Eric Kaltman on Game Preservation

At How They Got Game, Eric Kaltman's Current Game Preservation is Not Enough is a detailed discussion of why game preservation has become extraordinarily difficult. Eric expands on points made briefly in my report on emulation. His TL;DR sums it up:

The current preservation practices we use for games and software need to be significantly reconsidered when taking into account the current conditions of modern computer games. Below I elaborate on the standard model of game preservation, and what I’m referring to as “network-contingent” experiences. These network-contingent games are now the predominant form of the medium and add significant complexity to the task of preserving the “playable” historical record. Unless there is a general awareness of this problem with the future of history, we might lose a lot more than anyone is expecting. Furthermore, we are already in the midst of this issue, and I think we need to stop pushing off a larger discussion of it.

Well worth reading.