Space Games For PC Archives

Another few thousand DOS Games are playable at the Internet Archive! Since our initial announcement in 2015, we’ve added occasional new games here and there to the collection, but this will be our biggest update yet, ranging from tiny recent independent productions to long-forgotten big-name releases from decades ago.

To browse the latest collection, hit this link and look around.

The usual caveats apply: Sometimes the emulations are slower than they should be, especially on older machines. Not all games are enjoyable to play. And of course, we are linking manuals where we can but not every game has a manual.

If you’ve been enjoying our “emulation in the browser” system over the years, then this is more of that. If you’re new to it or want to hear more about all this, keep reading.

A Recognition of Hard Work, and A Breathtaking View

The update of these MS-DOS games comes from a project called eXoDOS, which has expanded over the years in the realm of collecting DOS games for easy playability on modern systems to tracking down and capturing, as best as can be done, the full context of DOS games – from the earliest simple games in the first couple years of the IBM PC to recently created independent productions that still work in the MS-DOS environment.

What makes the collection more than just a pile of old, now-playable games, is how it has to take head-on the problems of software preservation and history. Having an old executable and a scanned copy of the manual represents only the first few steps. DOS has remained consistent in some ways over the last (nearly) 40 years, but a lot has changed under the hood and programs were sometimes only written to work on very specific hardware and a very specific setup. They were released, sold some amount of copies, and then disappeared off the shelves, if not everyone’s memories.

It is all these extra steps, under the hood, of acquisition and configuration, that represents the hardest work by the eXoDOS project, and I recognize that long-time and Herculean effort. As a result, the eXoDOS project has over 7,000 titles they’ve made work dependably and consistently.

Separately from the eXoDOS project, I’ve been putting a percentage of these games into the Emularity system on the Internet Archive for research, entertainment and quick online access to the programs. The issues that are introduced by this are mine and mine alone, and eXoDOS is not able to help with them. You can always mail me at jscott@archive.org with questions or technical concerns.

This should be all that needs to be said, but since the Archive is doing things a little strangely, there’s a lot to keep in mind before you really dive in (or to realize, when you come back with questions).

That Hilarious Problem With CD-ROMs

Putting these games into the Internet Archive has, over time, brought into sharp focus particular issues with browser-based emulation. For example, keyboard collision, where the input needs of the emulator are taken over by the browser itself, and the problems of a program needing a lot more horsepower to run in a browser emulator than a user’s system can handle.

Some of these have solutions that aren’t always great (Buy faster hardware!) and in some cases the problem is currently terminal (these programs have been taken offline for a future date). But the most obvious and pressing is that games based off CD-ROMs take a significant, huge amount of time to load.

CD-ROMs were a boon to the early-to-late 1990s, allowing games to have audio and video like never before. Depending on the tricks used, you got full-motion video (FMV), the playing of CD audio tracks for background music, and levels and variation of content for the games far beyond what floppy disks could ever hope.

But it was also a very large amount of data (up to 700 megabytes per CD) and it’s one thing to have the data sitting on a plastic disc in a local machine, and yet another to have a network connection pull the entire contents of the CD-ROM into memory and hold it there as a virtual file resources. This is going to be an enormous lean on the vast majority of Internet users out there – downloading multi-hundred-megabyte files into memory and then keeping them there, and then losing it all when the browser window closes. Network speeds will improve over time, but this is probably the biggest show-stopper of them all for many folks.

If you find yourself loading up one of these games and facing down a hundred-megabyte download, consider one of the smaller games instead, unless it’s a title you really, really want to try out. Maybe in a few years we’ll look back at cable-modem speeds and laugh at the crawling, but for now, they’re pretty significant.

Some Jewels in the Mix

Luckily, there are some smaller-sized games in this new update that will load relatively quickly and are really enjoyable to look at and to play. Here’s some of my recommendations:

First, a game special to me: the IBM DOS version of Adventure, calling itself “Microsoft Adventure”. It’s actually a small rebranding of the original start of the text adventure world, “Colossal Cave” or ADVENT, by Don Woods and Will Crowther. Remixed to be sold by IBM and Microsoft, this is how I first got into these, and it boots up instantly, providing hours of fun if you’ve never tried it before.

Mr. Blobby, a 1994 DOS Platform game, has all the hallmarks of the genre – bonkers physics, bright and lovely graphics, and joyful music. Be sure to redefine the keys before you try to play it, because besides running and jumping, you can spin and take things. The game does not get less weird as you go along.

