Kong: Skull Island Director Leads Online Discussion On Video Game Preservation

Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts proved that he could handle a big monster movie along with the best of ’em, as Kong: Skull Island proved to be a monstrous hit with casual audiences and fans of the Godzilla/Kong style flicks alike.

But he’s also a devoted video game fan. Not only is he hard at work on a video game-to-movie adaptation of Metal Gear Solid, but he also began a thought-provoking conversation on Twitter, focusing on the importance of video game preservation.

“The video game industry needs to solve how we prevent ‘bit rot’ of old games,” he explained. “We need a legacy-proof fusion of a Virtual console with Netflix & Steam that doesn’t reset each console generation. This will help ensure an ability to pass on the experience of old games.”

While there are cloud-based gaming services available, most of them don’t really have “classics on demand,” save for PlayStation Now, which has a number of PlayStation 3 games on hand.

And Nintendo is adding classic games to its Nintendo Online service when it launches this September, though it’ll be a certain set of titles each month, instead of a large Netflix-style library.

“The sad thing is this still doesn’t replicate the issue of not using the original controller for a game which I would argue is part of the sense-memory experience,” Vogt-Roberts explained. “Wii games will likely be lost in the catacombs of history unless you dig up the console and controllers.”

He’s right in a way. We like to relive classic NES and SNES games with the right hardware, which explains why both the NES Classic and SNES Classic were big sellers for Nintendo.

“I’d argue this is a bigger chasm than seeing a film projected on a filmprint vs. digital. Also bigger than digital vs. vinyl. Games are DESIGNED for the controller. Maybe it matters less now as all controllers are similar. But NES, N64, GameCube, Dreamcast are different experiences.”

A number of people have since contributed to this conversation, including IDARB producer Mike Mika, Videoball director Tim Rogers and more. But Roberts’ thoughts are definitely something to think about, especially for those that want to celebrate the retro gaming scene, which is still quite popular with a lot of people.

“I honestly don’t know how it gets fixed,” Roberts explained. “The fact that Nintendo doesn’t have a Netflix style catalogue of all their games is insane to me. Stop resetting between generations. How does this get future proofed? Just put up the entire library, don’t release new games every week. Oy.”

Of course, there are some things to consider with all games being put up on a service as part of a library. Number one, licensing, which has caused some games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and others to be left on the backburner. Number two, some games just can’t run well on emulation – Nintendo still hasn’t come up with a way to get the original Contra running on any of their systems, save for the original NES where it debuted.

Still, check out the whole conversation here. Vogt-Roberts brings up some amazing points, and it kind of makes you think about whether any kind of classic gaming service can be introduced for a new generation to enjoy. Of course, we always have the NES Classic and SNES Classic, and the high hopes that the Nintendo 64 Classic will follow.

No word on a release date for Metal Gear Solid, as it’s likely still deep in pre-production.

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