Préservation du jeu vidéo

Video game preservation is a form of preservation applied to the video game industry that includes, but is not limited to, digital preservation. Such preservation efforts include archiving development source code and art assets, digital copies of video games, emulation of video game hardware, maintenance and preservation of specialized video game hardware such as arcade games and video game consoles, and digitization of print video game magazines and books prior to the Digital Revolution. According to a 2023 study by the Video Game History Foundation, 87% of video games released before 2010 (at the onset of digital distribution) have been lost or are at risk of being lost due to lack of video game preservation. Besides retaining the ability to play games from the past, preservation of video games enables research on the history of video games as well as ways for developers to look at older games to build ideas from. There is also interest in the preservation of cancelled video games that were known to be in development, as coupled with the reasons for cancellation, they can provide an understanding of the technical and creative aspects, or lack thereof, at the time of the game's development. Unlike some examples of other forms of media like books, art and photography, and film, which antedate the mid-20th century and which can be preserved in a variety of formats that are not prohibited by more-recent intellectual property (IP) laws, video games typically require specialized and/or proprietary computer hardware and software to read and execute game software. However, as technology advances, these older game systems become obsolete, no longer produced nor maintained to use for executing games. The media formats of the early days of computer gaming, relying on floppy discs and CD-ROMs, suffer from disc rot and degrade over time, making it difficult to recover information. Further, video games tend to rely on other resources like operating systems, network connectivity, and external servers outside control of users, and making sure these boundary aspects to a video game are preserved along with the game are also essential.