from New York Times -
Is That Just Some Game? No, It’s a Cultural Artifact
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A sure sign of the coming of age of popular culture is when it is seriously considered for preservation. This we can say of video and arcade games, while still mindful of the complexity of the task ahead:

"[P]reserving video games presented certain challenges. For example the hardware that games are played on changes so frequently that there are already thousands that can only be played through computer programs called emulators, which, while readily available on the Internet, technically violate copyright laws."