87% of electronic games have vanished due to the trend of online transformation.

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Ngày cập nhật gần nhất: 1/5/2026

A rarely mentioned community is the preservationists of electronic games or vintage software, from the time before the internet allowed publishers to release software and games through global networks. From tapes, CD-ROMs, floppy disks to formats now forgotten, those in the community of preserving vintage software and games are striving to find ways to prevent the internet from erasing the works that humans created in the past.

An estimate from the Video Game History Foundation and Software Preservation Network seems worrisome. Currently, out of all the games ever released in the history of the United States, 87% of them are no longer available for legal purchase or storage from their original sources.

In the realm of gaming, preserving and enjoying classic titles now involves two primary methods: either acquiring discs or tapes from independent market sellers, or more commonly, storing unauthorized ROMs in libraries spanning various gaming systems like Atari 2600, NES, SNES, and even some gems from PS1 or PS2 not available on cloud servers.

For average gamers like myself and fellow enthusiasts, these concerns may not resonate much. Recently, game developers have been re-releasing timeless masterpieces from decades past, allowing us to relish them on modern devices. However, for gaming historians and software aficionados, accessing a comprehensive and legally sound library of vintage games remains a challenge, risking the deletion of a valuable part of gaming history. This history extends beyond best-selling classics like Final Fantasy VII, Street Fighter II, Pac-Man, or Tetris, encompassing the need to preserve every other game.

A recent poignant example is Nintendo's decision to shutter the online eShops for the 3DS and Wii U systems. Consequently, a vast majority of games from the Game Boy era, previously stored online by Nintendo, have now vanished without a trace, leaving no accessible avenue for retrieval.

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