Super Munchers: The Challenge Continues is a 1991 remix of the original educational game that sent your “muncher” gathering up words representing a given topic or idea. The speed of the game, along with the learning aspect, make this one of the more zesty “edutainment” titles available from the time.

Street Rod is a wonderfully compact 1989 racing game where it’s the 1960s and you’re going to buy your first hot-rod, tune it up, and race it for money to buy better and better rides. It’s a mouse-driven interface and loaded with all sorts of tricks to make the game fit into a “mere” 600 kilobytes compressed. Initially simple and then well worth the effort!

Digger from 1983 is a Dig-Dug-Clone-but-Not that came out right as IBM PCs were starting to take off, and it’s a lovely little game, steering around a mining machine while avoiding enemies and picking up diamonds. The most unintuitive thing is you need to fire using the “F1” key, so hopefully your keyboard has one.

I’m also going to suggest Floppy Frenzy from Windmill Software because it’s so much closer to the beginning of the IBM PC’s reign and you can see the difference in what the authors were comfortable with – the graphics are simpler, the game movement a little more rough, and the theme is geekiness incarnate: You’re a floppy disk avoiding magnets to leave traps for them, so you can gather the magnets up before the time runs out. If you don’t make it, an angel comes down and brings you to Floppy Disk Heaven. Again, F1 is the unusual key to leave traps.

There’s many more and I suggest people browse around and try things out, really soak in that MS-DOS joy. (And feel free to leave comments with suggestions.)

Thanks so much for coming along on this emulation journey!

• Jason Scott, Internet Archive Software Curator

The year is 2020 and despite how futuristic that sounds, us average folks probably won't be headed to space for a weekend getaway any time soon. Until such a day as we can all escape Earth on a whim, here are some of the best games set in space to take you out to the unknown without actually leaving your room.

Whether you want to explore strange new worlds, seduce weird aliens, or become a feared galactic bounty hunter, there's a space game for everyone on PC, and the following are currently the best examples you can play right now.

Outer Wilds

Year 2019
Developer Mobius Digital
Link Official site

A first-person open world game about exploring a small solar system full of weird planets and odd cosmic phenomena. The catch? You're trapped in a time loop, giving you just 20 minutes to explore at a time. Outer Wilds is reminiscent of games such as Her Story and Obra Dinn in the way you piece a puzzle together by discovering and connecting small, often seemingly unrelated details.

Read more Outer Wilds review 

The Outer Worlds

Year 2019
Developer Obsidian Entertainment
LinkOfficial site

Not to be confused with Outer Wilds, which is also a space adventure and also on this list, Obsidian's latest RPG is a comedic action RPG that hearkens back to the studio's days working on Fallout. You and your companions will hop around a solar system full of literally colorful environments and figuratively colorful characters. Corporations are the big bads of the retro space future where you'll shoot up aliens, choose dialogue, and generally make a mess of every planet you show up on if it suits your fancy. 

Read moreOuter Worlds review 

Homeworld Remastered Collection

Year 2015
Developer Relic/Gearbox Software
LinkOfficial site

One of the best singleplayer RTS campaigns ever made, and beautifully remastered by Gearbox. The sight of thousands of your ships streaking across the game’s vividly colourful space-scapes is hugely dramatic. And battles are tense and tactical, with many types of ship to command, including colossal battleships. The Remastered Collection looks great on modern PCs and comes complete with the original Homeworld and its sequel.

Read more Homeworld Remastered Collection review

Observation

Year 2019
Developer No Code
Link Official site

The space station Observation has broken away from its Earth orbit and is drifting somewhere near Saturn. Its systems are malfunctioning, a fire has broken out, and the on-board artificial intelligence, SAM, is acting strangely. Things are not looking good for Dr. Emma Fisher, the reluctant hero of this sci-fi thriller from the studio behind Stories Untold. But what's interesting about Observation is that you don't play as Fisher. Instead, you play as the AI.

Read more Observation review

Surviving Mars

Year 2018
Developer Haemimont Games
LinkSteam

Leaving Earth behind, humanity heads to Mars to start a new colony: and you're in charge of it. Your new civilisation will grow from one small dome in the Martian desert to a bustling, sprawling off-world metropolis. But just make sure you don't run out of oxygen or power, because on this ruthless planet it's a death sentence for every citizen under your control.

