video games – A Video Game Preservationist's Thoughts: A Blog by Justin Grandfield

The Ritual of Physical Games Media

When I was a kid, physical media was all around me. There were records, VHS tapes, and most importantly: video game cartridges and discs. There was always something special about this kind of object. It was something I could interact with, look at in my hands. And it was mine. While the days of physical…
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Indies Are Our Future

Over the past several years, we’ve seen numerous companies getting shuttered. Many of these companies, such as Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, were creating original works, or hoping to create more. This is a real shame, as a lot of creative and original games were being made by these companies. The AAA industry is going…
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Microsoft’s Closure of Studios Impacts All of Us

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the closure of three studios, along with the folding of another into its currently remaining holdings. This decision has created an uncertainty around the Xbox manufacturer. Some have questioned why the company has bought up big studios, while others are wondering what will happen with the remaining studios, such as Ninja Theory,…
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The Pretendo Experience

As of April 8, 2024, the Wii U and 3DS online servers are no longer available. This comes a year after the closure of the eShops for these consoles. However, some are determined to not let their favorite consoles languish in obsolescence. Some people have instead chosen to adopt a new server experience: the Pretendo…
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The Case For Bringing Oblivion to Modern Consoles

Writer’s note: Spoilers for the main plot of Oblivion are included. When it came out back in 2006, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was hailed as the must-play title of the generation. Since then, Skyrim was released and supplanted Oblivion as that must have Elder Scrolls game. This is rather unfortunate, as there is a…
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The State of PS3 Emulation

Lately, I’ve been thinking on the state of 7th Generation emulation. Particularly for the Sony PlayStation 3. This is because the games unique to that platform are not backwards compatible. Because of that reason, many of them are at-risk. Sure, there are plenty of multi-platform games, like Fallout 3, but most of Sony’s first-party line…
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Lara’s Home: The Perfect Tutorial Level

One of the biggest challenges in video games is teaching players how to play your game. Many attempt to place them in the opening hours of a game, but it’s often clunky. For older games, they relied upon manuals including in the game’s packaging. These days, we don’t really have that luxury, especially with games…
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The Death of Disco

When Disco Elysium released in 2019, it was met with critical acclaim and spectacular success. It won numerous awards, including all four it was nominated for at the 2019 Game Awards. Think about it: a small, independently produced game stood toe-to-toe with juggernauts like Square Enix and triumphed. It was a win for smaller game…
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The Unsustainable Gaming Industry

Over the past couple of years, the gaming industry has been showing increasing signs of unsustainability. For some developers and publishers, job losses for those behind our favorite games could be well over 1000 people. We also have news that Sony is not publishing any new, major first-party titles until March 2025. There are also…
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The Preservation of Our Media

Over the past decade, we’ve seen an aggressive push toward digital media. It’s convenient, easy to access, and fast. However, not all of it has been great. We’ve seen an ever-increasing desire by companies to lock games, movies, music, and more behind subscription services or digital rights management (DRM). This creates a situation where a…
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Category: video games