The Game Preservation Society is in Danger of Shutting Down

Game preservation has been a huge topic over the last few years. As the industry tries its best to shift everyone to digital-only gaming, there are those who have done their absolute best to keep the physical history of gaming alive. The Game Preservation Society is one of those entities. As reported by Time Extension, The Game Preservation Society is hanging on by a thread and is in dire need of support.

What is the game preservation society?

Simply put, they make efforts to preserve Japan’s gaming history. From the website:

“The Game Preservation Society is a nonprofit organization (NPO) formed by a group of volunteers who possess the professional skills and knowledge to preserve Japanese video games for the future. We see video games [as] important cultural assets and work to preserve them for future generations. Our members come from a variety of fields of expertise and share their knowledge to reach this goal. There are multiple challenges to preserving games: contents are scattered around the country, items have become neglected over the years, hardware has become obsolete and broken, and the sheer vastness of the data makes such a task impossible to handle as an individual.“

It can’t be overstated how important this game preservation undertaking is. Video games have become a medium through which cultures are represented, a place where stories can be passed down and creativity can be celebrated. Preserving these games means that people can learn from them and take something from them to try in current games or even use them to study or teach.

Joseph Redon is the head of the Game Preservation Society, and he said in the Time Extension piece that he is “paying 25% of the rent, meaning we are already virtually out of business. We have monthly supporters but are losing between £260 and £420 every month.” He went on to mention that based on the numbers, they would be out of business in September.

if you can, support the effort to preserve games in japan

Redon went on to say, “What we really need is to bring in at least £750 every month. It’s not that much if it’s 400 people giving £2 a month. Some people might give more, so we need 300 people to become supporters so that we can stay afloat.” The site notes that an annual membership costs about $20 a year. It’s worth it to continue the efforts to keep Japanese gaming history alive. This is an industry-wide issue. Owning games is still important. Physical media still matters. We can preach the game preservation gospel all day long. But when there are people putting action to the words, it’s necessary to help them.