Where the games go: the problem of preserving old video games. Part 1

Diskettes with Prince of Persia source code, accidentally found by Jordan Meckner's father behind the cabinet

Recycle bins, landfills and incinerators. Erasure, removal and moral obsolescence. These words can describe the processes occurring with the building blocks of the video game industry in different countries of the world. Such bricks are the source code of games, computer equipment used to create specific video games, level diagrams, character sketches, production documents, marketing materials, and much more.

Here are just some elements of the process of creating games that are lost and never come back to us. These elements include games for home and portable consoles, PCs and arcade machines that you played. The only reminder about the game may remain its name or the final published version, because there is a possibility of the disappearance of all other physical copies of the results of creativity.

The passage of time and the inevitable collapse of development teams reduce to a minimum the likelihood of retaining other elements. Some of these building blocks can still be stored in cabinets, safes, attics, basements and garages. If they are not saved, then soon they too may end up in a landfill.
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The community of video game developers, publishers, and players should start asking themselves complex but unavoidable questions. Some believe that there is no point in saving video games. They say games are short-term entertainment. Others absolutely disagree with them and believe that the industry is in a crisis of historical preservation.

Where do the various video game resources go after the production and publication is complete? How are these materials handled after the games are published, and what will inevitably happen to them?

In a sense, video games “fall asleep” after they are turned off and “wake up” again when the power is turned on. Obsolescence of technology, carelessness and poor storage can in theory send the game to eternal rest.

Over the years of storing games, there are often disturbing confessions. For example, when in an interview with the developers raised issues of reissuing games, the authors say that the production materials of the game are lost or destroyed. The reasons for the impossibility of re-release of games are different. In one of the stories was told about the complete loss of the source code of the famous RPG, because of which the re-release on the console was impossible.

Research to create this article began in January 2009. I sent a questionnaire to the developers and publishers of video games from different countries. Further study and questionnaire responses revealed to us a tragic reality, whose stories have never been published.



Many industry workers were happy to talk on the topic of game preservation, while others completely refused to answer and comment. It was obvious that this topic should be investigated with all care, and at the same time delicately. The goal of this article is not to expose in a bad light those who neglected the savings of old games. It aims to shed light on how video games are saved and on the efforts made to save all aspects of video games.

Some of the answers revealed a disturbing reality, but at the same time, the questionnaire allowed industry experts to talk about how they switched to a kind of “rescue mode”. They are looking for boxes of old software and equipment in the most incredible places to show old games to new audiences on home and portable consoles, as well as through online services.

The most important question was: how important are game developers and game publishers to save video games for future generations of gamers?

This question was asked to the developers and publishers of video games from Europe, Japan and North America. We contacted 61 developers and publishers, 14 of them answered us.

From the manufacturers of video game consoles, we answered Microsoft Game Studios, Nintendo of America and Sony Computer Entertainment of America.

From developers and publishers, Capcom, Digital Leisure, Gearbox Software, Intellivision Productions, Irem Software Engineering, Jaleco, Mitchell Corporation, Namco Bandai Games, Sega, Taito and Throwback Entertainment answered. Many of these companies also produced coin arcade machines and previously participated in the creation of game consoles.

Fully their answers and statements will be given at the end of the article. Some comments made it clear what steps they are taking to preserve their heritage in the form of video games, while others told stories about casualties and saving games.

Irem Software Engineering reported that it did not preserve the intact source code from the 1980s, but the company keeps ROM images of almost all of its games. Irem expressed concern that the equipment supporting the life of these images would soon be out of order. The company is afraid that the details of the equipment and engineering knowledge necessary for data preservation will be lost.

Taito representatives said that some of the promotional materials related to the games of the company were lost. They explained that game media are protected according to Taito’s internal policies and ISO standards. In some cases, Taito transferred game data from old consoles to reliable and secure sources, and also preserved equipment, ROM images and printed circuit boards of arcade machines. Taito believes that the release of many old games on mobile platforms and console assemblies, such as Taito Legends, will be an important form of protection.

Digital Leisure said that the original source code for Dragon's Lair and Mad Dog McCree was lost or could not be recovered due to the format of the media on which it was stored. Digital Leisure wants to start working with third-party employees and fans to recreate the original arcade versions of these games in releases for new platforms. Digital Leisure expressed its disappointment at not being able to obtain the rights to re-release old games with LaserDisc on new platforms, because the original source material of some games with LaserDisc has already been lost.

Throwback Entertainment told about the “logistic nightmare” of working with 280 games acquired at the property auction of Acclaim Entertainment. Throwback plans to create a data center from computers, network systems and external drives purchased at eBay auctions to save the source code. This source code was accumulated for 25 years in the now inactive offices of Acclaim Entertainment, which were located in Glen Cove, New York.

