The Video Game History Foundation decried the 'lobbying efforts by rightsholder groups' that have 'impeded' proper efforts to archive old games at libraries.
There’s a lot that just vanish into the ether when someone doesn’t renew their little abandonware site they built and forgot about a decade ago. Maybe not the big names like Might & Magic, but the smaller titles most people have never heard of. Shit’s a bummer if the Internet Archive doesn’t get to it because then it probably only exists on a dozen 3.5" floppys in random desks that haven’t been cleaned out
A lot of those games are still around, just not in legal distribution channels.
The more at-risk stuff is newer games going forward, such as live-service games or games locked down with DRM that requires authentication to play.
There’s a lot that just vanish into the ether when someone doesn’t renew their little abandonware site they built and forgot about a decade ago. Maybe not the big names like Might & Magic, but the smaller titles most people have never heard of. Shit’s a bummer if the Internet Archive doesn’t get to it because then it probably only exists on a dozen 3.5" floppys in random desks that haven’t been cleaned out