'They refuse to offer a meaningful alternative': Game preservation leader agrees that piracy is the only preservation option for a discless future
Overview & Key Takeaways
The future of preservation is, as usual, on the PC.
Sony drove another nail into the coffin of physical videogames today, announcing that it'd cease production of PS5 discs in 2028. The future of the leading videogame console is total digital licensing, and according to the director of the Video Game History Foundation, that means the future of preservation, for the moment, must be piracy.
Responding to a Bluesky post calling piracy the "only extant form of media preservation that exists in games right now", VGHF director Frank Cifaldi agreed.
"As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate," Cifaldi wrote. "We have attempted to work with the industry's trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative."
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In a later statement from the VGHF, Cifaldi expanded on his criticism of the industry working against legal means of preserving its own works, while also noting that today's development is hardly a surprise.
"Museums and archives have been preparing for this future for a while, with the expectation that putting discs on a shelf isn't going to be a long-term solution for preserving new games.
As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate. We have attempted to work with the industry's trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative.
— @frankcifaldi.bsky.social (@frankcifaldi.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-01T22:40:26.096Z
"What continues to baffle us is what the industry expects institutions like ours to do about it. If platform owners are deciding to eliminate physical media and older digital storefronts, then we'd also like to see trade groups like the Entertainment Software Association offer meaningful solutions for archives and museums to legally preserve digital-only content and make it accessible for research. Everyone agrees this is a serious problem, but the ESA has repeatedly opposed the efforts of cultural heritage institutions to reform digital copy protection laws to make it easier to do this work."
Some hay has been made about the inevitability of Sony's decision, and how PC gamers readily adapted to the temporary, conditional ownership of digital libraries, but it's worth noting that the death of physical PC games was a painful transition blunted only by preservation efforts both official and grassroots.
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Statement from VGHF director Frank Cifaldi on the discontinuation of physical PlayStation media, and the closure of the PS3 and PSP digital storefronts.
— @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social (@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-01T22:40:26.113Z
The PC is a perennially backwards compatible platform—flexible and open enough that game preservation is a matter of will, not way. Classics persist both legally and dubiously, and function on the same machine you play new releases on. There is no PlayStation GOG, nor a formal plan from Sony to address its scheduled abandonware (the closure of the PS3 and PS Vita digital stores were part of today's unpopular announcements).
So the task will fall, as usual, to unofficial efforts.