Read moreSurviving Mars review

Tacoma

Year 2017
Developer Fullbright
Link Official site

The crew has mysteriously abandoned the Tacoma lunar transfer station, and you’ve been sent to investigate and recover its precious AI, Odin. This atmospheric sci-fi mystery from the makers of Gone Home is wonderfully written, with a cast of rich, nuanced characters telling a compelling story through interactive AR recordings. Exploring the hyper-detailed station is a delight thanks to the game’s extraordinary attention to detail, and the more you learn about Tacoma, the deeper the mystery gets.

Read more Tacoma review

Objects in Space

Year 2019
Developer Flat Earth Games
Link Official site

This unique twist on the space sim shares the trading and exploration elements of games such as Elite Dangerous, but feels more like commanding a submarine. You don't see space itself; just a series of utilitarian rooms full of screens and machinery. There's a lot to manage, and you play several roles at once: pilot, engineer, comms officer. But despite the limited view of your surroundings, you still feel like you're hurtling through space in a starship.

Read more Objects in Space is a very different kind of space sim 

Elite Dangerous

Year 2014
Developer Frontier Developments
Link Official site

An entire galaxy is your playground in this space sim. Starting with a basic ship and a handful of credits, you shape your own destiny. Do you become a fearsome pirate? A master trader? An explorer? The beauty of Elite is being able to play in a way that suits you. From thrilling dogfights to gentle exploration, there’s something for everyone. And its ships are all an absolute dream to fly, whether it's a nimble fighter or a heavy duty cargo hauler.

Read more Visiting NASA's latest discovery in Elite Dangerous

EVE Online

Year 2003
Developer CCP Games
Link Official site

Live another life—in space! There’s nothing else like EVE Online on PC, a massively multiplayer RPG where everything is controlled by players. It’s a living galaxy in which thousands of capsuleers fight, trade, mine, and explore together. Break away from the relative safety of your police-patrolled starting system and you’ll find a ruthless, cosmic Wild West, where piracy, espionage and scamming are rife. Whether you’re fighting in a massive space war, where thousands of real-world dollars hang in the balance, or just exploring New Eden on your own, EVE is an unforgettable experience.

Read moreEVE Online's biggest scammer tells us his secrets

Everspace

Year 2017
Developer Rockfish Games
Link Steam

When you die in roguelike Everspace, you’re dead. But money earned carries over and can be spent on upgrades, which means you’ll be more powerful for your next run through the cosmic gauntlet. And these perks keep adding up, allowing you to travel deeper into space, and more boldly, with every successive attempt. It’s a compelling loop, and when you die you're never frustrated: just excited to start again, wondering how far you'll make it this time.

Read moreDeath is the road to glory in Everspace

Dead Space

Year 2008
Developer EA Redwood Shores
Link Steam

Space is the perfect setting for a horror game, and Dead Space is, next to Alien: Isolation, one of the best examples of the scary sci-fi genre. Engineer Isaac Clarke is sent to investigate a stricken 'planet cracker' ship, the USG Ishimura, and finds the craft overrun with hideous, fleshy monsters. Taking cues from Alien and, quite blatantly, cult favourite Event Horizon, the first game in the series is still the best. The increased focus on action in the sequels killed it.

Read more Returning to Dead Space 

Star Wars: Empire at War

Year 2006
Developer Petroglyph
LinkGOG

Developed by Petroglyph, a studio founded by Westwood veterans, this real-time strategy is one of the best Star Wars games on PC. The streamlined interface and accessible systems might turn off some hardcore strategy fans, but in the thick of its chaotic, thrilling land and space battles the game is irresistible—especially if you’re a Star Wars fan. And hero units like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker only add to the excitement.

Read morePitting Star Wars against Star Trek in Star Wars: Empire at War

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2

Year 2019
Developer Tindalos Interactive
Link Official site

A real-time tactics game about giant spaceships clashing in the Warhammer 40,0000 universe. Battles take place on a 2D plane populated by capture points and asteroid fields, and the ships handle like giant, deadly cruise liners. You can unleash fighter and bomber squadrons, launch torpedo barrages and laser attacks, and board other ships. The space battles are involving and spectacular and the campaign is satisfying—especially for 40K fans.

Read moreBattlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 review 

Endless Space 2

Year 2017
Developer Amplitude Studios
Link Official site

A stylish game of galactic conquest. Not the broadest or deepest 4X strategy game on PC, but an atmospheric afternoon-killer that blends strategic decision making with a beautiful presentation. Set in a vivid sci-fi universe, the game lets you explore mysterious star systems, discover the secrets of ancient races, build colonies on distant planets, and encounter aliens to meet and conquer.

