Give Rec Room to the Internet Archive so it can at least be preserved for the future
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With the Rec Room servers shutting down today, I keep thinking about how much history is about to disappear.
Over the years, millions of players created rooms, inventions, games, artwork, events, videos, and memories inside Rec Room. That’s a huge amount of creative work and digital culture. Once the servers go offline, much of that may be lost forever.
I know keeping a live online game running is expensive, but I wonder whether there is a way for the developers to work with organizations such as Internet Archive or other game-preservation groups to archive as much of Rec Room as possible. Even if the game can no longer operate as a live service, perhaps historical builds, assets, screenshots, videos, documentation, or even server software could be preserved for researchers, historians, and former players.
We preserve books, films, music, and other important parts of culture. Online virtual worlds are also part of our cultural history, and it would be unfortunate if Rec Room simply vanished without any effort to preserve it.
What do you think? Should online games have a preservation plan before they shut down?