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/vr/ - Retro Games


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970569 No.970569 [Reply] [Original]

Will there ever be such a thing as "lost" videogames?

We have films which are considered lost, in which they were produced and released, but all the negatives were either destroyed or somehow disappeared, leaving the film never to be seen again. Would such a fate befall certain videogames?

>> No.970574

As far as I know, Polybius actually existed at one point and actually is lost forever.

That said, the widespread availability of ROMs and emulators (even for recent games and systems) makes "lost" games extremely unlikely nowadays. Even games that were never meant to be released to the public turn up eventually, like Earthbound Zero and the Majora's Mask debug ROM.

>> No.970582

>>970574
Polybius might be the world's only lost videogame...provided it actually existed in the first place.

>> No.970585

>>970569
We already have games like that. Look up Hellraiser NES.

>> No.970598

Action 52 was going to be on the snes

>> No.970604
File: 35 KB, 512x240, tekken2ub.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
970604

If anything, maybe those giant cabinet games like Galaxian3, if not Starblade, Cybersled, etc. Large, unwieldy, expensive, saw limited sales because of those characteristics.

Or games that saw updates like Tekken 2 and Mortal Kombat 2. Older versions of the code might possibly have been pushed aside and lost along the way.

>> No.970609

Sonic the Hedgehog's original program code is lost and gone forever.

>> No.970620

Lots of games written on early academic systems were deleted for being non-educational, eg. pedit5, m199h.

http://armchairarcade.com/neo/node/1948

>> No.970623

>>970574
I've been trying really hard to find solid evidence of that. On what are you basing that claim? I WANT TO BELIEVE.

As far as OP's question, by design it's unlikely for this to happen, because except for some early games, the software was created digitally and can be easily preserved on a digital backup; it's different than in the case of old analog film which requires a well-kept and maintained physical copy that can degrade over time, be destroyed in a fire or a flood, or just plain thrown out or written over by the stdio to save money and space (which unfortunately happened a lot more often and a lot more recently than you might think. BBC almost used the Monty Python's Flying Circus masters to record sports events or something before one of the cast bought them himself, if I'm not talking out of my ass.)

Although I have heard that arcade games made in poorer countries were often disassembled upon retirement so that their parts could be reused.

>> No.970629

>>970623
>I've been trying really hard to find solid evidence of that. On what are you basing that claim? I WANT TO BELIEVE.

That's the fun of an urban legend

>> No.970630

>>970569
Yes, games are disappearing as we speak. There are many, many games for early computers that have never been dumped and are rotting away in someone's attic on a 5 1/4 inch floppy. This may especially be true for the classic Japanese computers. I'm not sure.

On the other hand, piracy has without a doubt preserved countless games that would have rotted away otherwise. For example, do you think that on ANY Zelda compilation that Nintendo decided to release from now until the end of time would include the 3do games? No. Without someone dumping those games they would ultimately be forgotten. This goes triple for games on classic computer systems.

>> No.970647

There are plenty of unreleased, unique games and therefore we have to assume that some of these were never dumped and all copies were lost. It's also very likely that some arcade machines from the 70s and 80s were only produced in small runs by companies who went on to become defunct and that all examples of the roms were lost without being dumped and archived.

With the advent of The Internet this sort of legendary "lost game" no longer happens but some games may be extremely obscure and only achieve notoriety after all existing copies are gone. This might have happened with Chu-Teng but the interest spike happened when there were still a few copies held by Japanese collectors.

It could theoretically happen anytime, as long as a game was obscure at release. To achieve legendary "lost game" status, there has to be a reason for it to gain interest long after the fact.

I actually was really into tgis stuff a few years ago but I couldn't find anyone else wgo cared. I'll try to dig back up some of the stuff I learned about

>> No.970654

There probably already is, at least early stuff. I'm thinking of stuff developed in the UK during the 80's, a lot of it was done by bedroom programmers and I'm willing to bet there's a few titles that no longer really exist

>> No.970660

>>970604
They aren't lost, though, many of those huge games end up in private collections.

Probably not something like the 16-player galaxian theme park ride though

>> No.970695
File: 60 KB, 400x402, Ap2e2[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
970695

A really good candidate for "lost" games that meet the elusive dual criteria of being well known but also extremely rare to the possible point of not even existing are Microzines.

