Where Did All the Old Computer Games Go?

You remember a game from when you were eight. You search for it, and what you find is a broken link, a sketchy download page and a forum post from 2011. This isn't bad luck. Most old games have become truly hard to get.

The numbers are startling

In 2023, the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network looked at thousands of games released in the US before 2010. The AV Club reported the headline result: 87% of classic games are not easily available through legal means today. CBC also spoke to people trying to save games from "permadeath".

If you imagine that nine out of ten old films could no longer be watched, you get a sense of the scale.

Why games disappear

The platforms die. A game made for Flash or an old Windows version doesn't work once that platform's gone. Unlike a book or a film, a game needs a working system around it.

Discs and files fail. CDs degrade, hard drives get thrown out, and companies lose their own source code surprisingly often.

Companies close. When a studio shuts down or gets bought, rights can end up in legal limbo, sometimes with nobody sure who owns what.

Licences expire. A licensed character or song can stop a game being sold, even if everybody wants it back.

Nobody thinks it's worth it. Porting a small game costs money, and there may not be enough buyers.

Bundled games had it worst

Some of the most played games ever fall into a gap. Nobody bought Purble Place, InkBall or Chess Titans. They came with Windows, then Windows moved on and took them away. Since they were never sold separately, there's no store page to go back to.

Purble Place had huge reach through Windows Vista and 7, and was often someone's first computer game, yet there's no official way to get it now without an old copy of Windows.

Who's saving them

Volunteers and archives. Projects such as Flashpoint and the Internet Archive save huge amounts of material, often against tight deadlines.

Foundations. The Video Game History Foundation collects games along with the magazines and documents around them.

Stores. GOG and similar shops get some old games working on modern systems and sell them legally.

Enthusiasts. Some reverse engineer old games to make them work on new machines. Others start from scratch and rebuild the idea with new art and code, so nothing's copied. 3D Purble Place does this, with all three games remade and playable for free. It doesn't reproduce the original, but it does keep the game ideas within reach.

What copyright has to do with it

Libraries are allowed to preserve many kinds of old media, but there are tighter rules for games, particularly for remote access. Preservation groups have been asking for those rules to change, and the industry has pushed back. It's an ongoing argument, and how it ends will affect what survives.

What you can do

• Hold on to your old discs and computers if you can
• Buy re-releases when they exist, as it shows there's demand
• Donate to preservation projects
• Write down your memories of obscure games, since these often help archivists track them down

Games are a big part of how a generation grew up. It'd be a shame if most of them vanished just because nobody got around to saving them.