The Video Game History Foundation, in partnership with the Software Preservation Network, hosted the first ever study commercial availability of classic video games. Its results are unlikely to please fans of the classics: 87% of such games released in the US are in danger of extinction.
As part of the study, the foundation tested games with a release date prior to 2010. In total, the authors of the study selected four thousand projects – and only 12% of all games released on the PlayStation 2 can now be found and launched without problems. The situation in the case of the Game Boy is even worse – only 6%.
The digital games store for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U also hit the “classics” hard – more than a thousand unique video games were “lost” because of this. These projects are at the disposal of the History Foundation, however, according to the law, they cannot be uploaded in the “figure” – you can get acquainted with them only locally.
In general, fans of classic games now have few options, one of which is piracy. And in the end, the VGHF concludes, some video games are now available only to the most dedicated – or the most undemanding – game fans.