Keith Robinson (Keith Robinson) from Intellivision Productions recalled the process of saving Intellivision source code. Mattel, the former parent company of Intellivision, put up for sale drives for 8-inch floppy disks, which were necessary to read the source code of Intellivision games on floppy disks. Robinson had to find a company that bought drives from Mattel, and then contact the manufacturer of the drives to find out the right combination of jumpers for the drives.

As a result, the source code of Intellivision games was finally transferred from floppy disks to a new storage format. In essence, the company saved the code from moral obsolescence. A collection of these games was released in October 2010 for the Nintendo DS. It can also be downloaded for the iPhone, iPad and Microsoft Game Room.

Console manufacturers Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony also shared their thoughts on saving games.

In Microsoft, there are special departments involved in the storage of all gaming materials in online and offline storage. Microsoft has plans to transfer games created before 2000 from old media to new reliable storage platforms as part of the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery business sustainability and recovery program.

Nintendo talked about the Iwata Asks interview series on its website about how original game design documents inspired Nintendo designers for years.

In one interview, Iwata Asks describes how the original NES design documents created in 1985 for The Legend of Zelda are constantly used as reference for specifications when developing new Zelda games . Nintendo also stressed the importance of the Wii Virtual Console service in maintaining and reprinting old games for new audiences.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America explained the importance of the PlayStation Network and Home Arcade in increasing the lifespan of old games. Sony admitted that the archiving conditions for third-party games "depend on the signed agreements," as well as on the regions of release. Sony talked about the difficulties associated with recovering source code that requires outdated or lost hardware. According to Sony, obsolescence of the BIOS or its replacement with new versions can lead to significant problems for long-term storage of computer equipment and development tools.

It is clear that some of the companies we turned to were not eager to discuss the problem of saving video games. Some of them referred to the company's policy in the discussion of game development, while others did not have any “artifacts” of video games.

One of these companies was an electronics manufacturer who had previously created video game consoles and software. For this article, the company conducted a search for all the available elements of the old games in their overseas corporate archive.

The result was stunning: there was no material on the games, including hardware, software or source code, in the official corporate archive. As a result, the company refused to participate in the creation of the article, but promised to study why their historical video game heritage cannot be found in its own internal archive.

Sadly, video game artifacts are often thrown into trash cans or completely abandoned.

Stories about how development teams came to their offices, finding boarded doors and announcing bankruptcy of an employer, are not so rare. Sometimes, when employees are dismissed, the management of a developer company or a publisher may not know what is on the carriers, in cabinets, folders and desk drawers. What should a video game company do with all materials on game design when its offices are closed or sold to another company?

There are unconfirmed rumors about how Japanese developers, who closed their departments in North America in the late nineties, left the old arcade machines and dressers with documents in storage rooms. As a result, their parent company in Japan simply forgot about these warehouses.

One of these companies that made headlines for throwing video game materials into the trash was Atari Corporation (not to be confused with modern Atari Incorporated, Atari Interactive and Atari Europe SASU).

The incidents described below have nothing to do with the disposal of old cartridges and equipment in a desert landfill in 1983.

In 1984 and 1985, Atari Corporation sold puzzled customers with cabinets with source code of games, production documents and marketing schemes from their warehouses. This rapid sale of furniture was carried out at the direction of the Tramiel family, who bought Atari in 1984. To return the funds, she fired hundreds of Atari employees and sold mountains of office equipment.

AP Construction Vice President Patty Ansuini from San Jose, Calif. Heard about the sale of office equipment from the Atari warehouse next to Santa Clara. According to a note in San Jose Mercury News, Ansuini bought a closet with two drawers from an Atari warehouse for $ 125. At the same time she was told that she could keep the contents for herself. At the time of purchase, Ansuini did not realize that this cupboard used to stand in the Atari game development office.

Ansuini brought a wardrobe from Atari to the office of a construction company and invited a locksmith to open it.



Opening the closet, Ansuini and her husband were shocked: they found cardboard folders with the source code of 84 games published for the Atari 2600, including Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede and Pole Position , as well as word processor code. In the closet there was even the source code for the prototype Atari 2600 games that were not released. These prototypes were games based on the television series "Dukes of Hazzard" and the film "Gremlins."

Known game designer and former Atari programmer Chris Crawford (Chris Crawford) still remembers the contents of the purchased Ansuini cabinet. A reporter who wrote a note for San Jose Mercury News in 1984 contacted Crawford to help him figure out the contents of the cabinet.

