"Currently, in our bank account, we have £2100 (around $2800). It's not even enough to pay the rent for one month," explains Joseph Redon, head of the Japanese Game Preservation Society. He's describing the end of the non-profit organisation he set up in 2011 with the aim of properly safeguarding Japanese gaming history before it is lost forever.
The GPS has successfully preserved thousands of Japanese games—including many floppy discs, which have a finite lifespan—and related media, such as magazines and books. Honorary members of the society include Tomohiro Nishikado (creator of Space Invaders), Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage composer), Yoshio Kiya (Dragon Slayer, Sorcerian) and Tokihiro Naito (creator of Hydlide)—yet, despite attracting the support of such legendary figures and operating in one of the world's most influential nations when it comes to interactive entertainment, the organisation is on its last legs.
"I'm paying 25% of the rent," reveals Redon. "Meaning we are already virtually out of business. We have monthly supporters but are losing between £260 and £420 every month. So when you do the maths, we are completely out of cash in September. And a non-profit organization cannot be out of cash. We're then out of business. What we really need is to bring in at least £750 every month. It's not that much if it's 400 people giving £2 a month. Some people might give more, so we need 300 people to become supporters so that we can stay afloat. Otherwise, we shut the laboratory and won't have a place to do preservation or archiving. It's the end of the adventure."
Sadly, this is not news to us here at Time Extension, as we've known about the difficulties for over a year now. In fact, Redon was hospitalised in December for stress and made plans to step down as head of the organisation. For over a decade, he's been subsidising and keeping the GPS afloat with his own money from his day job in Japan. Members of the GPS are volunteers, and there are limited funds to pay people for work.
The process of preserving video game history isn't an easy one, especially when you consider that the industry, as a whole, doesn't seem particularly interested in safeguarding its legacy. However, GPS's closest Western equivalent, The Video Game History Foundation, has achieved considerable success and attracted plenty of support. The VGHF annual tax returns are publicly accessible and reveal that its founder's salary alone nearly outstrips the GPS' annual budget. [Editor's note: Contrary to assumptions that have been made since this piece went live, the salary in question is not referenced because it is outrageous—in fact, it's very modest for someone occupying a senior role in San Fransico's Bay area. The comparison is made purely to illustrate the yawning gulf in preservation efforts on both sides of the Pacific; the GPS could never dream of paying a single person the same amount.] For comparison, you can find the funding breakdown for the GPS in every newsletter; as an NPO, every penny is accountable. Sadly, the February 2025 newsletter has only two downloads as of writing this article in April.
That the newsletter has so few downloads is puzzling, because it's packed with amazing content. It contains a mini interview with Dragon Quest programmer Kouichi Nakamura; a detailed feature on Japan's game programming contests from the 1980s and another detailed feature on the preservation of mobile phone games. You've seen all the news about phone game preservation? The GPS was instrumental in many of these. In addition, the newsletter has other news and tidbits. Yet, in two months, it has had only two downloads (and one of those was this article's author).
Part of this seems to be an outreach problem, with Redon busy with GPS activities and only one other core member speaking native English. Although not a member of the team, I've personally tried to help as best I can. I organised a page on Games Press with press releases and photos, but not one website has written news stories on anything.
The GPS even funded the writing of a Tomohiro Nishikado news piece, and in-depth research into the history of erotic games, which revealed some fascinating background to Yuji Horii. Rather than being commissioned as freelance by Time Extension, the authors of these articles took a considerably lower commission to help the GPS. For the erotic article, the author ultimately declined payment. The result? Not one new member, and Redon had to justify himself to the GPS board members for wasting funds on foreign press articles which produced no tangible results.
The GPS receives some government funding—last year, it got more money from subsidies than from donations—but this brings its own problems. Government money can only be used to pay salaries; for example, someone spends a day migrating games and documents. But this requires a rented HQ, electricity, transport costs, equipment, taxes, and the items themselves, none of which can be paid out of the subsidies. So, to receive money, the GPS must spend money, and, in an ironic twist, by using government funds, the organisation actually loses money. Given the current lack of cash, the organisation is no longer eligible to receive subsidies since it cannot actually make use of them.
