If the protection of video game heritage is primarily concerned with the protection of code and data, we must not forget the whole physical aspect, especially the protection of cassettes, CDs or floppy disks. But it also deals with jackets and manuals, equally important in this brief and dense history of the media. There is little development at the level of national cultural institutions, and even though the BNF works hard in France, this desire to protect often remains the prerogative of associations, foundations or individuals.
That’s the case of a certain Kirkland who spent a lot of time scanning over 1,900 PlayStation 2 game manuals in 4K resolution, the entire US catalog of Sony machines. Questioned by Kotaku, who explained that he not only wanted to emphasize the act of saving, but also to maintain the instructions required for each game to operate:”The goal is to raise awareness of game conservation efforts.So many games shape the way we see and experience the world […] Great effort has been made to preserve the game: VGHF, Strong Museum, and good tools for pre-popular operations like MAME, redump.org, No-Intro, and Cowering. I kept thinking, “Great! We’ll be able to keep everything.” But without the manual, we wouldn’t know how to play it.“.
Titan’s work, available on the renowned Archive.org repository, accessible to all. Kirkland was equally bitter that it would be easier and more effective for the companies involved to archive their products (or they did at the time), but again, that awareness took a long time to set. It’s still in the minority. As a result, Kirkland continues its expensive collection and now has 7,500 manuals, spread across different consoles, of which 3,000 have been scanned.