Thinking about the gaming magazines I used to read as a kid in the '90s. Some of them have found their way online thanks to preservationist efforts, but most are seemingly gone forever. (I’m talking about the particular magazine I read as a kid, many others have complete or near-complete collections available online in the form of scanned hardcopies.)

Do the publishing houses keep a digital copy of every magazine they release? If so, why don’t they release them? They could probably charge a fee to download them, like other digital magazines do, but of course it’d be great if they just shared them for free for historical purposes on the Internet Archive or something.

It would be an insanely short-sighted practice to not keep masters of these publications forever, no? 🤔 The raw files probably take up a few CDs’ worth of space for the entire run of the magazine. Big assumptions on my part, I have no clue how any of it is done!

So:

  1. Do they retain the files forever?
  2. If so, why might they not be shared 20 or 30 years later?

Cheers!

  • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
    64·
    5 months ago

    I think the bigger problem is when a publisher goes out of business, is there anyone left who cares enough to save the archives?

    If lucky, there will be an acquiring publisher who cares enough to fold the archives into their own.

    Otherwise it’s dependent on the outgoing editor in chief or some other individual to save that stuff and keep in in their garage until one day they die and their heirs send it to the dump.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
      46·
      5 months ago

      Which is why archive.org is so important. Many of the earliest films have been lost to time. Now Nintendo is trying to shut down rom sites and websitea hosting pdf’s of their game manuals, and yes, Nintendo Power.

      So far they’ve been sucsessful, except for archive.org, who has an exemption. That exemption lasts for a few years, and every few years it needs to be voted on to KEEP that exemption.

      I don’t trust our government to always do the right thing. So over the next few weeks, I’m hoard downloading. Instead of downloading 1 or 2 roms at a time, for games I recently discovered, I’m just downloading entire rom sets. Fuck you Nintendo. Instead of downloading a few dozen roms, I’m now downloading your entire catalog, and making backups once I have everything. And sorry Sony, but Nintendo roped you into this. And microsodt? Oh, you’re safe. I don’t give a shit about xbox…