Heya! I am Eberronguy, owner and sole proprietor of Project Luster Productions. I am a nerd, gamer, hobby historian, painter, and amateur game archivist.
To explain what I am here to do, I want to acquire and preserve old video games so that they may be preserved for future use by museums and gamers alike. Video games are an art form, and I treat them as such. I am no great critic or maker of games. But what I can do to help my favorite art form is to keep older games and consoles functioning, and record footage of these games for those who cannot get their hands on these games.
Why do this? Video games as a medium are still young, much younger than the film industry. The film industry has a particular issue with it's early days: much of the early days of film have been lost forever. To quote Wikipedia's page defining a lost film:
"A report created by Library of Congress film historian and archivist David Pierce claims:
75% of original silent-era films have perished.
14% of the 10,919 silent films released by major studios exist in their original 35mm or other formats.
11% survive only in full-length foreign versions or on film formats of lesser image quality.
Of the American sound films made from 1927 to 1950, an estimated half have been lost."
This is the history of a medium, and the history of an art form lost to time because efforts were not made to preserve these films. At the time movies were seen as a lesser art form compared to what was traditionally considered art. There was belief that these films would not have value after their theatrical runs, and many films were intentionally destroyed in order to create more storage space for newer films.
Video games are still young enough as a medium that a similar junking of the early history of the medium can still be prevented. That is my goal. To keep a working archive of video games, focused as of this post on the Nintendo 64, Playstation 1, and Dreamcast era of video games, that can be used by future historians and museums of this medium.
I hope you will aid me in this quest, and from the bottom of my heart thank you for your support!