Read moreEndless Space 2 review 

Heat Signature

Year 2017
Developer Suspicious Developments
Link Steam

In this top-down sci-fi action game you board spaceships and use an array of weapons and gadgets to take out the crew. The genius lies in how much creativity you're given to play your own way, inspired by the best immersive sims. And how you react to the chaos that erupts when your presence on the ship becomes known makes Heat Signature a powerful anecdote generator. Things might not always go to plan, but that's just part of the fun.

Read more 8 sadistic ways to take out guards in Heat Signature

Duskers

Year 2016
Developer Misfits Attic
Link Official site

Despite being viewed entirely through a retro-futuristic computer interface, Duskers is one of the scariest, most tense sci-fi horror games on PC. In it you pilot a fleet of drones searching derelict spaceships for fuel, upgrades, and clues about why the galaxy is so mysteriously devoid of life. The ships you board are crawling with strange creatures, which makes looking for clues in those narrow, dark corridors an especially nerve-racking experience.

Read moreDuskers review

Destiny 2

Year 2017
Developer Bungie
Link Official site

Bungie's addictive FPS/MMO hybrid features some of the prettiest alien landscapes on PC. From the forested ruins of Earth and the vast seas of Titan, to the red jungles of Nessus and the volcanic Io, every location is a pleasure to loot-and-shoot in. The endgame doesn't have the iron grip it perhaps should, but sci-fi fans will get a kick out of this vivid, colourful setting.

Read moreBungie outlines how it plans to fix Destiny 2 in 2018

The Dig

Year 1995
Developer LucasArts
Link GOG

A mission to divert an asteroid heading for Earth goes awry, sending a group of astronauts to a distant, seemingly abandoned world. Some of the puzzles are maddeningly obscure, even for a LucasArts point-and-click adventure, but the colourful, bizarre planet feels genuinely alien. Great voice acting too, with X-Files star Robert Patrick playing the lead character.

Read moreReinstall: The Dig

Universe Sandbox 2

Year 2014
Developer Giant Army
Link Official site

This space simulator lets you become an all-powerful cosmic deity, manipulating replicas of real galaxies and solar systems and witnessing the (often catastrophic) results of your meddling. Increase the mass of Jupiter and you’ll see the rest of our solar system being sucked into it, or delete the Sun and watch Earth and the other planets drift away confused.

Event[0]

Year 2016
Developer Ocelot Society
Link Steam

Stranded alone somewhere near Jupiter on an old luxury starship, your only hope of returning home is an AI that has serious emotional problems. You interact with Kaizen using your keyboard, and sometimes it'll be willing to help you. But then it'll change its mind and decide the best thing to do is close the airlock and trap you outside the ship until you run out of air. A clever adventure with the understated mood of a '70s sci-fi film.

Read moreEvent[0] review

Mass Effect 2

Year 2010
Developer BioWare
Link Steam

If you’ve ever fantasised about being Captain Picard, in command of your own starship, exploring the galaxy, meeting weird aliens, being confronted with cosmic dilemmas, then Mass Effect 2 is that in game form. It’s part Star Wars space opera, part brilliant Star Trek episode, and one of the best sci-fi games on PC. It doesn’t have the freedom of Elite and is largely a linear experience, but it takes you on an unforgettable journey around the galaxy, visiting bizarre planets and getting involved in the lives of the aliens who live on them. We love the whole series, but we all agree that this is our favourite.

Read moreThe Mass Effect games ranked from worst to best

Stellaris

Year 2016
Developer Paradox
Link Official site

Developed by Paradox, of Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis fame, this sci-fi epic puts the ‘grand’ in grand strategy. Explore the universe, form alliances with alien factions, and engage in the odd large-scale space battle. The multitude of systems makes Stellaris a powerful story generator, and you never know what strange beings you’ll meet among the stars.

Read more Stellaris: Utopia review

Alien: Isolation

Year 2014
Developer Creative Assembly
Link Official site

Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen, is hunted through a dilapidated space station by a xenomorph in this incredible survival horror. Taking its cues from Ridley Scott's original 1979 film, it's a masterpiece of slow-burning tension. And the station itself, Sevastopol, is a great example of lo-fi sci-fi, with chunky retro-futuristic tech and eerie flickering lights. One of the most faithful movie adaptations ever, and a great horror game in its own right.

