Rubbish theory is the process of low value of transient/disposable items that over time become durable items with a higher value. Errington used examples of fictitious widgets in his work to illustrate his point. Nearly any collectible item can be used as an example, from stamps to auto-mobiles. These are temporary items with a certain lifespan, meant to be used and discarded. Over time as the objects are destroyed or lost they become valuable for their scarceness and new-found durability.
The same process is happening today with the video game industry as the earliest, pioneering games are threatened with extinction. While most people assume digital content can exist in preputium, this is simply not true. Digital media is subject to what is known as “bit rot”, where the actual code -the 0’s and 1’s of binary- decay over time and are eventually lost when they become too corrupted to read any more. Coupled with bit rot is the fact that many early game cartridges and disks were built with materials that are nearing the end of their life span, such as batteries that powered the cartridge’s volatile memory. These factors in addition to people abandoning these transient objects to the rubbish pile has exacerbated their scarcity, driving up their value significantly.
Like pottery shards from ancient Rome, anthropologists use video games as a vital tool in studying the past several decades of pop culture and modern history. This history is in danger of vanishing however, thanks to its transient nature. With physical media there is a chance that some of it will survive for future generations, buried in the ground or stored in some basement somewhere. With digital media such as video games there will be no record to pass on in the following centuries unless we start preserving it now. Our culture and historical record will simply cease to be.
Even if we do manage to save video games in some form, if we do not also preserve the software and hardware necessary to play these games, we may as well not bother. Given the rapid evolution and obsolescence of technology every few decades, we will no longer have the means to play these games.