Solid Sam

Hi Ross, I've been a silent follower of yours since Civil Protection days. I only wish there were more people around with this common sense approach to the game industry. At 1:09:30 in the video you mention that Microtransactions is what companies/publishers care for the most, and how preserving games should not affect that. I would disagree here, we are all humans, and our life time is limited, we only have so much time we can spend every day playing games. People behind these games would want us to spend the maximum possible amount of that time playing their game, validating our purchases and getting attached to our spendings and our time spent with the game, thus increasing the possibility of us spending even more money on the same game over and over. Preserving old games, creates competition for that time. Especially when the older games are sometimes superior to the new, because often depth is sacrificed for accessibility and to push better performance to the limit to afford better graphics, or, simply to push out the new game out the door sooner. Finally, the market is saturated with competition, often competing games only differ in setting/looks/naming conventions, but mechanically are identical. Demand for our time is at premium here, they really don't want us to be distracted playing these "old and irrelevant" games that don't generate them any profit. I have worked as a QA tester and environement/level designer in the industry for a few years, and one thing was always the same, people with money behind it always want more money back the fastest way possible. Because this industry is relatively new along with software development they often go into legally gray areas to maximize their profits. This is why I wouldn't put it past them to possibly have this reasoning behind not caring for preservation of old games. But its probably just lack of time/care for this in majority of the cases. PS: I wish I had legal know how or means to help you in this Ross! But you can have my power! I am with you morally on this! Thank you!