Read moreWhat Alien: Isolation gets right that Alien: Covenant gets wrong

No Man's Sky

Year 2016
Developer Hello Games
LinkOfficial site

This is one of the most dazzlingly colourful sci-fi universes on PC, and being able to seamlessly transition from space to the surface of a planet is an impressive technical feat. The addition of features like base-building and a mission system in recent updates give you a lot more to actually do when you touch down on these worlds, and the procedural generation algorithm has been tweaked to make for weirder, prettier planet surfaces.

Read moreThe best No Man's Sky mods

Star Wars: TIE Fighter

Year 1994
Developer Totally Games
Link GOG

A rare opportunity to be the bad guy in George Lucas’s beloved space opera. With a variety of Empire-themed missions—dogfights, escorts, attacking capital ships—and a story to follow, it’s one of the best Star Wars games LucasArts ever published. Of course, you can replace this entry with Star Wars: X-Wing if you’d prefer to play as the boring old Rebel Alliance.

Read moreThe best Star Wars games on PC

FTL: Faster Than Light

Video game preservation seeks to digitally collect games from a wide variety of game systems no longer in production.

Video game preservation is a form of preservation applied to the video game industry that includes, but is not limited to digital preservation. Such preservation efforts include archiving development source code and art assets, digital copies of video games, emulation of video game hardware, maintenance and preservation of specialized video game hardware such as arcade games and video game consoles, and digitization of print video game magazines and books prior to the Digital Revolution.

Importance of preservation[edit]

Unlike most other forms of media like books, art and photography, and film which can be preserved in a variety of formats that are not ladened with intellectual property (IP) issue, video games typically require specialized and/or proprietary computer hardware and software to read and execute game software. However, as technology advances, these older game systems become obsolete, no longer produced nor maintained to use for executing games.^[1] The media formats of the early days of computer gaming, relying on floppy discs and CD-ROMs, suffers from disc rot and degrade over time, making it difficult to recover information.^[2] Further, video games tend to rely on other resources like operating systems, network connectivity, and external servers outside control of users, and making sure these boundary aspects to a video game are preserved along with the game are also essential.^[1]

One period of the video game industry that has received a great deal of attention is up through the 1980s. As a result of the video game crash of 1983, many companies involved in developing games folded or were acquired by other companies. In this process, the source code for many games prior to the crash were lost or destroyed, leaving only previously-sold copies of games on their original format as evidence of their existence.^[3]

Preservation has become a greater priority for game companies since the 2000s with the ease of redundant digital storage solutions, and thus tend not to be an issue for games issued since that point. Frank Cifaldi said that Electronic Arts had developed an extensive means of preserving their games at the end of the development cycle as well as contact former employees to collect data and assets from past games to help preserve their titles.^[4]

Legal issues[edit]

Most issues related to video game preservation are based on the United States, one of the largest markets for video games, and as such, issues related to preservation are limited by laws of the country.

In general, the copying and distribution of video games that are under copyright without authorization is considered a copyright violation (often called as software piracy). However, it has generally been allowed that users may make archival copies of software (including video games) as long as they own the original software; if the user sells or give away the original software, they must destroy the archival copies. This is also justification for a person being able to make ROM images from game cartridges that they own.

In 1998, the United Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), designed to bring copyright within the United States to align with two doctrines published by the World Intellectual Property Organization in 1996. The DMCA make it a criminal offense to develop, sell, or use technologies that are designed to bypass digital rights management (DRM) used in various forms of media. This subsequently made it illegal to backup up one's software for many games distributed via either game cartridge or optical disc, if some form of DRM was used to limit access to the software on the media.

The Library of Congress is responsible to open submissions for specific and narrow exemptions from interested parties every three years, and determine which of those, if any, to grant. Through the Library of Congress, some key exceptions to the DMCA have been granted to allow for video game preservation.

• In the 2003 set of exemptions, the Library disallowed enforcement of the DMCA for "computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete" and for "computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access".^[5]
• In the 2015 exemptions, the Library granted permission for preservationists to work around copy-protection in games which required an authentication step with an external server that was no longer online prior to playing the game which otherwise did not require online connectivity; this specifically did not cover games that were based on a server-client mode like most massively-multiplayer online games (MMOs).^[6]
• In the 2018 exemptions, the Library allowed for preservation and fair use of server-based games like MMOs, permitting preservationists to offer such games where they have legally obtained the game's code within museums and libraries.^[7]

The DMCA exemptions do not mean all ROM images are legal, and concern about continuing video game preservation was raised in mid-2018, after Nintendo initiated a lawsuit against two websites that distributed ROMs for games from their older platforms.^[8]

