Switch Online.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          331 month ago

          And this is the real cost. Sorry Mario Brothers will pretty much always be available as long as Nintendo is around, but obscure games or classics with disputed Copyright will disappear.

          Who is out there even trying to stream the old Sierra games? At least they are on GoG, but I know even GoG has tried to track down current copyright holders for old classics and the are plenty of orphan games where after several mergers and divestments, there is some uncertainty, and it’s not worth it for any of the potential copyright holders to sort it out and license it, and unfortunately it’s not worth it for GoG to publish it to find out if they’ll sue GoG.

          This is why Abandonware is such an important concept.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            91 month ago

            Oni, Alien Vs. Predator 2, No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, MechWarrior 2/3/4, Black & White 1 and 2…

            And that’s just at the top of my head. Copyright hell is awful.

            One thing I’ve heard is it’s sometimes a weird stalemate where companies might have the property in their basement somewhere, but if there’s interest in it, suddenly the value will shoot up, so nobody wants to confirm it in case they’re the loser and will have it extorted from them.

            I’m probably explaining it wrong. (Because it’s absolute nonsense.) But someone might know a better explanation than I.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              41 month ago

              I know there are several seminal works locked in archives or even just lost.

              I couldn’t think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but I was considering the fate of Microprose, Sierra On-Line, and other studios that were gobbled up, disbanded, broken up, etc.

              Your Mechwarrior example is a good example of licensing, where you might have defunct TTRPG studios (FASA) licensing a property to a have company it studio that has also gone though several mergers.

              There should be a “use it or lose it” provision in copyright law, kind of like back in the day with what happened to “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The only reason IAWL became a Christmas classic isbecause it became public domain.

      • sp3ctr4l
        link
        fedilink
        English
        341 month ago

        Except that that is largely not even true.

        87% of games made before 2010 are completely commercially unavailable.

        https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/14/23792586/classic-game-preservation-video-game-history-foundation-esa

        They do not even want to be in control of retro games to be able to sell them indefinitely.

        With the exception of certain, wildly popular games they know they can still charge a high price for, they do not want the vast majority of retro games to be legally available at all.

        Further, with books, film, other kinds of art… a legal carve out exception does exist for the purposes of academic study and research.

        Basically, accredited academic institutions have the ability to rent those out to students, people writing studies on media and cultural history.

        Video games? As of this ruling, nope, they are special, studying the history of video games functionally requires breaking the law.

        They just get shoved into the vault, never to be seen again, by anyone, ever.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          251 month ago

          This reminds me that 90% of silent movies are lost forever because there was no effort to preserve them at the time.

          If it wasn’t for people going as far deliding chips and breaking encryption, a good chunk of gaming history would be lost by now.

        • This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥
          link
          English
          31 month ago

          87% of games made before 2010 are completely commercially unavailable.

          Would be interesting to know how many are unavailable because of licensing or rights issue. Racing games like NFS Underground or Most Wanted, for example, aren’t available anymore because of music license wasn’t renewed by studio.

          Or many games aren’t available because the developer/publisher studio doesn’t exist anymore.

      • @anyhow2503
        link
        English
        321 month ago

        This is such an incredibly naive take that has already been proven wrong by multiple publishers going out of their way to do exactly what you just said. There’s also a ton of abandonware which is not being sold and never will be again.

      • @vinnymac
        link
        English
        91 month ago

        You can still watch those old films, as long as you are paying a subscription to a streaming service…

        And they feel like releasing the content you want to watch. And they don’t try to ruin the experience by remastering it. And they don’t try to ruin the experience by upscaling or recreating the film in a different style. And they don’t triple the price of content that used to cost a quarter of what it does now. And your device is compatible with their platform, service, and encoding formats. And the DRM implementation is compatible with your device, your cables, your speakers, and your ears. And you can pay to access that content in the location you happen to be living in, which is not always your choice. And you don’t have to buy a peripheral device just to access the content. And you trust them not to enshittify everything that you held dear about the original.

        And and and… so the studio can keep making money off of them.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️
      link
      fedilink
      English
      21
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      It’s just bonkers to me because they do everything for profit anyway; what the fuck profit do they get from not selling shit anymore? I said this not long ago about Nintendo, but other companies are guilty of it too. Spending money attempting to stop piracy, instead of making money by just giving customers what they fucking want. What crazy company secrets are they hiding that not continuing to sell a product is better than selling it?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        141 month ago

        It’s like a toxic romantic partner: if I can’t make a lot of money doing this one thing, then no one can.

        Come to think of it, a lot of late stage capitalism behavior is like a toxic partner.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        61 month ago

        Not in any way defending Nintendo - seriously, fuck them, I will pirate their entire catalogue and not feel one iota of guilt.

        But, what mix of those 87% of games no longer commercially available fall into one of these three categories:

        1. yearly releases of game franchises (e.g. FIFA/NFL/NHL/NBA ‘94, ‘95, ‘96 etc.)
        2. unofficial releases (e.g. bootleg Christian NES carts)
        3. impossible to re-release 1:1 due to music licensing issues (anything with EA TRAX, Vice City/San Andreas etc.)

        So I guess what I’m asking is, what percentage of those games aren’t economically viable to resell, or are stuck in licence limbo?

    • @randon31415
      link
      English
      161 month ago

      Sort of like how they erased all the evidence of “Sinbad’s Shazaam” and then gaslit everyone that remembered it?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        31 month ago

        Oh c’mon don’t screw with my head like that. I specifically remember seeing the “Shaq Genie movie”… Wait that was Kazaam! Dang it!

    • @philthi
      link
      English
      111 month ago

      Buy stream their new movies.

      FTFY

    • @affiliate
      link
      English
      -261 month ago

      No Goonies, no Godfather, no Star Wars original trilogy

      i would be okay with this. we should still preserve games of course, but i wouldn’t mind losing out on those movies