The Video Game History Foundation recently put together an absolutely fascinating video on the lost stages of the Sega classic Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It includes partial recreations of some of those cut levels, which have never been seen before. Definitely worth a look!

Nintendo Advanced Video System

We don’t deserve Kelsey Lewin. She’s so dedicated to preserving video game history and it was great to see her become co-director of the Video Game History Foundation.

My panel from Super MAGFest 2024 is up! Meredith Rose and I talk about VGHF's report that 87% of classic games are out of print and the legal battle we're fighting to make game preservation easier for libraries and archives.

In just a few weeks, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U owners will finally completely lose the ability to purchase new digital games on those aging platforms. The move will cut off consumer access to hundreds of titles that can't legally be accessed any other way.

But while that's a significant annoyance for consumers holding onto their old hardware, current rules mean it could cause much more of a crisis for the historians and archivists trying to preserve access to those game libraries for future generations.

"While it's unfortunate that people won't be able to purchase digital 3DS or Wii U games anymore, we understand the business reality that went into this decision," the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) tweeted when the eShop shutdowns were announced a year ago. "What we don't understand is what path Nintendo expects its fans to take, should they wish to play these games in the future."

Libraries and organizations like the VGHF say their game preservation efforts are currently being hampered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which generally prevents people from making copies of any DRM-protected digital work.

The US Copyright Office has issued exemptions to those rules to allow libraries and research institutions to make digital copies for archival purposes. Those organizations can even distribute archived digital copies of items like ebooks, DVDs, and even generic computer software to researchers through online access systems.

But those remote-access exemptions explicitly leave out video games. That means researchers who want to access archived game collections have to travel to the physical location where that archive resides—even if the archived games themselves were never distributed on physical media.

Have you considered locking Frank Cifaldi into your garage and letting the problem solve itself?

Frank is largely interested in paperwork and that sort of material, he doesn’t need a bunch of retail-released games. I’ve boxed up a bunch of stuff for the VGHF already.

To an average gamer, the fact that most classic games are no longer for sale might not be a practical concern. Piracy groups have gone to great lengths to ensure that entire platform catalogs have been ripped and preserved, with only a few unemulated exceptions. Apart from that, many games are available relatively cheaply on the secondhand market (if you have working hardware) or through institutional archives like Standford University's Cabrinety Collection. VGHFFor researchers, though, these solutions are imperfect. A professor assigning students a game to study, for instance, might find their university department is uncomfortable leaning on the "fair use" legal argument that would be needed to distribute a pirated copy. For these kinds of reasons, Salvador acknowledges piracy in the study as "often a last resort and necessity for proper study." And beyond academia, piracy isn't necessarily a mainstream-ready access solution. "Those of us already 'in the know' are set for life. My ROMs are never going away," VGHF founder and Executive Director Frank Cifaldi tweeted. "But I love video game history and I want it to be for everyone, not just the software-literate nerds. I want to see old games inspiring the weird artists of the future."

Thanks to the Video Game History Foundation for this sweet gift!

Y'all helped us raise over $1600 for the Foundation back on June 25th, and SpecificPixel and I are already looking forward to doing it again in the future. In the meantime, please consider supporting VGHF and their work—you can join their Patreon, make a direct donation, shop at their merch store for loot like this, or find other ways to help preserve video game history.

And of course, you can watch the whole charity stream and all the following donation incentive content on our special events playlist, in case you missed any of it.

We’re a little late reporting on this, but we just could not let it go. Not when it concerns one of the most important Sonic games of all time. Celebrated video game preservationist Frank Cifaldi, of the Video Game History Foundation, has come into contact with some American artists formally employed at Sega Technical Institute, where Sonic 2 was developed, and with their help, has unearthed some never before seen artwork and information about cut content from Sonic 2. He’s even learned about a whole different Genesis/Mega-Drive game the studio was working on that got canned in order to bring all hands on deck for Sonic 2.

You can see the video right up above and check in past the break for a summery of what was shown off in the video.

While I’m not sure if this was already known, Sonic 2 was originally planned to center around time travel. Much like Sonic CD, which was being developed at Sega of Japan around the same time as Sonic 2, Sonic and Tails were meant to travel to the past and the future, with the future being the same environments transformed into an over-polluted, industrial nightmare by Dr. Eggman. However, there wasn’t enough time to realize this vision, so the developers just put together the most promising level ideas they came up with, regardless of if they fit together or not, and made a complete package out of it. Really gives some interesting insight for what was originally intended for levels like Chemical Plant, Casino Night, and Oil Ocean Zone, and even a few cut levels.

Tom Payne’s contributions to this video included near-complete map layouts of the cut Genocide/Cyber City Zone. They were put together and scanned in immaculate quality for all to see, and then playable mockups of the stages were made by Hez, a developer of Sonic the Hedgehog Classic. He’s already been working on recreations of cut levels we were already aware of, like Wood Zone, seen in the video below. Frank has uploaded Tom Payne’s artwork to Archive.org, so you can check it out at your own pace. It might even serve as good level design inspiration, especially if you’re working on a Sonic fan game of your own.

