Gaming industry icon Cliff Bleszinski has been a vocal advocate for video game preservation, something he says has never been more important than it is now.
Bleszinski sees game preservation as a huge issue
Speaking to ComingSoon, Bleszinski touched on his inclusion in the 2022 Atari 50 release, which saw Bleszinski take part in a video interview on the importance Atari had on him. According to Bleszinski, video game preservation is “a huge issue in the industry right now,” namely due to the nature of games-as-a-service games.
“But I think video game preservation is a huge issue in the industry right now, because I think games -as-a-service … I understand why we’re doing it right now as an industry, but also, to some extent, I think it’s a bit of a mistake,” said Bleszinski. “It’s kind of nickel-and-diming the customers, but also, you don’t have a cartridge. You don’t have a CD. You don’t have physical media anymore. So it’s the same thing. Like when you rent a movie on Amazon Prime, do you own this? They could revoke that at any given moment.”
Bleszinski went on to say that he’s met with the people behind the Game History Museum in Dallas, Texas, and is an advocate for showing off the history and behind-the-scenes work that makes the video game industry what it is.
“That’s the thing — there’s the video Game History Museum in Dallas — I think it’s in Dallas,” Bleszinski said. “I met up with those guys at one point. But I think that’s really a major issue for the industry in showing off the evolution and also the behind-the-scenes and the hard work of the developers that busted their butts to make these products — that’s also a crucial part of the story. But yeah, it really is a concern of mine.”
