VGHF director says piracy is the only viable game preservation option as Sony kills physical media

Sony announced it will stop producing PS5 discs in 2028 and is closing the PS3 and PS Vita digital storefronts — and the director of the Video Game History Foundation says that, for now, piracy is the only realistic preservation option left.

Frank Cifaldi, VGHF director, responded to a Bluesky post calling piracy "the only extant form of media preservation that exists in games right now" with a blunt endorsement: "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." He added that the VGHF has tried to work with the industry's trade organization to find a legal path forward, but that they "refuse to offer a meaningful alternative." In a follow-up statement, Cifaldi called out the Entertainment Software Association specifically, noting that the ESA has repeatedly opposed efforts by cultural heritage institutions to reform digital copy protection laws — the very laws that would allow museums and archives to legally preserve and provide research access to digital-only content. He said the industry's silence on what institutions like the VGHF are supposed to do about it continues to baffle him.

The comparison to PC gaming is instructive but imperfect. The death of physical PC games was a rough transition, softened over time by both official efforts like GOG and grassroots preservation communities. The PC is also an inherently open, backwards-compatible platform — old games can run on the same machine as new ones, and there are legal storefronts that sell classic titles. PlayStation has none of that infrastructure. There is no PlayStation equivalent of GOG, no formal backwards compatibility plan that spans generations, and Sony's announcement today adds the PS3 and PS Vita store closures to an already grim picture of scheduled abandonware.

The VGHF's position is a stark one: the industry is actively eliminating the legal mechanisms that preservation could rely on while simultaneously blocking the legal reforms that would create new ones. Until that changes, unofficial efforts will carry the load — as they always have.