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Lost Japanese Video Games Discovered in a Folder on a Private Forum

133 points by startupflix 8y ago

dang 8y ago
Url changed from https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/06/05/2130254/70-long-lost-japanese-video-games-discovered-in-a-67gb-folder-of-roms-on-a-private-forum https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/06/05/2130254/70-long-los..., which points to this.
- startupflix 8y ago
  Thank you :)
pimmen 8y ago
Didn't the developers save copies of the game? I know we've lost a lot of big movies from the early days of cinema because Hollywood studios didn't think of archiving the films, or even the scripts, responsibly but I thought we'd learned from that.
- sitharus 8y ago
  Yes, most developers did save a copy but there often there was little thought to proper archive storage. This means the media degraded in storage, lost during moves or thrown out accidentally. For an example see this story about Prince of Persia https://www.wired.com/2012/04/prince-of-persia-source-code/ https://www.wired.com/2012/04/prince-of-persia-source-code/, I've seen others over the years but don't have links handy.
  - pimmen 8y ago
    Not thinking of proper archiving proceedures is also exactly what happened with movies (and TV, the Dr. Who missing season was an ebarassing case of this). I know that studios exists to make money, and that they do that by controlling the distribution of the media, but it’s very sad when parts of our culture can get lost like this even though it’s preventable.
    - the_seraphim 8y ago
      I remember when a lost episode of Dad's army was found on a cassette because some guy happened to record it from the radio and never lost it.
    - admax88q 8y ago
      If they didn't make it illegal for home viewers to make their own copies then its possible that we wouldn't have to rely on studios doing proper archiving. As it stands now most preservation projects start looking for copies of work once the copyright has expired, which is long enough for many things to already be lost, unless copies are found from so called "criminals" who made their own archives in violation of copyright law.
    - im3w1l 8y ago
      Sweden has a law that any published book has to be archived in a national archive. Something similar could be setup for other media.
      - gray_-_wolf 8y ago
        Could work 20 years ago, but now? Games (software in general) is usually patched at insane rates (which version to keep? All of them?) and most games don't work without internet anymore (and you can hardly mandate archiving or never-released-server-software). Sadly, I don't think there is a reasonable way to do this...
        nitrogen 8y ago
        and you can hardly mandate archiving or never-released-server-software Why not? A hypothetical preservation law could require the submission of all servers, assets, and instructions required to make the game useful. Doesn't matter which version as long as the submitted package is usable as a whole.
      - vatueil 8y ago
        The Library of Congress similarly receives a copy of every book published in the United States, though they don't permanently keep a copy of every book. Many other countries do the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit
- ingenieros 8y ago
  There is a small non profit called the Japanese Game Preservation Society which has been trying to do just that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyXaJvw_-B0&list=PLKAlBDOVnpivBW8UokMEVJx9fdOZkrpOG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyXaJvw_-B0&list=PLKAlBDOVnp... *They accept donations https://www.gamepres.org/en/support/ https://www.gamepres.org/en/support/
  - coretx 8y ago
    Directly related, https://archiveteam.org/ https://archiveteam.org/ deserves a mention.
- azernik 8y ago
  People learned from that only for media that they considered "art", and video games of that period were definitely not considered such.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  They don't even have the source for widely beloved games made by big companies
- jccalhoun 8y ago
  If the company goes out of business a lot of times everything will be sold off and saving the assets of a game that didn't sell enough to keep the company in business isn't a priority, especially in decades past when no one thought about preservation.
VectorLock 8y ago
I'm curious what the deal is with the 'collector' who had all these rare games. Was he just hoarding them? How did he come across them? It sounds like he didn't like having his collection spread to a wider base.
- matheusmoreira 8y ago
  >It sounds like he didn't like having his collection spread to a wider base. He probably didn't http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_atari.html http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_atari.html > NOTE ON PROTOTYPES: > As many of you know, some of these 'most wanted' prototypes are in existance but haven't been made public. > The owner acquired these rare prototypes through contacts at Atari that let him use parts to REPAIR his machines only. > He's kind enough put his machines on display at the California Extreme show every summer. > He's put a lot of time and money into assembling these machines, the ROMs are indeed safely backed up, and his wishes should be respected. > At the very least, angry/begging e-mails to him will make sure that these ROMs will never be released to the public. > So calm down and enjoy the Atari prototypes that ARE in MAME such as Sparkz and BeatHead!
  - draw_down 8y ago
    Good grief.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Other people having it makes your collectible less valuable.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- teamhappy 8y ago
  According to the YouTube video embedded in the article he wanted to sell the game and he was afraid that the price would drop when the rip were available outside of the private torrent site.
rangibaby 8y ago
I use vintage camera lenses a lot and hate collectors. They drive prices up so they can keep their perfect lenses in a room somewhere like this guy and his “do not upload” folder. To me it’s perverse. Thoses games could be being enjoyed by people but this guy has to squirrel them away. I understand that it's their right to do whatever they want to with their "treasures" but the point of a lens is to take photos, the point of a game is to be played, the point of music is to be listened to.
- admax88q 8y ago
  These are digital assets though. Him "squirreling" them away doesn't deprive anyone else from having their own copy to play. Maybe you're complaining that he didn't distribute copies for others to enjoy, but copyright law would make him a criminal for doing that, why should he take that risk? It's funny that this guy would is considered a criminal for making copies of these games, but once they are old enough and lost forever by the original copyright holders he's suddenly a hero for having these old copies. Copyright law is fucked.
  - eropple 8y ago
    Copyright law is a mess, but there are archival services, like the Internet Archive, that can effectively advise someone on how they can, in a way that does not cause one to risk legal liability (a problem much more real to the average person than generally-theoretical and mostly-breathless chances of criminal charges) to them, preserve those artifacts for the future.
  - matheusmoreira 8y ago
    Collectors prevent prototype hardware emulators from being created too, and those are legal.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    > These are digital assets though. Him "squirreling" them away doesn't deprive anyone else from having their own copy to play. But the collector in question very specifically didn't want other copies to exist, and threatened to never upload rare games again if it were shared outside the small, private community: > According to a screenshot uploaded by Saint, the private collector threatened to pull the entire folder of content from the directory and stop uploading games altogether if anyone leaked Labyrinthe He very, very specifically wanted to deprive others.
userbinator 8y ago
In uploading the game to Mega, it’s possible the folder will be pulled from the internet. But in doing so, the person advanced the interests of game preservationists worldwide by leaking the this game and others. If the leaker had any bit of sense, (s)he would've copied everything first. “It's a weird situation because this really is not a great way to be preserving games, just collecting things that leak out,” he said. There's a similar situation with availability of service information for appliances, cars, laptops, phones, etc. --- a lot of it is out there if you look hard enough, but almost all of it comes from leaks. Either way, archive.org is certainly a very good place to put things like this.
- pimlottc 8y ago
  > If the leaker had any bit of sense, (s)he would've copied everything first. One assumes so, but it's hard to know the specifics here; if it was on some sort of proprietary forum, there might not have been an easy mass-download option. Maybe there was some sort of credits system. Maybe it was on a tenuous internet connection. If was a private torrent site -- the article's not clear but does mention bittorrent -- none of these restrictions would be that unusual.