If you went to elementary school in the 80s, you probably played some of these games. They came like a magazine every month that was very expensive and that only educators could subscribe to. The games were heavily pirated but because of the classic teacher mentality they generally didn't make it into the hands of the type of people who would have archived them and later released them on the Internet.

I was particularly fixated in "History Mystery" but I managed to find an image of that particular Microzine and play it. The collection was extremely spotty though and there were probably a hundred or more volumes, each with three or more semi-educational Apple ][ games.

>> No.970723

>>970585
IIRC there was no actual coding done for Hellraiser. A title screen, a prototype of the tech, and a handful of cartridge labels are all that were ever produced.

A game that's cancelled isn't the same as a game that's lost.

>> No.970746

>>970723
It depends on which version of the story you believe. The listing on the Hellbound Web site agrees that only concept art was done, but other sites say different-

"I worked on Hellraiser which you know never was released. They [Color Dreams] had the rights to make the game for several years and just sat on it. I don't know why. We were gonna use the Wolfenstein 3D engine for the game. I remember that the progammer on Hellraiser got the graphics in and the monsters working. It was all very bare bones stuff, but it was getting there and looked like it'd be fun. And then it was abandoned again for other titles." [sic] - Roger Deforest
http://www.. theman-cave.com/2010/02/oh-what-could-have-been-hellraiser-on.html

>> No.970753

Does anybody know if Ura Zelda was ever finished? I seem to recall reading somewhere that it was completed for some time, but Nintendo never decided on a way to release it.

>> No.970761

>>970753
This reminds me there are so many Satellaview games that are "lost"

>> No.970770

>>970609
Just like the assets for Final Fantasy VII

>> No.971041
File: 231 KB, 1419x1081, microzinepremier_front-copy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
971041

>>970695
>not posting the rhomboid box

The one game I recall sticking out for us was a maze game called "Traps." Involved capturing creatures in the dead ends of the maze, but I don't remember much beyond that.

>> No.971102

>>970569
The way things are going, yeah, with digital distribution, DLC and what not. But I wouldn't worry about that until at least 1 more decade.

>> No.971137

>>970585
>>970746
>The SuperCartridge was a Z-80 based system that intercepted the NES processor's ROM and RAM accesses to manipulate video in real time.
Jesus, that's actually really clever-- shame it never went anywhere. Fucking Color Dreams.

>> No.971148

>>971137
I have to wonder why they wanted to box this add-on with Hellraiser. You'd think you'd try to go for a wider market to get people to buy the hardware, packing it with a mass-appeal game.

Of course, this is Color Dreams we're talking about. Good business decisions and quality games weren't exactly their things.

>> No.971153

>>970569
Polybius jumps to mind immediately, but to bring things into more modern perspective, go find a thread about garage. No one has it, no ones pirated it...for all intents and purposes, garage is a game on the path to extinction.

Pre 83 shit apple ii games may go extinct too...I mean, how.many times have you run across softdisk's gamers edge collection? How many times have you played markus perssons self published titles from the 80s? How many people think doom was the first fps?

Srsly, there are millions of extinct "lost" games out there...youd never know it either because they were and are shit

>> No.971164

>>971137
It was fucking genius. It gets worse when you read about how the tech was completely done and then when that bible game company (Wisdom Tree?) bought them out, all the prototypes were literally tossed into the trash.

>> No.971165

>>971153
Polybius never existed.

>> No.971186

>>971165
>Polybius never existed.

Sez you.

>> No.971189
File: 5 KB, 250x245, 1373228485759s[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
971189

>>970569

The only "lost games" are either really old things, unreleased games (betas, protos, cancelled games, etc.) and the rare game that had a VERY limited release.

A great example is Chu-Teng - it's old as fuck and had a super limited release. It was so rare, that there were NO copies floating on the internet. In a beautiful example of teamwork, /vr/ actually managed to purchase an old Mac version of it off some website and rip it.

Anyway, I'm a sucker from betas, protos and whatnot. I want to get one.. one day.

