digital preservation and archivist friends: it came to my attention recently that mobygames was bought by some trashy atari holding corporation a few years ago. all of the scans and item entries that many of us slaved over for the past 25 years were sold off. anyone submitting mobygames entries/updates are effectively working for free now.

i can't say i'm unhappy to see it going downhill with the new owners. updates to entries went from taking 1 day for approval from moderators, to 4-6 months.

it also had a frustrating limitation of declaring any software outside of its very traditional definition of game as out-of-scope.

that being said, it's a critical service for those researching and writing about games.

i'd like to know if there are any publicly-owned database initiatives in development to replace and/or subsume mobygames.

and if not, let's build one.