133 points by startupflix 8y ago

dang 8y ago

Url changed from https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/06/05/2130254/70-long-lost-japanese-video-games-discovered-in-a-67gb-folder-of-roms-on-a-private-forum https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/06/05/2130254/70-long-los..., which points to this.

startupflix 8y ago
Thank you :)

pimmen 8y ago

Didn't the developers save copies of the game? I know we've lost a lot of big movies from the early days of cinema because Hollywood studios didn't think of archiving the films, or even the scripts, responsibly but I thought we'd learned from that.

sitharus 8y ago
Yes, most developers did save a copy but there often there was little thought to proper archive storage. This means the media degraded in storage, lost during moves or thrown out accidentally. For an example see this story about Prince of Persia https://www.wired.com/2012/04/prince-of-persia-source-code/ https://www.wired.com/2012/04/prince-of-persia-source-code/, I've seen others over the years but don't have links handy.
- pimmen 8y ago
  Not thinking of proper archiving proceedures is also exactly what happened with movies (and TV, the Dr. Who missing season was an ebarassing case of this). I know that studios exists to make money, and that they do that by controlling the distribution of the media, but it’s very sad when parts of our culture can get lost like this even though it’s preventable.
  - the_seraphim 8y ago
    I remember when a lost episode of Dad's army was found on a cassette because some guy happened to record it from the radio and never lost it.
  - admax88q 8y ago
    If they didn't make it illegal for home viewers to make their own copies then its possible that we wouldn't have to rely on studios doing proper archiving. As it stands now most preservation projects start looking for copies of work once the copyright has expired, which is long enough for many things to already be lost, unless copies are found from so called "criminals" who made their own archives in violation of copyright law.
  - im3w1l 8y ago
    Sweden has a law that any published book has to be archived in a national archive. Something similar could be setup for other media.
    - gray_-_wolf 8y ago
      Could work 20 years ago, but now? Games (software in general) is usually patched at insane rates (which version to keep? All of them?) and most games don't work without internet anymore (and you can hardly mandate archiving or never-released-server-software). Sadly, I don't think there is a reasonable way to do this...
      - nitrogen 8y ago
        and you can hardly mandate archiving or never-released-server-software Why not? A hypothetical preservation law could require the submission of all servers, assets, and instructions required to make the game useful. Doesn't matter which version as long as the submitted package is usable as a whole.
    - vatueil 8y ago
      The Library of Congress similarly receives a copy of every book published in the United States, though they don't permanently keep a copy of every book. Many other countries do the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit
ingenieros 8y ago
There is a small non profit called the Japanese Game Preservation Society which has been trying to do just that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyXaJvw_-B0&list=PLKAlBDOVnpivBW8UokMEVJx9fdOZkrpOG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyXaJvw_-B0&list=PLKAlBDOVnp... *They accept donations https://www.gamepres.org/en/support/ https://www.gamepres.org/en/support/
- coretx 8y ago
  Directly related, https://archiveteam.org/ https://archiveteam.org/ deserves a mention.
azernik 8y ago
People learned from that only for media that they considered "art", and video games of that period were definitely not considered such.
emodendroket 8y ago
They don't even have the source for widely beloved games made by big companies
jccalhoun 8y ago
If the company goes out of business a lot of times everything will be sold off and saving the assets of a game that didn't sell enough to keep the company in business isn't a priority, especially in decades past when no one thought about preservation.