Crawford remembers the exact place where the Atari cupboard from this note stood: California, Sunnyvale, Borregas Avenue, 1272, second floor. Then it was the Atari Corporation development office for the VCS / 2600. “I remember the place of the secretary right next to the office of the head of the department in the corner. The cupboard stood next to the secretary’s desk, against the wall. ”

Chris said that the Anuini cabinet bought all the elements of each game for the Atari 2600: “Each game had three components: the source code printed on a couple of dozen pages of computer paper with a strip, an 8-inch floppy disk with source and object code, EEPROM with the final object code in a launching format, recorded on a printed circuit board. Each programmer had to provide the VCS secretary with all this information at the end of the game. ”

Ansuini decided to return all Atari Corporation gaming components. She called the office several times and left messages to the head of security. She even tried to contact Atari's president, Sam Tramiel. No one answered her calls, but they advised her to call back.

Finally, the same San Jose Mercury News reporter who contacted Crawford came out on James Copland (James L. Copland), vice president of marketing for Atari Corporation. Copland sent three Atari employees to the Ansuini construction company’s office to pick up the entire source code for 86 games. “This is a rather inconvenient way to get rid of furniture,” Copland said in an interview with a reporter.

Atari Corporation continued to use this method of "getting rid of furniture" from warehouses, so rumors began to spread rapidly. Court Allen from Pleasanton (California) has become another buyer of the Atari warehouse sale. Ansuini purchased just one cabinet with source code for the VCS / 2600. Allen bought forty-four Atari cabinets. In the cabinets Allen bought there was no source code. However, Allen found in the cabinets also turned out to be a startling discovery.

For Allen's company, Quest Consulting needed a PCB tester. From an Atari employee, he heard that the company sells such equipment in one of its warehouses in Milpitas on Sycamore Drive. Allen arrived at the Atari warehouse and purchased the Megatest Q8000 Test System, which was used to test a programmable ROM (PROM, Programmable Read Only Memory). He recalls the chaos of that day:

“I saw boxes of new unsold games, lots of arcade consoles, furniture, cabinets, office equipment, materials and all that. Huge trucks drove up to the loading areas, filled with the contents of other Atari offices. ”

A few days later, Allen was told about another sale in which Atari was selling office cabinets for $ 2 apiece. Allen's friend, who shared his office with him, bought four of these cabinets and brought them to the office.

Allen looked into the cabinets bought by another, found Atari documents and decided to go to the Atari warehouse, where another chaotic scene unfolded.

The court did not need cabinets, he was interested in their contents. Perhaps for Atari it was a standard business procedure, but according to Allen’s memories, it looked like a tragedy.

The history of Atari was taken out of the offices again by carts and literally thrown into landfills.

Allen asked Atari, a warehouse employee, if he could buy the remaining forty-four wooden cabinets. They agreed on two dollars for each cabinet. Atari employee naively insisted that the contents of each cabinet was thrown into a landfill, because it would be easier for Allen to take them home. Allen cautiously wondered if he could save the documents stored in the boxes. A puzzled Atari employee agreed, and the deal was completed. Allen brought 160 kg of Atari wooden cabinets to his home.

Inside the cabinets, Allen discovered a treasure: watercolor sketches of the design of Atari-published games, including Namco's Pole Position and Dig Dug . Also found were the design schemes for Atari's own games, including graphics with illustrations for the Atari Basketball and Golf .

Also in the cabinets were graphics and design illustrations for a mysterious console called “Kee Games Video Game System”. Discovered marketing materials for Sears stores. The cabinets were also stored packaging and user manuals in French, German, Spanish and Italian.



One of the most amazing specimens found in the closets was Atari Corporation’s own interpretation of games licensed from Nintendo. The illustrations of Mario and Luigi characters with notes for the Atari cartridge box and user guide are found.

In total, the cabinets contained about two thousand different objects related to the history of the Atari Corporation of 1981-1983. In 2007, the Sotheby's auction estimated the cost of these documents at 150-200 thousand dollars. The auction was held in June of that year, the content of the sale was called “Fine Books and Manuscripts Including Americana”. A detailed description of the content can be found on the Sotheby's website . [approx. Lane: in fact, the link is no longer valid, which is quite ironic for an article about preserving archives]

Items could not be sold at Sotheby's in New York, and Allen paid for shipping to his home. He continues to store the entire contents of the cabinets, hoping to find a buyer and invest the proceeds to pay for loans for the education of his two children.