My favourite lost game BTW is Mother 64. I fucking need that shit to be leaked one day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pcd9VnnXSQ

>> No.971204

>>970761
>>970753

A man on the Assemblr forums got his hands on a copy, then he literally disappeared. It was fucking spooky. The thread where he announced his find was locked and someone said "NINTENDO FOUND OUT." A year later, a friend said he died in a car accident.

Mods refuse to speak of what went on in that thread.

>> No.971209

>>971165
When did the rumor get started?

According to legend it happened in origan in '81

When is the earliest record of the it being mentioned?

>> No.971268

>>970569
Potentially yes. There's actually most likely a considerable amount of software especially on home computers / PCs that may already lost. The problem with accounting for rarer titles is you won't know if someone has a copy and any working copy is as good as having the original masters for usage. Having the source files would be better if you wanted to work on it for whatever reason.
Console games would be rarer, though the extremely late entry third party games may be partial to having their copies lost or destroyed easier due to limited releases. Though people may keep those in better in condition than various copies of shitty games no one cared about back in the day.

>> No.971276

>>970647
>With the advent of The Internet this sort of legendary "lost game" no longer happens but some games

That's not specifically true. It just makes it much harder to lose. But still not entirely impossible. Though even potentially archived copies may essentially become lost if no one knows they're archived until the archive is then destroyed.
Things do in fact disappear from the general internet and unless it's reproduced, it risks total loss.

>> No.971283

Isn't there some kind of museum dedicated to preserving video games?

>> No.971286

In either 2010 or 2011 I volunteered with the estate sale of the neighboring couple of a distant relative of mine in his 50s. The couple lived in very rural Oregon on a farm and they had recently passed away in quick succession in their 80s. I was almost 18 at the time but not quite.

Some things of interest besides general houseware and personal belongings they had left behind were some old records from the 40s-60s (almost all sold), a bunch of books going back as far as the early 1900s, WWII memorabilia (all sold, including a navigator's log from a PBY Catalina that had seen combat) and a small box of 5 inch floppies with games on them--we're talking around 10-15 of them. I believe one was an Indiana Jones game but the rest I didn't recognize at all. None of them sold. I'm pretty sure they were thrown out afterwards. I wasn't into retro vidya at the time so I didn't see any point in asking if I could have them. Now I feel that I indirectly contributed to some old early 80s PC game's death.

>> No.971294

I'm sure there are countless of "lost" old Apple computer games, like educational games that didn't sell well and eventually all got thrown out. My mom was a teacher and had access to a lot of them (yeah I'm old), and there are still a bunch that I've never found any info on after researching on the Internet. Obviously nothing complex, just simple games like where you solve a math few equations and get to build a robot. "Games" like that.

>> No.971301

>>971102
oh god, don't even get me started on DLC. It's already impossible to find some stuff that was practically just released, like Bionic Commando Rearmed 1 (no longer on PSN though it is on XBLA) or the Outrun 2 rerelease on HD consoles. I'm going nuts over how this stuff will be cataloged, it's like a whole era of game history will just be forgotten with no one to record it for the ages. At least the Wii had everything pirated to hell and back. What backup exists for 360/PS3 stuff for example?

>> No.971302

>>971294
Ugh, that description was a mess ... I'm going to bed.

>> No.971306

>>971189
nah, you have the story wrong friend. Chu Teng was just randomly discovered to be rotting in a /vr/ user's game collection. Completely out of the blue. There was a plan to maybe buy the game but nobody was exactly willing to pony up.

>> No.971308

>>971301
>it's like a whole era of game history will just be forgotten with no one to record it for the ages.
Well that's good.

> At least the Wii had everything pirated to hell and back.
That sucks.

It would be amazing if modern gaming just went poof and no one ever mentioned that awful shit ever again. Though it does serve as a great example of how industries fail to produce quality when products are ultimately determined by investors and businessmen rather than people who give a shit about games.

>> No.971315

>>971301
DLC and DRM (inability to make any kind of copies, etc.) is going to be the end for so many games and expansions years from now it's depressing.

>> No.971316

>>971283
There's an arcade museum that catalogs high scores called Twin Galaxies, and there's a Denmark museum working on preservation methods for computer hardware, but I don't know if there's anything for preserving the actual games save for the internet at large. No-Intro rom sets are one of your best ways to preserve old games, as are accurate emulators on which to play them.

