[gxd]

This is really important work.

Humanity has done a decent job at preserving artifacts from our past despite wars and the effects of time on our cultural output. Throughout history, books, paintings, sculptures, music, and other forms of art were the available outlets for artistic and creative people. With the rise of computers, video games joined the set of cultural works produced by our species. While one could argue that the artistic value of David and Pac-Man is not comparable, I prefer to adopt a more open-minded view of games. It's great that some people are giving video games proper attention, considering the enormous amount of time we spend playing them and the place they occupy in our childhood memories.

[reddalo]

I don't see why Pac-Man should be valued less than the statue of David. Of course they're different, but they both contributed to the culture heritage of the human species.

[Timwi]

The article focuses on games that were never released or never even completed. It could be argued that those (unlike Pac-Man) did not contribute to cultural heritage. This is obviously not to say that their preservation is unimportant; I just think it should be compared more to unfinished/unpublished works of art, not the statue of David. It's more like The Salmon of Doubt than it is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

[gxd]

You're right. My comparison was more about sculptures as art vs the games as art. If you don't believe them to be equivalent at some level, it would be difficult to find this preservation work worthwhile.

That said, unfinished games are similar to manuscripts of an unfinished book. Many such manuscripts have been published throughout history and are, in my opinion, part of our cultural heritage too.