The other day, I felt like booting up an old game, one of the Myst series. The heyday of Myst wasn't so long ago; Myst III: Exile, was released in 2002. That makes it the same vintage as Minority Report, The Bourne Identity and the first series of Spooks: if you wanted to watch any of those, you'd have no trouble getting hold of, or playing, a DVD.
But in game terms, eight years is a lifetime. Although my copy of Exile is Mac-compatible, it wouldn't run on my new MacBook. I had to dig out an old Windows machine and fiddle with the graphics card settings to make it work. I've had even more trouble trying to play older games on new machines: some won't run at all, some run without sound or video, one wouldn't work because the website to verify that I own a legitimate copy no longer exists.
This is a real problem. It's not just that I can't play my old favourites, it's that the development of any artform is based on being able to be inspired by other people's work – creations that are more than two or three years old. The National Videogame Archive is trying to preserve games and game equipment for posterity, and various emulators of older machines are available to download, but this is an issue that ought to be addressed comprehensively.
If the British Library collects copies of every ISBNed book, why can't a British games library collect every game – and make sure it's easily available to play? Otherwise gaming is in danger of becoming an art form without a memory: and those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat that level again and again.
