I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. YouTube is not preserving video game history by providing a place to host these videos. Instead, they’re offering an

I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. YouTube is not preserving video game history by providing a place to host these videos. Instead, they’re offering an incentive for people to create these videos that are currently hosted on YouTube but will eventually be archived somewhere else. In other words, YouTube is somewhat responsible for the creation of this new content, but has no expectation or responsibility to maintain its legacy.