Attempts by the GPS to leverage its industry contacts and produce high-quality video documentaries have also failed. It produced one on Yuuichi Toyama, creator of the original RTS progenitor Herzog and various 8ing shmups, and another on Rika Suzuki, who discusses working on the J.B. Harold series, Another Code / Trace Memory, and Hotel Dusk. As of writing, neither video has broken 10k views. The documentaries are fascinating, professionally made, subtitled in English, and free to view. Why are so few watching them? The organisation is inducting more and more high-profile game developers, but the effort feels wasted when online communities don't discuss it.
I also suggested selling off rare items held by the GPS, to generate funds. Redon was reluctant since this was not a permanent solution and would only delay the inevitable. Ultimately, he relented, and there was a funding drive featuring lots of Falcom rarities. Unfortunately it was only on Japan's Yahoo! Auctions, not eBay, locking out foreign bidders unless they used an expensive proxy service. As Redon explained, the GPS is a registered NPO and has to operate under strict Japanese laws, meaning they were forced to use Yahoo! Auctions rather than a foreign organisation.
This point was raised numerous times. Being a Japanese organisation, the GPS is held hostage by antiquated and draconian Japanese laws. They have less freedom than the VGHF, which operates under more lenient US laws—for one thing, the VGHF can sometimes utilise the Internet Archive to make certain assets publicly accessible, which the GPS cannot. This throws up problems of expectation—Redon has shared tweets with Time Extension from a prominent member of the retro programming community, attacking the GPS and calling for its demise. They have many thousands of followers; you likely use their work already. We are not naming them. After their public outcry, the GPS servers suffered DDoS attacks.
This malcontent's criticism? The GPS was not giving them access to ROMs it had preserved. As Redon repeatedly makes clear, any leakage of such data would cause the organisation to experience very serious legal trouble in Japan. It would be shut down, and possibly Redon would be arrested. Japan does not play around with copyright law. The VGHF actually has its own restrictions. It has a deal with WATA games, where if WATA receives an unreleased title for grading, they let VGHF preserve the data first. The VGHF now sits on a vast archive of data it cannot make public. Both organisations are preserving this data now, before it biodegrades, in the hope that changes to the law will someday allow them to share it publicly. Yet the GPS is attacked, while the VGHF is revered.
The tragedy is that the GPS has done so much to preserve Japan's cultural history. It helped a Kyoto kimono factory when its antiquated computers needed repairing. It built on the pioneering work of others to improve methods of preserving LaserDiscs, and wanted to share it with others. There have been a lot of news stories about preserving Japanese mobile phone games, and the GPS has been involved. Being based in Japan gives it access to materials no other preservation group has; however, it can only assist with the actual "work" being done outside Japan due to the law.
The i-Mode preservation project represents the best example of the international cooperation the GPS has done. "It's still the beginning of this huge project," explains Redon. "GPS is not leading it; this belongs to a group outside Japan, but the GPS is supporting them. The law is not on our side, and it cannot be done in Japan. We raised money, we bought stuff, we connected with people, and participated on the technological part of the project."
Redon then relates an amusing story regarding how clueless the Japanese government is. "The government contacted us last year to consult about preservation. There was a big meeting, lots of companies, and I got a question from a government representative, asking us: 'What are you doing for mobile phones?' And I replied: Oh, you're asking me? I want to ask you, how can we preserve phone games when the law does not allow us to? Does this mean you are now allowing us? Because we are ready. It can be done. Maybe not everything, but 25% is better than zero. But there is no legal framework. It's not something we can do without telling people, we are an NPO and have to say how we use funds. But we also need to rely on the phone owners, the public, asking them to send us their old phones, so we can dump the memory."
The same problem keeps surfacing during the conversation. The GPS does a lot of tangible research, but due to the language barrier and lack of English members, it's not well communicated. Redon describes how over 7,500 games in GPS' hands have been preserved; between July 2024 and February 2025, the organisation digitised over 2,000 floppy disks alone. Redon also reiterates his desire for this article to be less about him and more about the organisation—the only reason he features in interviews is he's one of only two English speakers. There are 33 voluntary members who work every day on preservation, and for the thousands of examples listed above, Redon was not involved. It is a group effort, with each member having their own specialised technical skills.
"I don't think there is a single organisation in the world that has digitised as many floppy disks and covers, as the GPS," Redon adds. "Our collection contains games and documents not available anywhere else. Not in any other collection. We currently have at least 35,000 games. What we have is invaluable. Unfortunately, we are the only group taking care of this part of Japanese game history. Who is taking care of the Apple II? The Commodore 64? Computer games are not easy—too many games, too much information, fragile media, and it's not as sexy as consoles. Collectors don't want to step in."
