cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/61122592
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43693666
Just a reminder: this was never the sole source of any data. It does not need to be backed up. If you’re genuinely interested in preservation, try not to get swept up in the hype around this site going down, because there’s a mess of confusion being spread by people who mean well but do not understand the situation.
This does suck, it was a good easily-accessible public source of this data, but only convenience is lost.
What is the less convenient way to access it?
Various websites hosting individual romsets, a good chunk of it is on archive.org, there are projects like mariocube, basically a lot of different places depending on what you’re after. And there are some private invite-only data troves the scale of myrient as well.
Of note, the preservation scene uses dat files to distribute metadata about the data in question, allowing managers like ROMVault to take a pile of files and rename/move them into a file structure designating what they are and confirming that they’re undamaged. If you’re going to start trying to collect, look into doing it this way, rather than trying to just mirror someone else’s work.
“Fortunately, the site’s Discord server and Telegram channel will remain accessible, so there’s still a place for gamers and preservationists to come together to discuss saving their favorite titles.”
So it really is over then. Sad day, wish someone wealthy would step up and just fund it forever with their pocket change.
Anna’s Archive should back it up.



