Really interesting video, it explains the importance of preserving games and how new games with online features will be affected in the future.

Very well written. The one thing I think this affects the most is innovation. Think about it. Innovation might be creating new ideas but they use already existing ideas for the most part. If this gaming "knowledge" is disapearing, then soon those young up-and-coming developers that never played the old school games, won't have that available knowledge to expand new ideas. 

Essentially, say that video game knowledge (VGK) ranges from 1980-2010 (Just using an example). That means that a game that starts developing in 2010 will have 30 years of VGK for a 40 year-old gaming if he started playing around age 10. But let's let the same game also has a younger developer, age 30, who also started gaming at age 10. (I'm using age 10 because you can clearly comprehend basic problem solving and aren't just mashing buttons). Now that younger developer can't use any of the available VGK for an entire 10 year span, because he started playing around the 1990's. 

Might seem overly complex, but this hurts innovation. The more available VGK to all developers means the industry expands to see new and better ideas. 

dude has some good points! And that's why people still will play Super Mario Bros. in 50 years and not CoD ^^ But I've seriously been thinking about this problem; what happens when we download all games??? we'll have a serious problem then.

We had this video posted already, but the discussion is no longer current, so i'll let this stay open.

This isn't really unique to gaming. Partially exacerbated by the need to preserve original hardware, but really just making sure that an emulation environment for all old systems exists (and hardware enough to take ROM dumps of old cartridges across consoles) is the best way to do this.

90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever. 50% of those made before 1950 are similarly totally gone.

Really? This video was posted yesterday on youtube. I know this guys (Extra Credits) have the show on Penny Arcade so maybe it was posted there long before.