Game history and preservation is such an overwhelming concept. Some things are easy, like a game that lives inside a cartridge. That is a definitive version of the thing. But some games were online-only, or on services that no longer exist, and even then continually updated and changed over time. They’re houses built on sand, enjoyed in the moment but not meant to last.

How does one tell the story of a game when the game is no longer the game one remembers? Impressions of the time? Perfect recreations? And beyond the thing itself is the feelings of it, the memories of having played that thing at that time in that place, and how it has informed what you do.

The stories from people who worked on them, and played them, and cared about those games in ways others cannot understand, it’s that stuff that worries me, because I want us to have it all. I want it all to be with us, regardless of any degree of importance placed upon those stories by an industry and culture that tells us to move forward, there are new games, please just buy and play our new games so that we may continue to exist and profit from this work.

Maybe rote data is the most we can hope for. This happened on this date, in these places. You may find it, and experience it for yourself, if enough people cared enough to preserve it for you. You may make an obsession of it and become the one who preserved it.

This is the most important thing in the world, and it doesn’t matter at all. What makes it into the canon is as meaningless as putting a flag in the ground and saying this dirt is mine.