I guess my perspective may be different to many people who don't see any problems here, because I came here from HotU, a site that was dedicated to preserving old games, but one that didn't present complete working solutions like GOG does. I think that people may underestimate the difficulties involved in getting these old games running, because GOG makes it seem so easy.

A coffee mug from there is one of my most priced possessions. :)
After I joined GOG I almost stopped going there because every time I went there I got reminded about how many really old games (Especially Strategy, Tactical and RPGs.) that aren't on GOG. It's even greater than GOG regarding nostalgia fixes though.

DOSBox works on Windows 95 and NT4 and they were released in 1995/6 and continues to work on Windows 10...so 20 years in that case.

DOSBox uses SDL and even if SDL becomes incompatible or drops out there will alway be something else to replace it.

*SDL 2.0 dropped 2000 and below support so if/when DOSBox uses that and no one bothers to continue developing DOSBox on SDL1.2 you'll still be able to run the latest version of DOSBox on XP+ systems just fine.

Just ignore the article. It's a bunch of FUD. It's obvious he hasn't kept up with the scene on what people have been doing to keep games alive over the years.

As for graphics issues we've always have various hacks but as far as wrapping just graphics we have Nglide\WineD3D\DGvoodoo. And if anyone has been following the latest ver of DGVoodoo Dege has been fixing <=DX7 games to work on modern versions of windows via DX11 and he's run into alot of buggy games.

Also Windows8+ has WARP built in so worse comes to worse just disable your video card in device manager and BAM! you can now emulate D3D in software. It will be super slow depending on what you run on it but it'll run. So in 2035 you should have no issues with using WARP in Vmware to play Witcher 3 (assuming Vmware is still around but there will be an equivalent). (In this scenario I'm assuming an issue with Vmware supporting a DX11 game in 2035 for whatever reason. Lack of support, graphics, driver issue, etc)

There is a patch for DOSBox which supports emulation of <=D3D7 as well.

etc,etc,etc,etc. I could go on all day.

Just to also confirm that yeah, I played that game on a Windows 7/64bit machine before. I think that game was offered free on Steam at some point, that's why I have it.

Oddly, I felt it looked far worse than in those pictures. It felt closer to GTA3 level graphics, those graphics look fancier.

I am not saying that there is no effort required. But i would say that getting Max Payne or similiar troublemakers to run on a modern Windows requires less effort than emulating a whole system, aka writing a DOS Emulator. By all indications you could say the situation is getting better not worse. Not even speaking of the work needed to run, lets say, a PS2 game on a modern windows. So when we speak of the "required effort" it is all a bit relative, i think ;)

And you might even ask the question how much of our (percieved) backward compatibility problems come from the fact that most of us limit themselves to the newest OS from Microsoft. And thereby are completely at mercy to whatever MS decides to do in regards to keep old programs running.
As I said earlier people probably would be astonished just how many old <DX8 games "just work" under WINE on linux. Without any compatibility settings. Max Payne for example. Or Rollercoaster Tycoon, another rather problematic game under windows.
heck, go and get an old 16bit win3.11 game like stars! and it will just work under wine. Even on your modern 64bit system.

I am not saying that WINE is already the perfect solution. It certainly isn't. But it is a very solid foundation to build us a everlasting, free, compatible windows alternative.
So for me I see, on the pc platform, more positive than negative signs for preserving our games. Now look instead at the status of games from the original XBox. That is depressing.

That is why all the negativity in the article annoys me a bit. At least for the software/hardware part. He certainly has a point with regards to licences & DRM.

I would have said the same, but lately it has seemed to me that big parts of home computing has actually moved to non-x86 iOS and Android devices. I don't consider it impossible or even improbable anymore that in 10 years a home computer, or even an office computer, could be e.g. some Android device or similar (or whatever derivatives we have then).

I think iOS and especially Android are the first real crack to Microsoft's hegemony in home and office computing. Then again, it is also possible all these Android and iOS devices end up being a fad... but at this point I'm starting to feel the opposite.

