Video games, emulators, and digital preservation
The term emulator means a program of some sort allows one computer or software to look and do what another one does. This is great for the gaming community. Different emulator websites allow people to live in nostalgia while playing old video games from their childhood on their laptops. I was absolutely obsessed with video games when I was younger. I use to play “educational” video games on my family computer, browse websites for games, play Sims, Zoo Tycoon, and more. Then, I moved to Gameboy, Game Cube, DS, etc. I loved the way a game could put you into a completely new, different reality. I also had an older brother who would love to hog video games, so I watched him play a lot of his games, which I was too young to actually play myself.
These emulator websites are new to me. I have only ever heard of and used game websites that look like they’ll give you a virus. Emulators help with digital preservation by sharing an old, forgotten game to millions of people. when I was playing, I forgot how slow the loading screens are, and just the game in general. One of the games I chose to play on the Internet Archive Living Room game collection was Harvest Moon-Back to Nature. I didn’t have this exact game, but a version that was really similar. Every once in awhile I remember games I used to play, but can never remember the visuals. Emulators help us fully remember and even play some of our old childhood favorites! Maybe even one day we can show our kids and grandkids the games we used to play when we were young. These are obvious advantages, but there are disadvantages. The games were much more difficult to play, and most wouldn’t load for me. It also took awhile to download, just for it to not effectively work. A loss in my opinion, is you almost tear down the idea you had of your childhood games. Although it’s really exciting to see them and remember how you used to love them, you also realize the love and joy isn’t there anymore. Sometimes it’s better for the games to just be a memory!
I actually attended a workshop today for my DS 340 class on archiving. I was really surprised at the effort, time, and money that goes into any kind of archiving. Digital preservation is wonderful, and really cool that we are learning how to do this. There is still so much work to be done on it though. Many people, myself included, see posting things online as “archiving.” When in reality, one day the Internet will probably run out of space and we’ll lose a lot of our content and memories. Humans haven’t figured out fully how to archive, there’s still learning to be done about this. Mistakes happen as well. A scratch on your favorite CD and it’s information can’t be read. The data you just saved is gone.
Overall, it’s really great that we can preserve pictures, videos, notes, and even video games online. There’s a lot more room for growth, but who knows the places it could go!
