The Video Game History Foundation carried out the first large-scale assessment of how accessible classic games remain to modern players. The findings are sobering: 87% of titles released in the United States before 2010 are no longer available for sale or legally playable in standard formats.
The study aims to quantify how many classic games are effectively at risk of disappearing from public access. To achieve this, researchers examined more than 4,000 projects, including every title released for the Game Boy family, to understand the breadth of the issue across major eras and platforms.
Only 13% of classic games could still be purchased legally at the time of the survey. A contributing factor was the shutdown of official digital storefronts for platforms like the 3DS and Wii U, which caused more than a thousand titles to vanish from authorized catalogs and from consumer returns. This disruption illustrates the fragility of licensed catalogs when distribution channels disappear or are retired by rights holders.
The most severely affected platform turned out to be the Commodore 64, where just 4.5% of titles remained readily reachable through legitimate channels. On the other end of the spectrum, the PlayStation 2—historically one of the most popular consoles—had about 12% of its catalog still accessible via official means. For many titles, ownership shifts to secondary markets or requires alternative routes for preservation, such as community archives or physical media rescans.
These patterns echo a broader, historical phenomenon: classic video games have survived for decades through a mix of private collections, public interest, and fan-driven preservation efforts, much like American silent films did during the 1912–1929 period. In both domains, fragility of access and fragility of ownership created ongoing debates over how to ensure cultural works endure for future generations.
In closing, the experts expressed cautious optimism that the study will spark broader discussions about preserving the gaming legacy. They advocate policy changes that would simplify copyright considerations for archival use and encourage libraries and archives to share digital copies of games in controlled, lawful ways. By enabling institutions to collaborate on preservation, the field may reduce the pace at which historic titles disappear from public life, giving researchers, educators, and enthusiasts a stable base from which to explore and celebrate the medium’s evolution.
Developed from Krasnodar showed the gameplay of the horror Pine Harbor