>> No.971318

>>971286
The floppy disks had likely stopped holding the data by then. Don't beat yourself up too much about it.

What really shits me is how short the working life of some of the recent game cartridges are. Apparently launch titles for the DS are already middle aged now.

>> No.971321

>>971308
It's not good to not have that history well recorded. It's important to know the past so mistakes aren't repeated so easily.

>> No.971336

>>971308
If we don't catalog the history then how can we know that it happened and that we shouldn't repeat it? If you want to destroy software that you don't like, then you might as well start burning books too. Oh but don't worry, only the ones that 'deserve' it, right?

>> No.971348

>>970623
>BBC almost used the Monty Python's Flying Circus masters to record sports events or something before one of the cast bought them himself
Okay what the fuck?

>> No.971351

>>971321
> It's important to know the past so mistakes aren't repeated so easily.
The problem with that sentiment is, it's rarely ever true. People will still make the same mistakes especially when it comes from a segment of the populace who frankly don't give a shit in the first place. In fact, for them it's not a mistake, raping culture for glorious amounts of cash is a parable on how you can make serious dosh by simply fucking people over.

>> No.971364

>>971318
Really? That's sad since most of my old gameboy games still work. Why is it the ds cartridges can't hold games that long?

>> No.971384

>>970569
Of course. In the vein of well known games, all original Xbox games will be lost eventually since no one can apparently write an emulator for it. There are already some poorly known games which are lost.

>> No.971395
File: 73 KB, 454x512, GCITAtshirt.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
971395

A lot of Sega Channel stuff (like the "lost levels" of Garfield: Caught in the Act) is lost forever.

So yeah, there's some console DLC stuff that we probably won't see again.

>> No.971397

>>971364
That's interesting, I booted up Mario 64 DS last month and still had my old save data. I hope it doesn't prove to be a common thing.

If anything it's due to crappy manufacturing. Same thing that claimed my DS Lite.

>> No.971401

>>971348
Yeah BBC was complete shit at archiving for a while, entire series of Doctor Who are just gone, completely.

>> No.971404

>>971384
I think with the Xbox situation, the problem is that many of the games released for it had versions released either on other consoles or on the PC. I do hope for a decent emulator in the future, though.

>> No.971406

>>971384
Any games in particular? I got an original Xbox just for the purpose of accessing 'lost' games, It's amazing how the average player seems to think that every Xbox game works perfectly on a 360 or is otherwise not worth playing.

>> No.971414

>>971364
http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/44376-16_bit-time-capsule-how-emulator-bsnes-makes-a-case-for-software-preservation/

>"FlashROM used in Nintendo DS cartridges are only rated for 10-20 years of life...Far less than MaskROM used by the SNES era," byuu wrote when I asked about the eventual disappearance of SNES hardware. "More complex systems lead to quicker faults as well. You don't hear much about red rings of death on the SNES, for example. And nowadays there's all the DRM, the digital-only downloads and post-sale game patches, and the upcoming restrictions against resale, and I see a very bleak future for preservation."

>> No.971415

>>971318
Do you have a single fact to back that up?

>> No.971419

>>971318
>The floppy disks had likely stopped holding the data by then. Don't beat yourself up too much about it.
Okay, good. Still, had I had the foresight to take them they would have been interesting to own.

>> No.971421

Don't forget all those games Gamestop destroyed when they deemed them no longer worth anything.

>> No.971426

>>971421
I haven't heard of this. What happened?

>> No.971430

Here's a verifiably lost one, the BLUE ROM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_don_pachi#Campaign_Version

>> No.971436

>>971415
I am also >>971414
The link there is my only source, but the guy who made the bsnes emulator seems pretty reputable.

>> No.971448 [DELETED] 

>>970630
>Yes, games are disappearing as we speak. There are many, many games for early computers that have never been dumped and are rotting away in someone's attic on a 5 1/4 inch floppy. This may especially be true for the classic Japanese computers. I'm not sure.

This times 1000.

>> No.971452

>>971448
Japanese people are generally good at archiving their games, r-right?

