TL;DR - Here’s the relevant quote:
“there would be a significant risk that preserved video games would be used for recreational purposes.”
So lemme get this straight… You don’t want people to have fun with your games? That’s why you blocked them from being preserved and why you don’t bother selling them in any capacity? Are you dumb?
Acknowledging the demand, but doing nothing to capitalize on it, is pretty fucking stupid. People already pirate a lot of retro shit because it is literally the only way to obtain them. You wanna stop most of that? Fucking sell them somewhere.
I think the motivation is that it’s difficult for them to show off their newer games to shareholders in a positive light if the old games are doing better. They want people to not dwell on older games and just keep paying money on the next new game, which are often low effort and dragged by the coat tails of some past legacy.
It’s about maximising profit and growth outlook with the least amount of investment and effort, not about providing fair access to their catalogue of products
I don’t know a single investor that would not like a game studio that said “we have a massive back catalog of IP that is raking in cash with nearly no additional development or maintenance cost. We’ll try to keep making new games to keep the IP fresh and see if we hit it big again, but in the meantime, enjoy the money printing machine back catalog”.
It’s basically what Disney does at this point.
And, for that matter, record/music labels. Most records labels lose money on the majority of new artists they sign. It’s the 1-in-10 that break even and 1-1000 that go big and the 1-in-10,000 that fill out huge back catalog they just keep milking.
You are assuming old IP rake in cash, but I assume that the initial purchase is the major revenue along with any DLC. That is the usual model for older games. Live action games rake in continuous cash via micro-transactions and seasonal passes but not any retro games. All the time spent playing retro games is the time they could’ve been playing modern games with micro transactions, is what some publishers reason I reckon.
If only old games were as easy to maintain across every conceivable platform like movies and music are.
