Re: myrient and the future of emulation
Posted by HardToPort on .
There's many sites dedicated to games that don't host anything but screenshots, articles, and torrent links. Some of these torrents are fullsets of 40 year old arcade games. I agree that the best way to disseminate games is a fast direct download, but VPNs and seedboxes are cheap nowadays. For those of us with seedboxes and hard disk space, we can directly contribute to cultural preservation just by seeding a torrent.
I also agree that torrents tend to over represent popular media, but it's a double edged sword. When a game takes up a lot of space, people only seed when it's worth playing. While I agree everyone should be able to download and play Pepsi Man for the Playstation forever, but most people would probably rather watch a video of someone reviewing it than play it themselves.
Torrents of old movies stay up forever if people care. I've seen 10 year old torrents of somewhat obscure movies out in the wild. Stuff like "But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)" and "Queen Christina (1933)". Some of these torrents are older than the indexer websites they're posted on, with all the Whack-A-Mole the MPAA and FBI does on torrent sites.
"why must the world punish people for being whimsical?"
Not that you were saying it was a solution, but... Peer-2-Peer is the death of archival. It is not sustainable, and the moment peers stop seeding, content is lost forever. Expecting peer-2-peer to not lead to massive cultural data death is like expecting the Internet Archive to last forever, instead of potentially being on its last legs.
Sites like Vimm's are and remain vital because they allow for niche data preservation, whereas Peer-2-Peer focuses - largely - on a very small selection of already-popular things.
That emulation sites and enthusiasts have secured so much for so long is and continues to be inspirational, honestly. Just another reason to all keep doing what we can to preserve the past.
Sites like Vimm's are and remain vital because they allow for niche data preservation, whereas Peer-2-Peer focuses - largely - on a very small selection of already-popular things.
That emulation sites and enthusiasts have secured so much for so long is and continues to be inspirational, honestly. Just another reason to all keep doing what we can to preserve the past.