Normal copyright laws and contractual agreements may also hamper legitimate preservation efforts. The game The Operative: No One Lives Forever and its sequel is considered to be copyright limbo due to subsequent business moves that dispersed where the IP may have gone: the game was developed by Monolith Studios which after publication became a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It had been published by Sierra Entertainment, which had been owned by Fox Interactive, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, but later sold to Vivendi Games; Vivendi Games itself eventually was merged into Activision Blizzard. Night Dive Studios, a company with interest in reviving old games, had spent significant time working between Warner Bros., Fox, and Activision to try to track down the ownership of the game's IP but none of the three companies had immediate knowledge of the IP's state, and did not see the value in searching their paper archives to find the required documents, particularly if became a case of jointly-owned IP.^[9]

Preservation of video game software[edit]

Emulation[edit]

Video game console emulators use software that replicates the hardware of a video game console or arcade machine. Generally these create a virtual machine on newer computer systems that simulate the key processing units of the original hardware. The emulators then can read in software, such as a ROM image for arcade games or cartridge-based systems, or the game's optical media disc or an ISO image of that disc, to play the game in full.

Emulation has been used in some official capacity on newer consoles. Nintendo's Virtual Console allows games from its earlier consoles and other third-parties to be played on its newer ones. Sony had originally released the PlayStation 3 with backwards compatibility with PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 games if players had the original media, but have transitioned to selling emulated games in its PlayStation Store as well as offering the PlayStation Nowcloud gaming service that allows PlayStation 3 games to be played on other devices including the PlayStation 4 and compatible personal computers. Microsoft has created a backwards compatibility program through emulation to allow selected Xbox 360 titles to be played on the Xbox One if they own the original game and have made some of these titles available for purchase through Xbox Live. Former console hardware companies such as Sega and Atari have released emulation-based collections of their games for multiple systems.

In the PC space, emulation of either a game engine or full operating system are available. In these cases, players are expected to own copies of the game to use the content files. DOSBox emulates a complete IBM PC compatible operating system allowing most games for older computers to be run on modern systems. Emulators also exist for older arcade games, such as MAME.

There are legalities related to emulation that can make it difficult to preserve video games in this manner. First, the legality of creating an emulator itself is unclear. Several United States case laws have shown that developing emulation is a legal activity as long as no proprietary information or copyrighted code is incorporated into the emulation.

Migration[edit]

Migration refers to re-releasing software from one platform to a newer platform, otherwise keeping all the gameplay, narrative, and art assets the same. This can be done through a few routes:^[10]

• Game engine recreation: A new universal game engine can be developed that uses the original game assets but otherwise runs on any future hardware platform. Such examples include the Z-machine for many of the Infocom text adventure games, and the ScummVM allows players to run nearly every LucasArts adventure game.
• Software re-compilation or porting: The original source code for the game is re-compiled for a newer platform, making necessary changes to work on the newer hardware. This requires that the source code for the original game is available for this purpose. Many of the games published by Digital Eclipse are based on decompiling of the original game's code with approval of the copyright owner into their own Eclipse engine which allows for porting to any number of systems.^[11][12]

Abandonware[edit]

Abandonware refers to software that may still be capable of running on modern computers or consoles, but the developer or publisher has either disappeared, no longer sell the product, or no longer operate servers necessary for running the software, among other cases.

Legally, such software still falls under normal copyright laws; copyright only disappears over time depending on its copyright term (from 75 to 90 years for most video games), and even with shuttered companies, the copyright is an asset that often becomes owned by the liquidator of the closed company. Under the DMCA, the Copyright Office has made exceptions since 2015 for allowing museums and other archivists to bypass copyright issues to get such software into a playable state, a new exception seeks to allow this specifically for multiplayer games requiring servers, specifically massively-multiplayer online games.^[13]

Fan-driven efforts[edit]

In some cases, fans of a video game have helped to preserve the game to the best of their abilities without access to source code, even through the copyright nature of these fan projects are highly contentious, and more so when monetary issues are involved. Games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, which had difficult production issues before release, may leave unused assets to be found by players, and in the case of both these games, players have developed unofficial patches that work to complete the content, in some cases, exceeding expectations of the original content creators.^[14]

Others[edit]

Source code for older games, before rights were strongly controlled by publishers, were often kept by the programmers themselves, and they may release those, or may be part of their estate after death. In one case, a lost Nintendo Entertainment System game, an earlier version of Days of Thunder by Chris Oberth, who had died in 2012, was recovered from source code on floppy discs from his work materials in 2020 by the Video Game History Foundation with permission of his family.^[15]

