How do you even try to describe to someone born after 2010 why GoldenEye 007’s multiplayer was groundbreaking, not just janky? Now imagine having to describe it to them at all when they’ve never actually even been able to play it. Take a look at a sweeping new project that is fighting to keep gaming history alive.
In the background, there is a subtle revolution going on by the community. Coders and obsessive librarians are creating digital archives for gaming’s interactive history to make sure that history isn’t erased. More than 67% of Americans (ages 5 to 90) play video games at least 1 hour per week, making video games one of the favorite pastimes in the U.S. That’s why this might be one of the most culturally significant endeavors in gaming of the next decade.
Digital archives are the backup saves you never knew you needed
The first act of preserving code is capturing and recording it; the real game, though, truly comes alive when the rest of the context surrounding the code is saved. You don’t fully experience Final Fantasy VII without all the post-game hot takes and playground debates, do you?
To really wrap your head around what the digital entertainment world’s transparency actually means, pay attention to the online casino landscape. Take Casino.org’s detailed guide of the best-paying US online casinos that list up to a 96% payout rate in slot games, or as high as 99% on some of the video poker titles. All the experts’ reviews are recorded and published. Payout transparency, coupled with payout speed, has been the great divider among US-regulated online casinos. The historical accuracy provided by that system is no different than the way archivists go through press clippings and sketches of old designs.
DMCA exceptions allow the Internet Archive to archive millions of software files and usable emulators. And the World Wide Web gives you instant browser access to the games of old, and you don’t need an MS-DOS machine from the last century either. As it turns out, the digital archive archives far more than just software files:
- The games, code and assets.
- Documentation like reviews and guides.
- Promotional materials and box art.
- Development artifacts, design docs and prototypes.
- Community records, forums and mods.
- Metadata tracking provenance and compatibility logs.
All of it helps future generations understand gaming’s full cultural impact.
Community-curated archives log compatibility issues and player-developed fixes for older games. To protect these repositories’ long-term usefulness, they should be properly cataloged with provenance information.
Only 13% of games are still available, and that number is a wake-up call
Did you know only 13% of all games ever released in the U.S. are still available on the market? That’s not from some randos on the internet, but from a 2021 report by the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network.
It’s amazing that the games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man that gave us video games have survived, but that is literally their mission now.
Researchers looked through 1,500 randomly sampled titles from MobyGames and the full library of the 4,000 titles released on the Game Boy. The widespread availability (or lack thereof) of Game Boy titles showed just how many games have essentially vanished into the market void.
What does “commercially unavailable” mean?
If a game can’t be found on any digital marketplaces or in any modern collections, and there’s no official way to purchase it, then it is commercially unavailable. It may still exist, in a physical format available from eBay, an archive, or in an emulation community dedicated to preserving these titles.
These games need to stick around. Based on ESA’s 2026 Essential Facts, 212.3 million people in America play video games every week? They also note the average age of a gamer is 37. It makes sense we want to preserve the interactive experiences that we’ve all come to enjoy over the years.
The ESA reports, while often focused on huge titles like Call of Duty or Madden that naturally come in with frequent updates, archivists often treat all games as individual artifacts. And thus, their carefully cultivated collections allow true gamers to rediscover hidden gems.
The clock is ticking, and the preservationists are already ahead of it
A digital-only game from 2010 could lose server support tomorrow. Yet archives have already saved thousands of MS-DOS titles for browser play, showing how rapid action preserves cloud-dependent games.
DMCA prohibitions make accessing a saved copy of software remotely difficult. Still, negotiations are in progress to get a new exemption in place, and the Internet Archive has plenty of old titles left. Community-driven repositories provide the patching and documentation to run the few remaining titles people care to collect.
Given that the US has 212 million weekly players and global revenue exceeds $200 billion, the infrastructure for preserving them isn’t likely to disappear.
The emulation debate: preservation or piracy?
Whether people agree with preserving retro games using current-gen hardware doesn’t matter because that’s exactly what will keep many of them around. The Internet Archive’s working emulators make it clear that the legal avenues exist. Fast preservation projects save worthwhile games from extinction. In these instances, history is on the side of the people fighting against obsolescence.