A new study by the Video Game History Foundation, a nonprofit group with a focus on the history of video games, estimates that 87% of classic video games have been lost over time.
The study revealed that most of the classic video games with a physical release in the United States have gone out of print. This puts video games’ history at risk of being forgotten.
The study titled, “Survey of the Video Game Reissue Market in the United States”, was written by Video Game History Foundation library director, Phil Salvador with assistance from a team of student researchers from the University of Washington Information School.
“While the video game industry and cultural heritage institutions agree that video games should be preserved for both entertainment and study, there is disagreement about whether the commercial market preempts the need for libraries, museums, and archives to expand their preservation activities,” Salvador wrote.
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The researchers from the Video Game History Foundation set out to find how many classic video games with an official release in the United States can still be legally purchased with ease.
After surveying more than 1,500 titles, they found that only 13% were still on the market—either through digital re-releases, reissues, retro collections, or HD remasters. The rest were out of print and only accessible through software piracy.
“For comparison, this is slightly above the availability of pre-World War II audio recordings and slightly below the survival rate of American silent films,” wrote Salvador. “We’re talking about games from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s, and they’re in just as bad shape as music and movies from back when Calvin Coolidge was president.”
Consequently, Video Game History Foundation has tasked itself with the role of “preserving, celebrating, and teaching” video game history.
What the Video Game History Foundation considers a classic video game
For the sake of the study and to avoid ambiguity, Video Game History Foundation defined classic video games as any video game released before 2010 on any platform as contained on the gaming database MobyGames. This also coincided with the time when video games started moving away from physical distribution to digital distribution through virtual storefronts like Steam.
Classic video games were considered to be in print if they were still available on any modern platform in 2023. Remasters and re-releases were counted as being available but remakes were not.
For context, Video Game History Foundation considered the 2005 game Yakuza released on PlayStation 2 as out of print, albeit it got a remake in 2016 called Yakuza Kiwami.
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The Video Game History Foundation grouped randomly selected games from 1948 to 2010 and grouped them into three game libraries namely the Game Boy family of products, the PlayStation 2, and the Commodore 64. They were evaluated based on how many titles were still legally available for play or purchase.
The Video Game History Foundation reported that as of April 2023, only 5.87% of the entire Game Boy library was still in circulation. Around 2,500 titles were released on the platform between 1989 and 2008. However, access to most of the titles was lost when Nintendo shut down its 3DS and Wii-U storefronts in March 2023.
Interestingly, although PlayStation 2 was very popular, only 12% of the games library was still available for legal purchase in 2023. The worst of the three categories was Commodore 64 which had just 4.5% of its game library available in print.
Only very popular titles are still on the market
From the studies, it was clear that only the most popular classic video games endured—because they were mostly re-released. The rest have withered and are lost in time. The problem facing game preservationists are diverse and range from technical challenges to rights issues and licensing problems.
It is important to mention that classic video games are not the only ones facing existential threats. Music, books, films, and other areas of pop culture are grappling with similar problems. However, music and films are still easier to find, thanks to online streaming services like Apple Music, Google Play, Spotify, and Pandora.
Frank Cifaldi, the co-director of the foundation tweeted, “Nine out of ten classic video games are no longer available…and that number is unlikely to get any better. It’s practically guaranteed that something you grew up with is gone, forever”.
Arguably the biggest hurdle on the path of classic video game preservation revolves around Copyright. According to Salvador, historical organizations, museums, and libraries have been approaching the U.S. Copyright Office for exemptions. However, that effort has been blocked by groups representing the video game industry.
Some game makers opposed the idea of a classic game library with the argument that the libraries may try to interfere with developers’ efforts if there is an alteration to the current copyright rules. In other words, they fear that preservation efforts may negatively impact their businesses.
“We still see libraries and archives as the most logical path forward,” wrote the Video Game History Foundation co-director Kelsey Lewin in an email to GeekWire. “The industry can’t and shouldn’t have to be in charge of preservation. It’s not the job of the industry.”
Efforts to preserve classic video games will only get harder
Besides the copyright hurdles, the preservation of classic video games will get harder because of the volume of games that are currently being churned out. In the past, less than one hundred titles were released in a year. Today, that number runs well into several hundred—particularly from indie developers.
“What we’re hoping for with the result of this study is to help libraries and archives get additional legal tools that will help them preserve video games,” said Lewin. “Video games are complex digital objects that face unique copyright obstacles compared to any other medium. This is particularly true for libraries and archives trying to provide remote access to their game collections, which is not possible under current copyright rules.”
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