Where do you preserve random information about physical games (scans, manual PDFs, disk images, etc?)

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

I have some obscure games that have low res, watermarked, or no scans online, probably some manuals that aren't available as PDFs, and some disk and tape images that might not be available. I don't have enough information to make my own book on any one topic like @fcgamer or anything. I just have a few microcomputer games and such that might be on the edges of what's available online.

I know for sure I must have many, many variants that don't have high res scans. Even something like TLOZ on NES. Look up scans online, I don't immediately see a high res no rev-A NES® variant scanned and that's like one of the biggest games of all time.

Is there like... a community or place people gather this kind of material? Do I just post random archive.org collections of individual games with tags and hope that anyone who needs this kind of thing comes across my uploads in a search?

[T-Pac | 7,560]

In have a set of ROM dumpers that I use to digitize (nearly) all of the cartridge games that I add to my collection. (For playing in emulators and for archiving just in case the physical cart gets lost or damaged.)

I don't have a system for archiving paper-stuff, but I've started to add Atari manuals to my collection and I should really digitize those for safe-keeping as well.

I don't share any of these files online, though, since I hold an ethical stance against that kind of piracy. But none of the stuff I archive exists outside of the well-documented retail realm anyway, so I don't feel like I'm doing a disservice to video-game preservation or anything.

-CasualCart

[phart010 | 1,708]

Just post it here and someone will eventually catalogue/archive it

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

If you made your own thread on thecoverproject.net they would definitely like the scans of labels and boxes, https://emumovies.com/ seems to be a great repository for manuals and other scans as well 

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

Oh man thought I updated this but Gaming Alexandria discord pointed me here, which basically answered most of my questions. They use a standard-ish format on archive.org: https://scanning.guide/sharing-your-scans

[Hiccup | 3]

https://www.preservegames.org/

(note: contributing ROM info/data does not require piracy - hashes or patches are enough in most cases)

Edited September 2, 2022 by Hiccup

[spacepup | 2,405]

Thanks for sharing that Hiccup, and also DefaultGen!

I'm glad to see the scanning.guide making the rounds and helping people out.  It is currently hosted and maintained by Hit Save, which is a nonprofit preservation-related organization.  I'm on the board there and we are working on making more guides available, for similar purposes.  

It isn't something I've talked a whole lot about here on VGS, but if anyone is interested, please check out our website here or feel free to reach out to me if you have any projects you need help with:

https://hitsave.org/

Thanks!