Earlier (Windows) PCs had very little to worry about. Sure many chose to play games on consoles instead, but practically every househoid still wanted to have some kind of PC too, in order to get to internet, make documents (school work) etc. Not to mention that offices need personal computers too. That need (to have a PC in the house) may be unfortunately vanishing with these alternative devices that more and more seem to be here to stay.

For the record, at this point I hope for PC's survival, as I personally don't feel tablets and such are quite ready yet to inherit their place. But who knows, that might change someday. Similarly like at some point people felt they don't need a fixed line phone at home anymore, mobile phone(s) were good enough for that purpose (and in many ways superior, as you could always have it with you, even when not at home).

It's going to be a long time until reliable low-level 32-bit PC emulation becomes feasible, but Bochs and DOSBox have already gone a long way towards ensuring this. A propos emulation, this is where consoles become useful, because the hardware provides a reliable and consistent standard upon which to base emulation. Heck, we're already seeing encouraging progress in PS3 and Xbox 360 emulation, even if current PC hardware is nowhere near good enough to emulate it. All that's needed is for people to take good care of their disc copies of games.

It's easy to lament that "the only way to run yesterday's games is to own yesterday's hardware", but that's always been a given. That will always be a given. Preservation is only possible with work. If you want to play ancient movies with non-standard reel gauges, you have to have the relevant hardware, which may mean maintenance and repair work. If you want to play C64 games, you have to have a C64 or equivalent emulation. I have three C64s downstairs, all of which work perfectly, and I have 30-year-old games for them that still work to this day, because I put the work into ensuring that the hardware continues to function.

The phone-home DRM on most PC games post-2009 and downloadable exclusives on consoles is going to be the biggest problem, because unlike local copy protection, where all of the data required is present on the host hardware or storage medium, much of the data required for online DRM to work is hosted on a remote server that will definitely be offline in 10-15 years. Anyone who believes that Steam, Origin and UPlay will still exist in 10-15 years from now is deluding themselves. I very much doubt that Valve will continue to exist in its current form then, and Ubisoft and EA will probably have lost interest in maintaining their respective services, if these companies still exist. The same applies to the downloadables on PSN, WiiWare and Xbox Live, although I will say at this point that the games on physical media are pretty safe - the respective emulators are already capable of reading original discs, so the only thing that is likely to be lost are the patches, which really only affects games that are fundamentally broken on release.

In that sense, I think we can be thankful that there are comparatively few downloadable exclusives on the consoles, and that most indie games also see DRM-free PC releases. Still, in years to come, it's unlikely that games like Super Stardust HD on the PS3 will continue to exist.

Games on PC have to be cracked on a specific basis, and cracks are not going to be available for every game. Cracking anti-piracy measures is not exactly the easiest thing to do either - it requires specialist knowledge.

Sure, some of the more popular mainstream titles will be available, and stuff that was available DRM-free (like on here) will be spared this fate. But much of what is on Steam, PSN and Xbox Live will be lost for no other reason than the developers and publishers being so short-sighted and fanboyish to realise that no online service lasts forever.

I personally think it will be harder to get Max Payne running 10 years from now than it is to get it to run now (and I haven't even gotten it to run yet). And yes, emulating a whole system is difficult, and it will only get more difficult as the systems get more complex, require more libraries, etc. The work so far has been done by hobbyists for the most part, but the amount and the complexity of it increases constantly. I'm a pessimist like Shamus in this regard, and I'm inclined to think that a "don't worry, someone will fix it" mentality that we have been operating on so far will only take us so far.

One factor which both simplifies and complicates games going forward is the reliance on prebuilt engines (such as Unity). In theory these can simplify preservation, in that if someone designs a VM or what-have-you that supports the engine, then in theory a lot of the work is done in shifting the game over. However, it also complicates things, in that the engines themselves are complex beasts and may have a number of dedicated or proprietary libraries required that an independently designed game does not.

Honestly, the easiest way to preserve a game is to preserve the source code. But the nature of the business precludes that in most commercial circumstances.