Preservation of video game software has come through dubious routes. Notably, the source code for all of the Infocom text adventure games had been obtained by Jason Scott in 2008 via an anonymous user in the "Infocom drive", an archive file that represented the entirety of the Infocom's main server days prior to the company's relocation from Massachusetts to California in 1989. While Scott was aware this was akin to industrial espionage, he still had published the source code for the games for purposes of preservation.^[16] John Hardie of the National Videogame Museum had gone dumpster diving through the trash of shutdown companies to recover materials for his collection.^[17]

Preservation of video game hardware[edit]

The only known existing hardware unit of the Super NES CD-ROM - a Sony-produced Super Nintendo Entertain System with a CD-ROM system and the predecessor of the PlayStation

While in most cases, digitizing the software for video games is sufficient for preservation, there have been enough unique consoles with limited production runs that can create further challenges for video game preservation as it is difficult to emulate its software. When hardware is in ready supply, white-hat hackers and programmers can freely tear-down these systems to analyze their internals for reverse engineering for preservation, but when systems are in limited supply, such tactics are not appropriate. These systems can also degrade as well. More often, broken or non-functional versions of older hardware can be acquired to demonstrate that such systems existed, but fail to work as a software preservation tool. For example, only one copy of the Super NES CD-ROM, a Sony-produced Super Nintendo Entertainment System with a CD-ROM drive, has been found out of an estimated 200 that were produced before Sony and Nintendo's deal changed. The unit was carefully repaired to be able to use the CD-ROM so that some functionality of its software could be verified and allow the few known software titles to be tested on it.^[18]

Print media preservation[edit]

Box art and game manuals accompanied most games published before 2000, and there had been an extensive number of magazines published on video games which have since declined. There is a strong interested in the digital preservation of these materials alongside software and hardware as reference material to help document the early history of video games, which did not received the type of detailed coverage that the field sees as of the 2010s. In most cases, these works are preserved through digital scanning and storage from libraries and user collections.^[19]

Preservation efforts[edit]

Library of Congress[edit]

The United States Library of Congress (LoC) launched the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) in 2000 to preserve non-traditional media. Around 2007, the LoC started reaching out to partners in various industries to help explore how they archive such content. The LoC had funded the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) from 2004 to 2010 to develop the ECHO DEPository ("Exploring Collaborations to Harvest Objects in a Digital Environment for Preservation") program.^[20]

Preserving Virtual Worlds[edit]

Preserving Virtual Worlds was one project funded by the LoC and conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with support from Linden Lab, running from 2008 to 2010. The study explored a range of games, from Spacewar! (1962) through Second Life (2003, which was developed by Linden Labs), to determine what methods could be used for preserving this titles. The project concluded while there are technical solutions for preservation of game software, such as identify common formats for digital storage and developing database architectures to track ownership, many issues related to preservation remain legal in nature relating to copyright laws.^[1][21]

National Film and Sound Archive[edit]

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia announced in September 2019 that they will start created an archive of Australian-developed video games for preservation and exhibition, with games to be added on an annual basis. The preservation effort will include not only the software but art, music and other creative assets as well as making considerations for playability in the long-term.^[22]

Internet Archive[edit]

The Internet Archive started adding emulation of video games from older systems for play.^[23] The Archive developed Emularity, a web-browser based emulator to run a number of out-of-production arcade, console and computer emulations, and offer numerous titles to be played through the Archive. The project's maintainer, Jason Scott, said that most companies do not take issue with their ROM images being offered in this manner, but did note that Nintendo has put pressure on them to not include any Nintendo consoles within the collection.^[24][25]

Video Game History Foundation[edit]

Frank Cifaldi is one of the leading historians in the video game industry trying to encourage more video game preservation and to help recover games once thought lost. By 2017, he had spent about twenty years trying to encourage preservation as to track video game history, and established the non-profit Video Game History Foundation in 2017. The Foundation not only seeks to preserve games, but box art, manuals, and promotional material from video games, believing that these combined can help future historians understand the culture of games in the past.^[26][27]

National Videogame Museum[edit]

The National Videogame Museum in the United States bore out of archival work performed by John Hardie who had run the Classic Gaming Expo. During this time Hardie had collected a number of video game materials from others and his own efforts. The collection of material collected drew interest from industry events including E3^[28][29] and the Game Developers Conference,^[30] helping to promote the collection. Hardie exhibited the materials through traveling shows, and got interest from Randy Pitchford to establish a permanent home for the collection. The Museum was opened in Frisco, Texas in 2016. While some companies have donated materials to the Museum, Hardie stated it has been difficult in convincing other developers and publishers to contribute to the preservation efforts.^[17]

