Cognition Dissemination: We’re Starting to Take Game Preservation Seriously

There’s been a lot of talk about game preservation in the last few years, the act of ensuring that older video games released for platforms no longer supported by manufacturers remain available for years to come. The necessity of this is discussed frequently because of how uniquely bad the video game industry has been at this for years. It’s possible to legally obtain older movies, music, and books, but less so with video games. It’s good that dedicated fan communities exist that are capable of making sure older games can be played on emulators, but it’s nonetheless an issue that gaming companies themselves should do more about.

Fortunately, that’s slowly starting to happen — albeit with special emphasis on “slowly” and “starting.” The number of rereleases on digital and, more importantly, physical platforms has increased in the last several years. It’s an encouraging sign even as other companies, particularly platform owners, have taken serious setbacks. The recent announcements of two collections made me realize some companies are listening and making good efforts to ensure that their titles live on, even though one company involved has been the (largely deserved, to be fair) butt of many jokes in recent years.

The Capcom Fighting Collection is one of the two announced in recent memory, an important one given the software included. All five Darkstalkers games will be here, two of which, Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers’ Revenge and Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire, will be released in western territories for the first time. It’s also good that we’re finally getting a collection of them after the original PlayStation 2 one was left in Japan.

It will also include Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Hyper Street Fighter II, and Red Earth. While all of these are being made available on current platforms for the first time (though the 360 version of Puzzle Fighter is playable on Xbox platforms through backwards compatibility), Red Earth is another game being released in western territories for the first time. This will be one of Capcom’s best collections in a while when it arrives in June, in digital and physical formats.

The just-announced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is even more important given the games that will be included. The package, as the name somewhat implies, will include every Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game released for the NES, SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy, and the two arcade games from the late 1980s and early 1990s for a collection that, well, would make anyone who was a fan of these games say “Cowabunga” in the year 2022. This will not only mark the first time many of these Turtles games will be available on modern platforms, but the first ports for several of them since their original releases.

The collection will arrive sometime this summer for all current gaming platforms in digital and physical formats, and anyone who wants it should do so quickly, especially for the physical copies. Games based on licensed properties are much harder to preserve, and this is unlikely to be available for long given how quickly previous ports of Konami arcade games have ben delisted from digital services.

It’s true that collections of older games have existed for several console generations, but there are two key differences between those releases and newer ones. The emulation for the games included tend to be much better these days. The quality was inconsistent on, say, the Sega Genesis and Capcom game collections released during the PlayStation 2/Xbox/GameCube era and even the generation afterward, until publishers heard from fan communities to improve the quality of these collections. There was also a brief time when the best reissues and collections of older games were only available on digital platforms like the now-defunct Wii Virtual Console, but it’s better when they’re released in relatively inexpensive collections.

We could still use more of them, though. I’d love it if, say, the latest Breath of Fire trademark renewal was for a rerelease of all five games for modern platforms. The first two can be obtained through Nintendo Switch Online, the continued availability of which will depend on how Nintendo feels in the future, and they absolutely cannot be trusted to maintain access to software archives. It’s not possible to play the third, fourth, and fifth games on modern systems. I’d also like it if Capcom could rerelease their licensed Disney games, particularly in a physical format.

On a similar note: I wouldn’t mind further Castlevania and Contra releases from Konami, alongside a collection of other licensed titles that includes games like The Simpsons and the X-Men arcade games, even if the latter titles wouldn’t be available for long. If 16-bit Aladdin, The Lion King, and The Jungle Book games can be rereleased, these can too. I could keep going here, but you get the point.

Digital game platform shops are too at the whim of their console manufacturers, as previously seen though the disappearance of the Wii and DSiWare shops from Nintendo, the impending Wii U and 3DS eShop disappearances, and the perhaps-still-impending disappearance of the PlayStation 3, PSP, and Vita stores. It will do even more damage to preservation efforts with games available only through subscription services instead of being fully downloadable like they are through the Nintendo Switch’s Online program. It’s good that we’re getting quality collections from several companies, and they’re unlikely to stop here. But no one would complain about getting a higher volume of them if the same level of quality can be maintained. Well, as long as we can still give Digital Eclipse and M2 all the time and money they need.