“The video game industry’s main lobbying group has successfully argued to the US Copyright Office that the industry already does enough to preserve its own history commercially, and that additional protections for preservation institutions would hurt their bottom line.”
The Video Game History Foundation sampled 1,500 games released before 2010 and found 13% still for sale. No era cracked 20%. The Entertainment Software Association keeps telling the Copyright Office the market preserves games just fine, so libraries don’t need DMCA exemptions. A $180 billion industry sells back one game in eight and lobbies against the libraries trying to save the rest.