The Largest Video Game Archive Closes: Over 60,000 Works Are at Risk of Disappearing

The preservation of European video game heritage has suffered a new severe blow. The Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS), a German initiative aimed at creating the largest public video game archive in the world, will indeed cease its activities after the conclusion of public funding and the federal government's decision not to renew financial support.

According to Games Wirtschaft, the project's shareholders unanimously approved the closure of the initiative. The main point of uncertainty now concerns the shared database, which collects over 60,000 cataloged video games. Legal and technical checks will need to determine whether the IT infrastructure and online catalog can continue to exist or will be permanently dismantled.

The ICS was established in 2012 through collaboration between the USK, the German authority for video game classification, the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin, the industry association Game, and the University of Potsdam. Over the years, the project has amassed a vast collection of cartridges, floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays, as well as manuals, original packaging, and historical hardware. Since 2019, the catalog has also been accessible through an online platform featuring tens of thousands of dedicated entries.

The closure does not imply the immediate loss of physical copies. The materials will continue to remain with the institutions that hold their ownership. However, the issue regarding the digital platform and the vast cataloging work carried out in recent years is still open.

Financial resources came from the Berlin Senate and the Federal Commissioner for Culture and covered the project until the end of April. From 2025, the management of policies dedicated to video games moved to the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR), which analyzed the possibility of ensuring permanent funding. However, the final evaluation highlighted costs that were too high relative to the economic sustainability of the initiative, leading to the project's conclusion.

The news comes at a particularly delicate moment for the preservation of video games. A study published in 2023 by the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network found that 87% of classic video games published in the United States are no longer available on the market. According to the research, the survival rate of these works is even lower than that recorded for silent U.S. films.

Even community-run archives are facing increasing difficulties. The repository Myrient, which stores over 385 TB of archived video games, had announced its planned closure for early 2026 due to rising costs of RAM, SSD, and hard drives, only to secure the entire collection thanks to the intervention of volunteers.

The interruption of the ICS also coincides with the recent announcement of the upcoming cessation of production of physical PlayStation discs, a factor that complicates the long-term preservation of video game heritage even further. The combination of reduced institutional archives and the gradual disappearance of physical media could make it increasingly difficult to preserve the history of the video game industry for future generations.