Mario 64 (one of the 3 games in the 3d collection) can be bought in the wii u virtual console, it is included in nintendo switch online and there is the physical copy of the 3d all star collection. Mario Galaxy can be bought on Wii U (or used with the physical 3d all star collection). The only game "missing" is mario sunshine and I'm sure that nintendo will sell/rent it again when they have a system powerful enough to emulate Gamecube.
How many people here actually do real efforts to preserve the games? I'm sure that museums try to keep their games (and maybe backups) as safe as possible, but putting 300 retro games next to the other 300 retro games on the microsd of your retro handheld isn't preservation. I'm pretty sure that there are museums where you can play the original versions of GTA 3, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas.
For One, that is not true for the Wii U/3DS eshop anymore. Secondly, The Switch Online versions of these games were so absolutely abysmal in their emulation process from Nintendo that it put most people off for months before they were able to get it going in a way that was actually playable. Thirdly The "All Star collection" is anything but
when the only title on there that was put any effort into was Galaxy which is still partially being run in an emulator, with the remaining other two games being ROM's put in Nintendo's own emulators. Also no Galaxy 2 which in that case alone puts people off. Hell speaking of forgotten Mario games, I would *
LOVE* to see Mario 64DS get a remake/re-release. Perhaps not as nostalgia baited as 64 classic but it gives so much more to do with the game and added multiplayer that the OG simply lacked. It removes nothing from the classic experience, it only adds more to it and it seems to have been forgotten in the eyes of Nintendo.
Also you seem to have overlooked the fact that Sunshine is in 3D All stars, also The Wii is built on the technology of a buffed version of the Gamecube (With some going out of the way of calling the Wii the "Doublesuffed Gamecube" or "two gamecubes taped together" Which if the Switch can emulate that, then there is no excuse for the GC not having games be emulated on there. It's not a limitation of hardware on Nintendo's end here to emulate these. Its just not of interest to them.
As for digital preservation efforts. I put a heavy deal into it. Not so much games as even the more rare games I have others have seemingly had the opportunity to get it preserved long before I did, and that's fine. That is the way it should be. Me? I put in efforts to preserve lost/nearly lost or insanely obscure documents/files/programs and manuals for various forms of hardware of the past. Your UNIX machines, enterprise hardware, weird Operating systems and programs that were exclusive to them, obscure pieces of hardware and technology in general which the information online barely scratches the surface on and god help you if you are trying to restore/repair/operate one when the information to it is lost to time because no one cared or the few that did have one themselves never bothered to because they were lazy or just want to gatekeep knowledge from others. Or the very few that cry out the fear of potential copyright on abandonware long forgotten by companies that may not even operate anymore while also showing off their rare shit that they refuse to preserve for others because it will make them feel less special if everyone else had access to the same things they did.
I preserve because knowledge is something that belongs to the world at large and it deserves to not be lost. To everyone that want's or needs it. Not to just the few that are privileged enough to have it only to discard it and lose it because they can't find the same appreciation to it that others do. Its not some sort of mindset of being a hero or a pirate or whatever bullshit. I just don't want things to get lost to time just as much as others do. I am even going out of my way to build a book scanner eventually so I could physically scan my out of print books/manuals to put online. I spent time and
a lot of money trying to get access to some of these materials for my restoration projects and I am not even 2/3's of the way complete yet. But sure enough I want others to not go through the same shit I had to in hunting down out of print nearly lost/obscure materials and paying a premium for them because of how "rare" it is. Everyone deserves better than that.
There are legal means to play a copy of the older nintendo games and the creators probably get a share of the money that is beeing earned that way. It's a valid option to access the games. You can say that you don't want to accept it but then it's clearly piracy and not "semi piracy" or something like that. The situation is even better with the genesis games: buy the collection on steam and get direct access to the uncompressed roms.
The system of creators and royalties and all that shit is not substaintial or even used to most or any of the gaming industry. Its not the same as the Recording Industry in that a song you made may have royalties you may benefit a cut of each time its bought or used in a commercial way (and that is of course if your record label just does not outright screw you over in the contract) Games typically only see profit gain share for those who worked on it upon initial release, but after that it typically defaults as the property of the publisher or developer studio and not solely the creator/creators of the game itself. Indy games follow a different method but they are not under a large studio or publisher and have more legal control over their creations in that sense. Most games on the other hand typically just profit the publishers that own the rights to them as most creators don't have rights to said games or characters when they produce said game in said studio or publisher via contract. They might be your ideas, but they were put to reality via their hardware, their software, their time and their money. It becomes theirs at the end of the day, you will just be lucky enough to have your name in the credits and have initial profits of sales cut if even that.
Want a good example of this? The Halo series was made by Bungie, was in production before MS bought them out and made it a Windows/Xbox exclusive. When Bungie wanted to split and become their own entity again they did so while giving MS the rights to the series and its franchise. Bungie sees nothing of Halo money anymore, no matter if there's a new game or a remaster/remake of the classics. Its owned by Microsoft and they profit off it alone.
You want to support a creator? There are many different ways to do so, hell I would rather send a creator the full price of a game and just pirate it myself then go through "the legit path" because aside from the bullshit that presents itself such as DRM or other bullshit, they get a lesser cut of the money that way. If you want to do this because of moral grounds then just give the guy money directly. Because screw the publishers.
