A large-scale project to preserve 60,000 video games has stalled after public funding was cut off.
A German project aimed at preserving video games for future generations has ended after government funding was withdrawn. This decision coincidentally occurred at the same time that Sony
Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS) steht vor dem Aus (Update) - GamesWirtschaft.de
https://www.gameswirtschaft.de/politik/internationale-computerspielesammlung-ics-einstellung-030726/
Germany's massive 60,000-game preservation project collapses after €1.5 million funding dries up — world's largest game archive was entirely publicly available, now abandoned just as Sony kills physical media | Tom's Hardware
https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/germanys-1-5-million-project-to-build-the-worlds-largest-game-archive-collapses-after-funding-dries-up
The Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS), which was building the world's largest game preservation project in Germany, has announced the closure of its project after its approximately €1.5 million (approximately 280 million yen) in public funding ended at the end of April 2026 and the government decided not to renew it.
Since its inception in 2012, ICS has collected and preserved over 60,000 games contained on floppy disks, CDs, and other media, as well as their packaging, instruction manuals, and advertising materials. Industry associations and university research institutions have also supported this project, and the content has been made publicly available.
While funding for ICS was provided by the Berlin State Government and the German Federal Commissioner for Culture, the Federal Ministry for Research, which is responsible for German game policy, decided not to provide permanent funding, stating that 'the next step would be to establish a physical facility and create a dedicated space for accessing the materials, but this would require long-term funding and presents significant budgetary hurdles.'
According to a 2023 study by the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network, 87% of classic games released in the United States are out of print and unavailable on the market. Researchers point out that the preservation rate of retro games is lower than that of silent films in the United States.
However, projects to preserve games often face difficulties due to copyright issues, and permission is sometimes denied. Industry groups have applied for DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) exemptions to share preserved games with researchers in remote locations, but the U.S. Copyright Office has rejected these applications four times in the past, stating that they 'do not demonstrate that it is fair to reproduce the works.'
US Copyright Office rejects proposal to legalize online rental of 'unavailable retro games' - GIGAZINE
Furthermore, some projects have been abandoned due to the rising prices of RAM and hard drives caused by the increased demand for AI.
390TB of video game archives go offline due to soaring prices of RAM, SSDs, and HDDs - GIGAZINE
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