“As I thought during the purchase of the cabinets, the documentation I received is a copy of the Atari story. This is a historical archive of thought processes that occurred during the development of games. There are character sketches made by hand by a creative designer. Then I bought the documents in order to preserve the history, and since these are “original” documents, they were in a single copy. In addition, I felt that someday many of the original images would be very valuable. ”

“Any of these reasons was enough to buy cabinets. I keep them for 25 years. I would like all these documents to be together. I hope that someone will process all these "packages" and create a small history of the development and design of each Atari product. "

Allen, on the other hand, is still trying to decide whether the documentation can be split into pieces or whether it is worth storing them all as a collection.

“I like to view this documentation, and I always admire what I see. However, it is not me who should own all this, it belongs to history. Yes, I really want to put all these items for sale. They need to be placed in any archive. I often get offers to sell from collectors who need different original illustrations. ”

By the way, a friend of Allen a few years later threw all four cabinets with documentation Atari.

Collectors see value in preserving video game development materials received from companies. Modern game developers and publishers see financial benefits from the publication of these old games in collections and online services for selling games. The developers of such reissues have the opportunity to examine in greater detail the contents of the materials, including the source code, thus saving time and money. To emulate old games, it is important for the developer to study the original source code in order to understand how the original equipment works.

Well-known video game producer and programmer Jeff Vavasour is included as lead programmer in the list of developers of compilations of console games Midway Arcade Treasures and Atari Anthology.. His contribution to programming is to create countless collections of old video games developed by Digital Eclipse (now known as Backbone Entertainment).

Vavasor’s own company Code Mystics Inc. recently developed Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 and Dragon's Lair for the Nintendo DS. Vavasor explains the importance of using the source code of an arcade game, the equipment of which could be designed to run only one game.

“Having source code is incredibly useful even in emulation when it comes to debugging. When something does not work as it should, understanding the context of what the game is trying to do is an important part of diagnosing a problem. Even a poorly commented source code still contains the names of functions and variables that can shed light on what is happening in it. ”

“In addition, the need to reverse the development of state information disappears. For example, in modern emulation packages we need to know the current indicators of the game state: whose turn is now, is the game over, etc., to change the controller's behavior in accordance with the standards of the controllers of modern consoles. (For example, on an arcade machine, players could take turns in turns from one controller, but the console has separate controllers for each player, and the controller of the first player should not affect the game during the turn of the second.) "

" We can understand all this without source code, but the search for information then turns into monotonous work. The presence of the source code shows us how (and where) this information is stored in the memory of an arcade game. ”

The founder of G1M2, Scott Hawkins, is a developer who transferred many games from the Sega Dreamcast to the GameTap online service using an emulator developed by his company.

G1M2 also developed Data East Arcade Classics for Wii and collections for the PS2 Art of Fighting Anthology and Fatal Fury Battle Archives SNK Playmore. Hawkins explained how the source code rescued the publisher when it was necessary to remove the images in order to re-release one classic game.

“An interesting case happened when we transferred the old sports game to a new platform. The game had a lot of content with licensed brands and images. Unfortunately, the license terms have expired, so banners, logos and other previously licensed items needed to be removed or replaced. ”

“Fortunately for this project, we had access to the source code, so it was quite easy to replace the licensed content with standard unlicensed elements. If we did not have access to the source code, the publisher would have to pay for the re-licensing of the content so that it remains in the game. Without the source code, we would be forced to hack the game to remove the images or it would not have the opportunity to re-release. ”

“Replacing music or images is fairly simple, but replacing character models or other important parts of a game without source code can make the task impracticable,” says Hawkins.

The lack of source code almost proved to Hawkins the impracticability of work when the previously founded company CodeFire developed the Sega Smash Pack for the Game Boy Advance in 2001. Sega Smash Pack is a compilation released in 2002, consisting of Golden Ax , Ecco The Dolphin and Sonic Spinball .

Hawkins and his team had virtually no access to the source code of all these games throughout the development cycle in 2001. They had to restore the Golden Axfrom scratch using the utility that compiled all game graphics resources. The source code for Ecco the Dolphin was from a third-party developer who created reliable backup copies of the project. Hawkins retells the story of finding the source code of the Sonic Spinball , which eventually showed up in an unexpected place:

"The Sonic Spinball was developed by an internal Sega team called Sega Technical Institute (STI), but the computers that stored backup copies of the source code were not in the office and no one had a copy of the archive. I began to interview the company's employees, the people who worked on the project and left the company, and everyone else in the department. "

"Lead Designer Sonic Spinballreplied to me that he had a copy of the original game design document. I said that this is great, but it will not help me in porting the game to a new platform. ”

“About two weeks later I had a very interesting conversation. The former technology director of the group called me and said: “I have good news, bad news and strange news. A couple of weeks ago, you asked me about a copy of the Sonic Spinball source code . Strange news is that, tidying up last weekend in the garage, I found a box labeled “ Sonic Spinball ”. Good news: it may contain source code. The bad news is: the disk is magneto-optical, and I just can’t check its contents. "

« , ( ), , , ! — Sega Smash Pack GBA ( Sonic Spinball ).»