VectorLock 8y ago

I'm curious what the deal is with the 'collector' who had all these rare games. Was he just hoarding them? How did he come across them? It sounds like he didn't like having his collection spread to a wider base.

matheusmoreira 8y ago
>It sounds like he didn't like having his collection spread to a wider base. He probably didn't http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_atari.html http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_atari.html > NOTE ON PROTOTYPES: > As many of you know, some of these 'most wanted' prototypes are in existance but haven't been made public. > The owner acquired these rare prototypes through contacts at Atari that let him use parts to REPAIR his machines only. > He's kind enough put his machines on display at the California Extreme show every summer. > He's put a lot of time and money into assembling these machines, the ROMs are indeed safely backed up, and his wishes should be respected. > At the very least, angry/begging e-mails to him will make sure that these ROMs will never be released to the public. > So calm down and enjoy the Atari prototypes that ARE in MAME such as Sparkz and BeatHead!
- draw_down 8y ago
  Good grief.
emodendroket 8y ago
Other people having it makes your collectible less valuable.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
teamhappy 8y ago
According to the YouTube video embedded in the article he wanted to sell the game and he was afraid that the price would drop when the rip were available outside of the private torrent site.

rangibaby 8y ago

I use vintage camera lenses a lot and hate collectors. They drive prices up so they can keep their perfect lenses in a room somewhere like this guy and his “do not upload” folder. To me it’s perverse. Thoses games could be being enjoyed by people but this guy has to squirrel them away. I understand that it's their right to do whatever they want to with their "treasures" but the point of a lens is to take photos, the point of a game is to be played, the point of music is to be listened to.

admax88q 8y ago
These are digital assets though. Him "squirreling" them away doesn't deprive anyone else from having their own copy to play. Maybe you're complaining that he didn't distribute copies for others to enjoy, but copyright law would make him a criminal for doing that, why should he take that risk? It's funny that this guy would is considered a criminal for making copies of these games, but once they are old enough and lost forever by the original copyright holders he's suddenly a hero for having these old copies. Copyright law is fucked.
- eropple 8y ago
  Copyright law is a mess, but there are archival services, like the Internet Archive, that can effectively advise someone on how they can, in a way that does not cause one to risk legal liability (a problem much more real to the average person than generally-theoretical and mostly-breathless chances of criminal charges) to them, preserve those artifacts for the future.
- matheusmoreira 8y ago
  Collectors prevent prototype hardware emulators from being created too, and those are legal.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  > These are digital assets though. Him "squirreling" them away doesn't deprive anyone else from having their own copy to play. But the collector in question very specifically didn't want other copies to exist, and threatened to never upload rare games again if it were shared outside the small, private community: > According to a screenshot uploaded by Saint, the private collector threatened to pull the entire folder of content from the directory and stop uploading games altogether if anyone leaked Labyrinthe He very, very specifically wanted to deprive others.

userbinator 8y ago

In uploading the game to Mega, it’s possible the folder will be pulled from the internet. But in doing so, the person advanced the interests of game preservationists worldwide by leaking the this game and others. If the leaker had any bit of sense, (s)he would've copied everything first. “It's a weird situation because this really is not a great way to be preserving games, just collecting things that leak out,” he said. There's a similar situation with availability of service information for appliances, cars, laptops, phones, etc. --- a lot of it is out there if you look hard enough, but almost all of it comes from leaks. Either way, archive.org is certainly a very good place to put things like this.

pimlottc 8y ago
> If the leaker had any bit of sense, (s)he would've copied everything first. One assumes so, but it's hard to know the specifics here; if it was on some sort of proprietary forum, there might not have been an easy mass-download option. Maybe there was some sort of credits system. Maybe it was on a tenuous internet connection. If was a private torrent site -- the article's not clear but does mention bittorrent -- none of these restrictions would be that unusual.