The conversation also leads to misconceptions about preservation in Japan. We discuss at length the recent news about Square, Capcom, Taito, and Sega planning to preserve their past. As it turns out, he argues the story is a complete fabrication due to the Japanese wanting to put a positive spin on something negative, and then mistranslations garbling it further. "The GPS was there," begins Redon. "It's our job to be everywhere when there is game preservation. The reality was a bit different. They had some documents on display, which were wonderful. There was a short 90-minute talk, 15 minutes for each of the four, with a Q&A. What they mostly said was: they cannot do preservation, they do not do preservation, and they will not be doing it. Only Capcom does some internally for its marketing teams. The Sega representative said he wants to, but management forbids it—they only preserve material if they can make money. The English coverage makes you think those four companies teamed up to do a great thing. It's a fabrication that never happened." As a consequence of Redon's insight, we've updated our story to reflect this more accurate summary of proceedings.
Speaking with Redon at length reveals the fatigue and frustration that's built up over the years. Despite everyone's best efforts to produce material justifying the donations, very few watched the documentaries or read the features. No new members joined. People online attacked them for not sharing ROMs. Attempts to raise money through auctions fell foul of Japanese law. All the while, its available funds have shrunk.
What about GoFundMe or Patreon campaigns, you might wonder? This brings up the same problem. If it cannot distribute ROMs, what can the GPS give the public? Who will organise such drives if only Redon and one other member speak English, and both have jobs and are also handling GPS preservation work? Furthermore, Patreon takes a cut from donations, meaning it's easier and more cost-effective just to become a paid member of the GPS. Even then, Redon admits crowdfunding would be better than nothing, but it would require native English speakers to communicate with supporters.
Could the GPS attract a huge entity to help them, like an angel investor? Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, one of the big hitters? "A good question," Redon replies. "For example, Sega might invest one million, and then we must work for them. It means we are not independent anymore because we have a 'for profit' telling us what to do. It wouldn't be a donation—there should be nothing in return for donations. As an NPO, if we accept money in exchange for preferential treatment, we are breaking the rules. Would I break the rules? No, even if it can save the GPS, I won't sell my soul to a games company. I would have to say we cannot take your money. But if they donate money and we are free to preserve anything, then yes. I won't refuse as long as there is nothing in exchange we have to do for them. If they want to say they support us, they are free to do so. Anyone can support the Red Cross—will the Red Cross refuse donations? No, and neither will I."
However, as Redon repeatedly points out during our three hours of conversation: "We do not need a million. It's not that much money we need." He breaks down the numbers, with the smallest annual donation being 3000 yen, or roughly £15 / $20. Per month, this is only £1.25 / $1.70. So, as pointed out at the start, they only need around 400 new supporters. More importantly, Redon insists, is getting fresh volunteers in. "We only have one native English speaker, an American, which is not enough. We need not just money; we are also looking for people to help us communicate. We need people within the organisation, volunteers, to help us. Who can help us set up crowdfunding, write newsletters, and do video streaming? We need fresh members to help us better reach a global audience."
We all find ourselves in a world on the brink of recession, with rising prices and tariffs, looming uncertainty, and partisan anger from all sides. So, this is not a request to give money if you're feeling the pinch. But it is a request to at least share the free videos, share the free newsletters, and post on social media about all the work the GPS is doing. If you have experience and want to do something meaningful, consider volunteering. If we are to prevent the closure of the GPS, then the first step is talking about it, letting the world know it exists, and helping spread awareness of the work.
We ask Joseph Redon if the Japanese Game Preservation Society has any final message. "The most important message is: lobbying is needed. Changes must happen. And they do happen. When the GPS tells the government we want to do that, but we can't, they listen. They try to move the lines. But even for the government, it's difficult, and it takes time. It's one of our missions to change the law. We are also doing research. Everything we do is based on research. Everything is open source. We have a Github. We are mainly involved in other cooperative projects, but everyone can check and build on the work. Anyone can get an archivist degree, but for me, a 'game archivist' is a totally new job. We are still researching and creating this new role. This might be the biggest loss if the GPS is out of business."
If you'd like to support the GPS and prevent its closure, you can do so by following this link.