The "public" game archive held by Japan's National Diet library, which currently contains 3,300+ games, has been accessed just 16 times in the last ~two years, owing to very stringent restrictions that limit access to researchers who've demonstrated a need for certain material and have outlined how they intend to publicise their research.
These restrictions are in no small part due to—and tell me if you've heard this one before—a signed agreement between the library and unnamed industry organisations who feel that unfettered access would cause untold damage to the industry and allow people to treat the archive "like an arcade"...