Centre for Computing History[edit]

The Centre for Computing History's ongoing efforts have resulted in the physical preservation of over 12,000 video games since 2008.^[31] Information for every item in the collection is accessible via their online catalogue. The Centre also digitally archives source code for games such as the Magic Knight series by David Jones (programmer)^[32], and preserves and hosts scans of original sketches and other development materials from game companies such as Guerrilla Games. Their work emphasises the importance of preserving all aspects of the experience of a game, from marketing materials to the copy protection experience, packaging, and hardware.^[33] The Centre's collection also hosts uncommon hardware and operating systems with this in mind. The Centre is also working with current video game developers and publishers, acting as a repository for their ongoing work so that it is actively preserved.^[34]

The Strong Institute[edit]

Among other educational aspects The Strong institute in Rochester, New York operates the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.^[2]

Videogame Heritage Society[edit]

The Videogame Heritage Society is an effort started by the United Kingdom's National Videogame Museum along with the British Library, the Museum of London, the Centre for Computing History, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, Bath Spa University, and several independent collectors in 2020 to preserve video games developed in the United Kingdom.^[35]

Game Preservation Society[edit]

Founded in 2011 in Tokyo, the Game Preservation Society preserves the history of Japanese video games. The organization's focus is the preservation of 1980s Japanese computer games for platforms like the PC-88 and Sharp X1. The society's president, French national Joseph Redon, estimates that they will only be able to preserve about 80% of Japanese computer games.^[36]

National Software Reference Library[edit]

While strictly not set up for preservation, the National Software Reference Library, created and maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has included a number of popular game software among other software principally used for help in digital forensics, storing electronic copies of these games and other programs. The initial games collection was added in 2016 with numerous titles collected by Stephen Cabrinety, who had died in 1995;^[37] in 2018, Valve, Activision-Blizzard, and Electronic Arts all donated additional titles to be added to the collection, while NIST itself purchased other popular titles to include.^[38]

Hong Kong Game Association (RETRO.HK)[edit]

Founded in 2015 in Hong Kong by Dixon Wu and other volunteers with decades of video game knowledge, the Hong Kong Game Association is a non-profit society dedicated to preserve, curate, and showcase video game history, especially focusing on locally developed PC & console games, and traditional Chinese video game literature. The Association organizes the annual RETRO.HK Gaming Expo and RetroCup - free annual retro game events that are dedicated to promoting video game and competitive gaming as a culture and art form to the public.^[39] The association has worked with multiple local universities or colleges to promote the cause, such as The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The City University of Hong Kong, The Open University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) group.

The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment[edit]

Founded in 2011 in Oakland, California the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment, the MADE performed the first institutional preservation of an online game when it worked with F. Randall Farmer, Chip Morningstar, Fujitsu, and a group of volunteers to relaunch LucasFilm GamesHabitat (video game)^[40]. This work lead to collaboration with UC Berkeley to petition for a 1201 DMCA exemption for the preservation of MMO games^[41]. The source code to Habitat has since been release as open source software under the MIT license ^[42]. The MADE continues to work on further digital preservation, focusing on source code and online games.

Flashpoint[edit]

The Adobe Flash standard, heavily used in browser-based video games in the 2000s, is scheduled to be fully removed from most web browsers by the end of 2020 due to long-running security issues with the Flash format, and will make these games unplayable. An effort called Flashpoint was established in 2018 to collect as many of the freely-available Flash games as possible for archival purposes, excluding those games that were offered commercially or that require a server to play, and allowing authors to request removal. As of January 2020, the Flashpoint project has more than 38,000 Flash games in its archive.^[43][44]

Rereleases[edit]

Companies like GOG.com and Night Dive Studios are recognized for helping to migrate older games to modern systems. Among their efforts include doing the research to track down all legal rights that are associated with a game, including those that have changed hands several times, as to get clearance or rights to republish the title, locate as much of the game's original source code and adapt that to work on modern systems, or when source code is not available, reverse engine the game to either work natively or through emulation (like DOSBox) with modern hardware. GOG.com and Night Dive have successfully freed some games from IP limbo, such as System Shock 2, while identifying titles that remain difficult to republish and preserve legally due to conflicts on IP rights holders, such as No One Lives Forever.

See also[edit]

References[edit]