Sand Shower Zone, a cut level that’s already known by this point, actually had a still image with animated elements. This level was envisioned by Brenda Cook, formally Brenda Ross, who had an animated mock-up of this level on her own VHS artwork portfolio. That same video cassette also had animated art of a new winter themed level we’d never seen before, which is essentially a palette swap of Sand Shower Zone, with some objects being replaced entirely, like Christmas trees in place of cacti. The video even included a cut level she designed for Sonic Spinball. Frank has uploaded the entire portfolio video to YouTube, for you to see in its entirety.

This is quite the exciting discovery that Frank Cifaldi has made, and we at Segabits extend our thanks to him and the Video Game History Foundation for their amazing work at preserving history that could’ve easily been lost forever without them. You, too, can show them some gratitude with a donation to the VGHF to help them preserve even more lost video game content from long ago, in case you feel like it. After all, these aren’t just some armchair historians on YouTube looking up stuff on Wikipedia and Sonic Retro and presenting it to you like it’s the discovery of the century. These are actual professionals really going out of their way to contact old developers and preserve their findings to also be detailed on Wikipedia, Sonic Retro, and so on. That kind of work deserves so much praise in this day and age.

Before we go, we would also like to point you out to their video detailing their all new online VGHF Library, an online library of all the gaming archive materials they’ve gathered up to now that you’ll be able to peruse online to your heart’s content. It will begin opening up next year. Get hyped, Sega fans. Heck, all retro gamers oughta get hyped, never mind Sega gamers.

Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) と Software Preservation Network (SPN) が共同で実施した調査によると、米国で 2010 年以前にリリースされたクラシックビデオゲームの 87% が絶版になっているそうだ (VGHF のブログ記事 [1]、 [2]、 The Register の記事、 Ars Technica の記事、 報告書ダウンロードページ)。 調査はコミュニティによるビデオゲームデータベース MobyGames のデータを用いたもので、1960 年代から 2000 年代にかけて米国でリリースされたタイトルのうち 1,500 本 (2010 年リリースの 1 本を含む) を抽出。また、商業的な関心が低く発売中のタイトルも少ない「見捨てられたエコシステム」の例として Commodore 64 向けのタイトル 400 本、商業的な関心は高いが発売中のタイトルはそれほど多くない「放置されたエコシステム」の例として Game Boy ファミリー (GBAまで) 向け全タイトル 1,873 本、タイトルが継続的に再リリースの対象になる「アクティブなエコシステム」の例として PlayStation 2 向けタイトル 400 本 (2010 年と 2011 年にリリースされたタイトル計 4 本を含む) についても調査している。 タイトルが現在も一般に入手可能と判断する条件としては、再リリースまたは元のゲームと基本的に同じ内容のリメイク版がリリースされていることに加え、コレクター向けの限定版やソースコードのみの公開ではなく、一般的なユーザー向けのプラットフォーム上で利用可能なことが挙げられている。この条件で入手可能なクラシックビデオゲームは 13.27%、Commodore 64 向けタイトルは 4.50%、Game Boy ファミリーは 5.87%、PlayStation 2 は 12.00% となる。Game Boy ファミリー向けタイトルは 3 月のニンテンドー 3DS シリーズおよび Wii U 向けニンテンドーeショップのサービス終了で半減したそうだ。 今回の調査はビデオゲームの保存を行う図書館や博物館などの組織に対する著作物利用の免除拡大が必要であることを示すことが目的だという。クラシックゲームの 13% が入手可能であれば入手性としてはそこそこと思われるが、ビデオゲームの歴史はベストセラーだけでない。ゲームパブリッシャーは歴史的なビデオゲームの保存を十分に行っていると主張するものの、今回の結果はそれが不十分であることを浮き彫りにしたとのことだ。

米国で2010年以前にリリースされたクラシックビデオゲームタイトル、87%が絶版という調査結果 | スラド YRO

Vlog: New Channel, 2023 Hugo Awards, and the VGHF's Game Preservation Report

Got a whole bunch of stuff to cover this time. Continue reading Untitled

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VGHF11 - COMPREI 59 COTAS, VEJA QUANTO VOU RECEBER DE DIVIDENDOS NO PRÓXIMO MÊS 💰🤑 DINHEIRO MENSAL

