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| The database's future is under legal and technical review, though physical holdings remain with the institutions that own them. |
The Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS) — a pioneering project to build the world's largest publicly accessible video game archive — has officially ceased operations after federal funding expired, dealing a major blow to game preservation efforts across Europe and beyond.
The project's shareholders voted unanimously to shut down the initiative following the expiration of approximately €1.5 million in public funding at the end of April. The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, which assumed responsibility for games policy in 2025, declined to renew support after concluding that permanent institutional funding would not be economically viable given the scope of work involved.
First reported by GamesWirtschaft on July 3, the shutdown leaves the future of ICS's extensive database — cataloguing more than 60,000 titles — in legal and technical limbo.
A Monumental Collection
Since its inception in 2012, the ICS had assembled an extraordinary physical collection spanning cartridge, floppy disk, CD, DVD and Blu-ray formats, accompanied by manuals, packaging and hardware. The collaborative effort brought together Germany's game-ratings authority USK, the Computerspielemuseum Berlin, the industry association Game, and the University of Potsdam.
The project's public online catalogue launched in April 2019 with tens of thousands of entries, representing years of painstaking documentation work. However, the physical holdings themselves remain with their respective institutional owners, and it remains unclear whether the shared database and its supporting infrastructure can survive independently.
Berlin economics senator Franziska Giffey had cautioned earlier this year that continued support beyond April was not guaranteed, though the final decision still sent shockwaves through the preservation community.
A Crisis Beyond Germany's Borders
The ICS shutdown is far from an isolated incident. It arrives amid mounting evidence that video game preservation faces existential challenges worldwide.
A landmark 2023 study by the Video Game History Foundation and Software Preservation Network revealed that 87 percent of classic games released in the US are out of print and commercially unavailable — a survival rate that researchers found falls below that of American silent films. The findings underscored how the industry's reliance on digital distribution and licensing has created a preservation crisis that threatens to erase entire generations of interactive media.
In October 2024, the US Copyright Office dealt another blow to preservationists when it refused for the fourth time since 2015 to grant a DMCA exemption that would allow libraries to share preserved games with remote researchers. The decision sided with the Entertainment Software Association, which argued that such exemptions could facilitate piracy.
Fan-Run Efforts Also Under Pressure
Volunteer-led preservation initiatives face their own distinct challenges. Myrient, a fan-run repository holding approximately 390 terabytes of preserved games, announced in February that it would shut down the following month.
Founder Alexey cited rapidly escalating infrastructure costs, abuse of the platform's unlimited downloads by for-profit download managers, and donations that failed to keep pace with surging traffic as key factors behind the closure. The founder specifically pointed to sharp increases in storage hardware prices, driven in part by exploding data center demand, as a central driver of unsustainable operating costs.
In a rare silver lining, volunteers later succeeded in backing up Myrient's entire archive before it went offline — though the long-term accessibility of that data remains uncertain.
The Physical Media Challenge Deepens
The ICS collapse comes in the same week that Sony confirmed it will end physical PlayStation disc production in 2028, a development that will make future archival efforts significantly more challenging as fewer games are ever released in a physical, extractable format.
With digital storefronts regularly delisting titles and physical media becoming increasingly scarce, the window for comprehensive preservation is narrowing rapidly. The loss of institutional projects like ICS, combined with the fragility of volunteer-run alternatives, raises urgent questions about who will safeguard gaming's cultural heritage for future generations.
For now, the ICS's legacy hangs in the balance — a cautionary tale about the fragility of publicly funded cultural preservation in an era of competing priorities and constrained budgets.
Source : GamesWirtschaft, Video Game History Foundation