
Lost Japanese Video Games Discovered in a Folder on a Private Forum - startupflix
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3anja/labyrinthe-japanese-game-discovered-on-private-forum
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rangibaby
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
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.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _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.

~~~
segmondy
So? What if it was a short story or a poem? Do we have the right to read it?
If someone doesn't wish to share their work, that's their own prerogative.

~~~
3131s
It's not his work, at least not in the sense of him creating it.

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userbinator
_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
> 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.

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VectorLock
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
>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!

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pimmen
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
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
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.

~~~
im3w1l
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
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
_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.

------
dang
Url changed from [https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/06/05/2130254/70-long-
los...](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),
which points to this.

~~~
startupflix
Thank you :)

