Sony’s recent announcement that it will discontinue PlayStation physical discs starting in 2028 has become a hot topic. It is not just consumers who are concerned; the academic community, which preserves and studies games, is also voicing its alarm. As game development in South Korea began in the 1990s, efforts and research for title preservation are finally emerging. Since the 14th, the National Library of Korea has been hosting a small exhibition titled 'Turning Back on Discontinued Korean Games', and on the 22nd, a seminar on the preservation and utilization of discontinued games was held. Domestic researchers and game preservation experts gathered to discuss research achievements, the current status, and the necessity of preserving game titles.

First, Professor Lee Jeong-yeop of Soonchunhyang University presented the realistic progress of a foundational project for collecting and preserving discontinued software. Professor Lee Jeong-yeop noted that when the initial discontinued software preservation project began, they faced difficulties in database collection due to many online games being difficult to restore and many developers having disappeared. Therefore, they started by creating a database of which games actually existed. For the console sector, they utilized books such as the 'Perfect Catalog'.

Since many domestic games do not appear in books, they chose to organize approximately 65,000 titles based on internet materials and review data from the Motion Picture Rating Committee, which existed before the Game Rating and Administration Committee was established. Professor Lee Jeong-yeop stated, "Even the Game Rating and Administration Committee had old game lists stored on old servers that were difficult to operate," adding, "We collected and organized as much as we could." Based on this database, they created 12 metadata standards to enable the classification of domestic games, designing the foundation for game preservation.

Next, Yoon Dae-jin, Team Leader at the Game Culture Foundation, spoke about the current status and necessity of preserving domestic game records. Games can be seen as a mirror of the era and a heritage containing the lives and philosophies of modern people from humanistic, aesthetic, socio-cultural, and media perspectives. In South Korea, the game industry began in the 1990s, went through the development period of online games, and reached the present through the history of MMORPGs and domestic regulations. Yoon Dae-jin pointed out that while the history of domestic games is spectacular, the heritage is not being preserved.

Companies face difficulties due to trade secrets, copyright, and cost burdens, as well as technical challenges such as changes in computing environments and server dependency. Currently, efforts in South Korea are centered on private companies like Nexon and Netmarble, and in the public sector, the most data remains with the Game Rating and Administration Committee, which is in charge of rating classification and regulatory administration. Yoon Dae-jin emphasized, "Preservation of domestic games is urgent for cultural, industrial, and technical value," and added, "Complementary national and institutional methods such as a digital deposit system and exemption rights for emulators of service-terminated games are necessary."

Third, Nexon Museum Director Park Doo-san presented on the methods and direction of game preservation. First, he explained game archiving by dividing it into objects, interactions, and social relationships. First, game objects refer to the devices used for playing. Material and technical targets change depending on the platform. Through arcades, consoles, PC, digital downloads, and streaming, material elements effectively disappear. The ComputerSpieleMuseum, which opened in 1997, aims not only to exhibit vast amounts of original hardware but also to recreate the usage environment (home, attic, etc.).

The archive of interaction focuses mainly on the play aspect. The Museum of Modern Art in New York is a representative example, using 'good interaction' as a standard for games like Pac-Man, Tetris, and Myst. If early games set the ending as the goal, later games elicited gamer reactions based on various experiences such as ethical decision-making and a spirit of challenge. Such interactions also become subjects of preservation. The archive of social relationships deals with the economy, war, and diplomacy as these interactions intertwine. Director Park Doo-san said, "We must think about how to preserve the relationship between games, society, and culture at the time, such as the guild culture of World of Warcraft, the wars of EVE Online, and the emergent server maintenance of Minecraft."

Nexon initially focused on physical preservation, centering on the history of computing technology development. However, the new exhibition started from the point of what traces games left on people's lifestyles and relationships. The second floor exhibited PC packages where games moved beyond individual hobbies to collective interests, while the third floor focused on individual narratives, introducing methods such as game characters encountered in the past based on Nexon IDs.

Each piece of software is an important historical document containing the experiences, memories, and records of the Korean people. In particular, games are digital complex cultural heritage that are popular records but disappear when servers are closed or are placed in a situation where game ownership changes to usage rights. Curator Lee Yeon-soo said, "We are in a preservation crisis, with Sony announcing the discontinuation of optical media production," and added, "There is no game deposit collection system in Korea, so I wanted to remind people of the importance of preservation through this exhibition." She also announced plans to make the National Library of Korea a hub for national game heritage archiving, launch a preservation cooperation governance, and build a National Library of Korea repository in Pyeongchang after 2028.