Internet Archive Arcade and Console

scotland171 · Postby **scotland171** » November 3rd, 2014, 9:08 am

News is that the non profit Internet Archive has launched Internet Arcade. This is a collection of 900 arcade games, free to play, on your browser using a javascript emulator called JSMESS. This joins last years collection of console games called Console Living Room. There are assorted issues, but sounds fascinating from a legal, historical, and retro gaming point of view. The organization has an exemption from Americas DMCA law to preserve, but not distribute.

Anyone try these? Their servers are overloaded right now, so not sure what they have. Articles list Pac Man and Galaga at least. Atari 2600 ET though is mentioned specifically on wikipedia as abandonware in the console games they have preserved.

Astrosmasher1 · Postby **Astrosmasher1** » November 4th, 2014, 9:46 pm

Well I did .
I played Astro wars and it was very hard
Moon cresta and it was superb fun.
Astroblaster and I was impressed by the speech but the game is rock hard.
Tazzmania. Great but I was useless at it.
Cosmic alien yeah it really was just Galaxian.
Mad Alien another Galaxian type clone. One of the first games I got good at in the arcade.
Uniwars which has four different waves.
Jump Bug.
Amidar
Well I like it.

scotland171 · Postby **scotland171** » November 6th, 2014, 9:29 am

This is a related issue. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, another nonprofit, has applied for a DMCA exemption to modify software that requires a server authentification to keep it playable after the server goes dark. The article here http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/05/electronic_frontier_foundation_is_petitioning_to_put_abandoned_video_games.html
mentions games like Mario Kart Wii, but the exemption application mentions EA and Madden 09 as examples.

Which is good news for retrogamers if it does become legal to patch over these anti piracy measures in games in the online era.

Postby **scotland** » April 14th, 2015, 10:32 am

scotland171 wrote:The Electronic Frontier Foundation, another nonprofit, has applied for a DMCA exemption to modify software that requires a server authentification to keep it playable after the server goes dark.

Updating this story, the ESA, the Entertainment Software Association, is disputing this proposed exception to the US DMCA law saying that any hacking is leads to piracy. As games continue to move to being online or requiring some contact with an authorized server to work, this will grow in importance.