Neste vídeo eu mostro para vocês os meus dividendos de VGHF11 nesse mês de fevereiro, veja quanto vou receber de dinheiro com Fundos Imobiliários.   Veja o vídeo até o final, que você verá as cotas que comprei de vghf11 e quanto irei ganhar de dinheiro no próximo mês por esse investimento! Valor que é  quase suficiente para poder comprar mais um cota através do Magic Number. 💰💰💰🤑🤑🤑 Saiba como Obter uma renda mensal: e esse é o primeiro passo que pode te levar a uma renda muito maior, assista até o final! Você verá os valores na prática e ainda uma estratégia para te ajudar a investir. Quando investimos em Fundos Imobiliários recebemos mensalmente os dividendos, pagamento sobre as cotas que possuímos e para você ter resultados melhores é fundamental para o efeito bola de neve e construção do seu patrimônio, você reinvestir os dividendos! O dinheiro ganho e valores recebidos. Reinvestir os dividendos e continuar acrescentando a compra de novas cotas de fundos imobiliários todo mês com seu salário, até chegar a ganhar dinheiro mensal suficiente para viver de rendimentos. Informações sobre fundos imobiliários, fonte, site https://www.fundsexplorer.com.br/ SOBRE OS FUNDOS IMOBLIÁRIOS DE HOJE: VGHF 11 Vídeos que recomendo do canal: 1. QUANTO INVESTIR PRA RECEBER R$ 100,00 TODOS OS MESES DE FUNDO IMOBILIÁRIO: https://youtu.be/9k26ssX055c 2. INVESTINDO $447 EM FUNDO IMOBILIÁRIO + META DE INVESTIMENTOS em FIIS para Ganhar Dinheiro Mensal: https://youtu.be/e6s3KGm2MY4 REDES SOCIAIS: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/MarkInvesti... ************ Sobre o conteúdo dos vídeos e do canal: Nenhum vídeo é uma recomendação de investimentos, são demonstrações meramente educativas de minha trajetória investindo e exemplos didáticos de que é possível começar com pouco dinheiro e chegar a liberdade financeira. Vamos Juntos Rumo à Liberdade Financeira!                                                                Por Mark

VEJA QUANTO RECEBI DE DIVIDENDOS COM 200 COTAS DO FUNDO IMOBILIÁRIO VGHF...

Two By no means Earlier than Printed Nintendo Video games Hit eBay

In the event you’re into retro Nintendo video games, now’s your probability to take a look at two that nobody’s ever performed earlier than. The Verge first reported that two never-released NES video games have hit the market by way of eBay. Information of the video games’ existence was first extensively made recognized by Frank Cifaldi, the founder and co-director on the Video Recreation Historical past Basis. The inspiration reveals, preserves, and writes about retro video video games, and Cifaldi took to Twitter on Tuesday to debate the video games, which he’s deemed a reasonably miraculous discovery. “There are at the moment TWO unreleased, one-of-a-kind, never-digitized video games for the unique NES on eBay proper now,” Cifaldi tweeted. “This has actually by no means occurred earlier than. Our assets are stretched skinny, and we might use assist,” he mentioned, asking for donations to assist the Basis buy and protect the video games. What are the video games? One is named Battlefields of Napoleon and the quilt artwork and packaging for it appears like this: What’s the sport about? The packaging supplies a short abstract that sounds fairly wild: It’s the late 18th century, the time of Napoleon Bonaparte—solely now it’s you who controls Napoleon’s armies on all the foremost battlefields of Europe!…Relive Napoleon’s best campaigns with a military of as much as 240 males. Sounds bloodthirsty and wicked. Like it! The opposite sport shouldn’t be fairly as completed however guarantees some intrigue of its personal. Cifaldi described it as a “much less full, however possibly extra attention-grabbing” demo sport, developed by the corporate Uncommon, for the Energy Glove. In the event you don’t know in regards to the Energy Glove, take a look at our current protection of its wonderful resurgence into cultural relevance. “Everybody loves the Energy Glove, however do you know there’s just one launched sport that truly takes benefit of it? Effectively, right here’s a second!” “Each of those are actually cool,” he added. Gizmodo discovered what seems to be the posting for the video games on eBay: At present, the highest bid for Battlefields of Napolean is $5,200 and the Uncommon prototype demo goes for $5,655. The vendor describes the video games as having been “rescued from a dumpster” after one gaming firm purchased out one other in 1998. In the event you really feel like proudly owning a bit of online game historical past and have a number of grand to spare, you’ll be able to strive your luck at a bidding struggle with different nerds on the e-commerce web site. Higher but, we’d counsel sending some donations to Cifaldi and/or the VGHF so that somebody who actually is aware of what they’re doing can maintain onto these bizarre cultural articles and share them with the remainder of the world. In the event you’re focused on that, Cifaldi has requested that you just slide into his DMs, the place you’ll be able to “talk about tax-deductible choices [for donation] when you’re within the U.S.” Originally published at Irvine News HQ

VGHF Holiday Calendar Day 1: We remastered The Making of Riven

If you played Riven back in the day, you might remember the mini-doc that came with Riven. It was pretty great, but it was also compressed to hell in QuickTime.

As part of our project to digitize Cyan's archives, we went back to the original master tape for The Making of Riven and brought it back at unbelievable quality, including 4x the original framerate. Just look at this difference! Holy moly!

We're sharing this as part of our annual fundraiser! If you like what you see, please consider donating a couple bucks to the Video Game History Foundation's pledge drive to fund our next year of operations!

Universal Wrestling Corporation (Unreleased NES game)

https://hiddenpalace.org/News/Universal_Wrestling_Corporation_(Unreleased_NES_game)

Surprise! The unreleased NES game called UWC has now been released! A very special thanks to @Galliplay for acquiring and sharing the game and @frankcifaldi from @GameHistoryOrg for dumping and giving us an opportunity to release it!

Enjoy!