Sonic Spinball Sega ( GBA).

Sega of America In a corporate blog, she told me that she has a repository with game archives in her office in San Francisco. Blog readers after learning photos of game archives quickly discovered many unreleased games for the Dreamcast, including Dee Dee Planet , Far Nation , Propeller Arena, and Real Race .

In many contracts for the development and publication of games there are conditions for backing up all materials. The story of Sonic Spinball shows that developers can use simple but important actions to save source code that was previously considered lost.

Developers and publishers should contact each other again to restore the source code and all video game project resources that have been published for many years. For example, it may turn out that a publisher in the USA, Europe or even Brazil has source code that was lost by developers.

This often happens in the film industry when original film negatives and sound are needed to be remastered to DVD, Blu-ray or broadcast on television. Elements of films that were considered lost are in overseas repositories used for distribution abroad.

Nowadays, communication between video game developers, publishers, and former members of the development team allows you to discover materials that can be returned to rights holders, thus ensuring their safety for future use.

Hawkins and Vavasor stressed that the emulators used to run old games on new consoles and online services are also source code themselves and they also need to be backed up.

“We copy and save our source code and project elements. It's easier to transfer technology to new platforms. Depending on the target platform, we can completely rewrite the emulator from scratch, but it is much easier to port the existing emulation technology and not to reinvent the wheel. ”

“It is useful to learn the lessons learned from the creation of the project and start working in a new way. It is important to preserve the source code and ensure its security for future use, ”says Hawkins.

Vavasor adds: “The emulator is also source code, and it is also subject to obsolescence, just like the source code of the original game. We need to continue to copy data to new media and adapt the code to the emerging new platforms. ”

“My first emulators were designed to work in MS-DOS 4.x, written in the Tandy Deskmate editor, compiled using Microsoft Macro Assembler 5.11 and stored on five-inch floppy disks. In essence, today it is useless dead code that you need to either port or emulate the MS-DOS 4.x environment to run the emulator. ”

Saving original games for coin arcade machines, equipment and software of consoles is necessary for developers to ensure the required speed and overall authenticity of the game when reissuing on new consoles or in online services.

Terminal Reality is a developer company that re-releases classic SNK games in collections such as Metal Slug Anthology and SNK Arcade Classics for Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 2 and PSP. Although the company had access to the source code of most of the SNK games, Mark Randall, the CEO and leading technologist of Terminal Reality, said that the developers had to search for originals to make sure that the products produced were valid for all three consoles.

“When we were looking for old SNK ROM cartridges, we were constantly following eBay, hoping that the games we worked on would appear there. We were very lucky to create Metal Slug , because before the release of the re-release of the game began to appear on the auction. Although the original copy of Metal Slug 1It turned out we can not afford. "

Terminal Reality found all the available old ROM cartridges and bought arcade machines to run them.

“After a lot of nightly sessions of the game, we could already feel when our version was not close enough to the original. We broke a lot of joysticks on it. Since we worked on classic and favorite games of the users, the majority of QA staff were incredibly hardcore, they were real old school players. They even knew when pixel bugs and slowdowns should appear in the game in order to maintain authenticity! ”Says Randall.

To ensure authenticity, it was also necessary to gain access to the materials that helped the games enter the market, from print and television advertising to the game logo. These materials could be used not only to understand what the developer and publisher of the original game wanted to invest in it, but also to inspire and update the re-release concept. Hawkins explains that for players this was an additional motivation to play the classic video game:

“The production resources of classic games are very valuable, they can be used as game achievements, in marketing and in the design of other interface elements. When we created Data East Arcade Classicsfor Wii, we allowed players to unlock illustrations of classic arcade games, flyers, commercials, and posters. It seemed to us that it was a great way to reward players for fulfilling certain goals and increasing replayability. ”

The question is, where can you safely and safely store all the elements that make up the game?

Natural disasters and impacts have played a role in the destruction of the history of video games. A history study shows us that at least one major video game developer, Konami, has lost valuable material in a serious earthquake.

In the second part of the article “Where the games go,” I will talk about what happened to Konami and its game development departments, which suffered from one of the world's largest natural disasters. Video game museums around the world will tell us what steps they are taking to preserve important video game elements from landfills and the threat of data obsolescence.