Why can’t we play Pong or Spacewar! anymore?
exist. Other games may have been deported, or received shinier sequels targe later hardware. Internet Archive hosts t sands of these, ranging from beloveds o late ’80s and early ’90s like Pac-man, Di and Prince of Persia to the original Lei Suit Larry. Most of these games are sh ware versions, offering limited game free. But many thousands were just los
It’s not as though old games do not an audience. The most-played massi multiplayer online or MMO game in world is World of Warcraft, first release 2004.
Games are frequently recreated for generations of hardware and software. 1980 arcade shooter Centipede was re tered 31 years later as Centipede: Infesta for the Nintendo Wii. But there just enough of this.
And then sometimes games are re tered even though the originals are still able on the same platform. Some of the sic Black Isle Studios role-playing ga from the turn of the century (the Bald Gate series, Icewind Dale, Planescape: ment) were still playable, with player-cre modifications adding quality-of-life impr ments, when they were remastered by Be dog in 2012-13.
It’s not as though other media have b immune to this. A fire in the Fox Stu vault in New Jersey in 1937 destroyed al all the silent films created by Fox before 1 What is surprising is that this kind of still occurs in these days of source con systems, where source code is gener treated as the greatest asset a game com can have.
Beamdog was unable to create a rema of the Icewind Dale 2 because the so code of the original 2002 game was unav ble. Even more absurd was the unavailab of the Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station (downloadable content) in the remast edition released this year. The reason? source code of this 2009 module was rupted, and therefore unavailable.
For players, some of these lost ga meant so much. Time spent mastering le drawing maps, patiently perfecting str gies, sharing stories of progress. The i scribable rush of completing a difficult l (and believe me, they were difficult; waterfall level in the 1994 Lion King g and the turbo tunnels in the Battleto games, 1991 onwards, would make Bl borne’s Orphan of Kos fight seem li plushy toy in comparison). Memories of f tration and relief, achievement and joy, world where you couldn’t look up the in net for instructional videos or read up g Wikis for tips.
On a not unrelated note, a sealed cartr of Super Mario 64, the bestselling videog for the 1996 Nintendo 64 console, sold $1.56 million at an auction in July. That’ kind of respect we like to see, for these bi history.