I don't think that this discussion will lead to much but I want to say one last thing: you have no right to have/access any games. It's the same with other art forms like movies or pictures. You can access them if the person that made them gives you the permission (often attached to you paying money), but it's not necessary. You have no right to play a game if the person or company owning the rights doesn't want you to.
Alright, you want to play dirty with this logic here and I can play too. The thing about rights is its not so much a matter of law being a solid, unflinching script of directives of legality as it really is anymore a matter of "who happens to have the deeper pockets and better influence" in the situation. It's always been that way, and especially now in recent times the legal system has been skewed to try and suppress even the idea of making mods for games such as when T2 tried to sue GTA modders because they were making their own remaster mod for the classic games which they put a great deal of effort into only for it to be put through hell because it just so happen that Rockstar was thinking of releasing their own remaster of these games, and this inoffensive mod to the classic games here would have totally hurt their prospective sales, especially if it ended up being that the mod was far more competent and faithful than the shitstain of an "official" remaster they released to the world. Its a wonderful thing when the fans seem to care more about something more than those who simply hold the rights to it. The difference being that fans do it out of love where as rights holders simply don't care or do it out of money.
If people like you ran the earth with no one standing against their ass-backwards mindset we would have nothing preserved in our world. Art would be locked away by private collectors or destroyed, Movies would never have released on any format and the only way you could ever watch them would be if they happened to have a showing of it in theaters again, and that is if they decided to not destroy it because they did not like it or remake it as something newer and more modern while making the original no longer accessible by any means because it no longer holds the vision of the right holders anymore. Media would basically hold no relevance of purpose anymore because it would mean nothing more to us than it would mean to those that are simply profiting off of it. The very essence of history and creativity will perish because the act of preservation gets in the way of those simply wanting to profit out of life at the cost of everyone else.
If that is the world you want to live in, then you need to really reconsider your purpose here. Because I know for a fact that not too many people like a corporate bootlicking mouthpiece.
There are more and more companies selling old games and even giving access to the actual ROMs (SEGA Mega Drive & Genesis Classics, many Piko interactive releases etc). Support them if you want this to change. Don't buy stuff from publishers that you don't like. It's as easy as that.
Ah yes, Repackaging the same ROM's over and over again in cheap plastic that does a subpar job of emulating the original experience while also occasionally making them limited to increase the potential of sales (mainly to scalpers) because of the panic of artificial scarcity and FOMO driving everything else in making sure these things just don't sit in stores and not make sales. I think it would be more convenient to just get the original console and either some of the games I like or perhaps a flash cart to get close to the original experience as much as possible. Or if neither there's always the PC that can do it all, and sure they can sell classic roms on there too, as long as its not DRM controlled or its inferior in its coding compared releases. Once again I have to make reference that the Sonic Origins collection should have been a dead simple release that they still somehow fucked up doing despite everything because they were worried more with presentation and getting it out during a profitable timeframe rather than making sure the shit worked as it is meant to. While also delisting any of the other games online prior to release just so no one else has a legal means of purchasing a better version of the classic games elsewhere and now instead have to be forced to purchase this collection if you want to legally play classic Sonic games on your modern hardware. Again anyone that supports this and thinks this is a good thing really does not speak for the most of of people.
You know what people want?
-Give us a means to access and (actually) own games of any generation (With means to access the actual ROM for a reasonable price and no DRM bullshit)
-Give us a means to play it via a modern means available to anyone (PC perhaps?)
-Make it available for everyone, everywhere, no restrictions to country or censor bullshit
-DON'T Give us half assed ports/remasters if you can't do it yourselves. (if you can't make an emulator yourself just sell the rom's and let the community build an emulator then)
-Don't give us things you think we want but do not want: Be communicative and transparent with your community on what they want.
-Allow the use of mods with no asterisk of trying to make a for profit market for it.
-Make all DLC available and obtainable (either at extra fee or as its own "complete" release or made free if not being maintained anymore)
-Lay the fuck off of fan projects. (rather than DCMA'ing them, learn from them and why they might be popular? Perhaps it could make your next official game actually better!)
I am sure there is a few more or less in that list. I could have mentioned game creation tools for various engines that may be abandoned or are intentionally obscured. Perhaps releasing abandonware games as free and with Open Source intentions to allow fans to create their own continuations/scenarios since the holder cares so little for it that it would probably cost them more money to try to make it a product themselves again then to just give it to the fans to do whatever they want with it.
The point is that People don't simply pirate just because they don't want to pay money for a game. There are multiple reasons, for multiple people, everywhere. There are people in countries out there that can't get access to any form of media without having to pirate it because its the only way they can access it in their country given restrictions and censorship. There are people that can't get access to said media anymore because its not available anywhere else legitimately which leads to pirating it. Both of these alone make up a large chunk of pirates in general.
Preservationism is the attempt to make sure that something that is abandoned, old and obscure is not lost. That it remains accessible to anyone who wants to access it. If there are entities against that then they need to act upon themselves to offer the means and promise to offer that nothing of theirs is abandoned or lost and can always be available for anyone who can obtain it in a reasonable way. If they can't or refuse to, then they give up that right to argue their side in all of this. It becomes our responsibility and right to preserve it for everyone if they can't be bothered to do it themselves.
