An SNES emulator developer and game archivist who goes by the name Byuu saw his mission to digitally preserve all games for the retro console come to an abrupt end last week when a package sent to him was seemingly lost by the United States Postal Service.
The package was no ordinary one, as it contained $10,000 worth of games for the SNES console that were sent to Byuu for digital preservation.
The Story Of The Lost $10,000 Package
Byuu has previously purchased and digitally preserved all 725 SNES games that have been released in the United States. This cost him $10,000, and after recovering that amount from selling the games, he added another $10,000 to purchase all 1,450 SNES games released in Japan.
Purchasing and digitally preserving SNES games released in the PAL region, which includes South America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Oceania, was the next step. However, because he was low in money, he planned to receive 100 PAL SNES games at a time from a European collector known as Smarthuman, digitally preserve them, and then send them back.
Byuu did not experience any problems with the first shipment of games. However, for the second shipment, disaster struck.
According to a post by Byuu on his official page, a package of 100 PAL SNES games was sent to him on Jan. 5 from Germany through DHL. However, by Feb. 14, Byuu noted that the package had not yet arrived, which is strange considering the first one arrived on his doorstep in just 10 days after being shipped from Germany.
On that same day, Byuu wrote in a separate post that he received a letter from the USPS that the package was damaged by "normal machine processing." The shipping label was sent to him, as it was apparently ripped off from the package.
Lost Package Finally Recovered
After the story of the $10,000 worth of SNES games was picked up by several media outlets, a manager from the USPS Consumer Affairs department took note of his case after reading several articles on it. Byuu expressed gratitude for the media coverage, as the manager then passed the case to an employee who promptly initiated an investigation.
After an errant email received on Feb. 21 that falsely claimed that the package was located, Byuu received a call later that day that informed him that the package was found in a mail recovery center in Atlanta, Georgia. Byuu then finally received the package on Feb. 23, with all the games inside fully intact.
Byuu said that he had started to collect donations so that he can pay the donor for the SNES games, as he really thought that the package was lost for good. The donations have reached $1,020 on PayPal and $146 in Patreon, but with the package recovered, he will be refunding all the donations sent to him.
"Given all that's happened, I've lost a lot of trust in shipping games like this, as I am sure the donor has as well," Byuu noted, which is understandable for anybody who thought that a $10,000 package was lost forever. The game archivist said that from now, he will be only accepting loans for SNES games in smaller quantities.
Byuu has about 300 PAL games left to track and digitally preserve, and it might take him a few years to complete his project. However, with the package recovered, he was happy to let everyone know that his preservation project has been revived.