>> No.971453

>>971414
That's a great article. It's sad that nothing like that is happening for so many other consoles out there. N64 is only one gen up from SNES and yet emulation of it is a wreck.

>> No.971458

>>971414
Sounds like someone needs to do something about the DS fast. I've never found a DS emu that even reproduced the sound perfectly.

>> No.971464

>>971414
Reading this article once again reinforces the idea that we need to do some serious reworking on copyright laws.

>> No.971490

Apparently Rare has a secret vault of games.
Imagine if some day, instead of going public, they got destroyed or rewritten with minecraft skins...

>> No.971498

>>971490
Well if it's true those games are already in the wrong hands.

>> No.971513
File: 219 KB, 400x300, 29883_1[1].png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
971513

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deugYHEbzmE
Here's a game that was pretty close to being lost forever. Thankfully someone supposedly bought the PCB and is in the process in dumping the ROM. Looks amazingly awesome.

>> No.971520

>>971401
I guess you could say they're...

*puts on sunglasses*

Exterminated?

>> No.971526

>>971464
The aggressive copyright acts are actually one of the major things keeping video games from being seen as a legitimate art form.

People who PLAY games want them to be considered art. But it's more profitable for the publishers if everyone views games as a disposable product that you play for a few months, then trade it in for your next "fix."

>> No.971535

>>971430
Damn! I always wanted to play this... it was supposedly the hardest shmup ever, given only to the top five players in the world or some shit.

>> No.971537

>>971414

John Carmack's stance on open-source software is one of the reasons I really admire him as a developer, even if Id hasn't produced anything truly amazing since Quake 3. It's amazing that we can see the entire source code for some of the most influential games in history because the creator decided to give it away.

>> No.971540

>>971526
Bullshit.

>> No.971541

>>970569

Fyi OP, theres 2 space wars on AUS-ebay going for like $300au not working. tfw just sold my astro to pay bills ;-;

>> No.971545

>>971526
>But it's more profitable for the publishers if everyone views games as a disposable product that you play for a few months,
Same goes for movies, music, traditional medium art and well every product that isn't a foodstuff.

>> No.971573

>>971545
Yeah, but there doesn't seem to be any big corporate movement to shut down PDF-sharing sites, or sue people who download Lord of the Rings.

>> No.971584

>>971573
You sure about that? Last I checked they were going after ebook sites and such. Amazon and Apple definitely don't want it to cut into their sales. They might not be as prominent as the major sources of funding.

>> No.971586

Talking about lost media, after reading this thread I decided to put on one of my older classical records. It's a rather old, hard to find copy of a performance of a Bach work that I haven't been able to find any mention of anywhere. I picked it up from a stack of classical records from a secondhand store a while back. I could be the last person to ever listen to any copy of this recording. Woah.

Do you think we should try to preserve all games without exception, or should we limit what we deem worth preserving and what we deem not worth preserving? Ever since the huge rise of the internet in the last 15 years there's been loads of flash games and the like that have been put online on sites like Newgrounds that have already been undeniably lost, but if it's an amateurishly made game is there anything to care about?

>> No.971627

>>971586
>should we limit what we deem worth preserving and what we deem not worth preserving?

No.

Picking-and-choosing over which over what's "worth" saving is exactly how stuff gets lost to begin with.

>> No.971637

>>971627
I wish you get lost

>> No.971680

I guess that depends on what you consider "lost".
Does it have to be a finished product?
There are quite a few games that make it into some form of beta and never get released, so there are plenty of "lost" games if you count them.

>> No.971698

Yes, it's called a Digital Dark Age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age
I did a report once that was supposed to be a website aimed at high-schoolers teaching them about "professional issues in computing", where I talked briefly about this. Here's what I wrote instead of re-typing it.
A time may come when a large chunk of historical information might become lost forever, due to closed or obsolete file formats, storage devices needing obsolete hardware and technological restrictions such as digital rights management, creating an era without a written record. Digital archivists are already working on preserving historical data.

A bit doom-and-gloom in how I wrote it, I know. I know ROMs and stuff are being distributed widely over the Internet by now, as well as the game companies themselves still making the old classics available in new formats. There's still a problem with early versions of software, as well as titles that the companies (and people who played them) would rather regret, so there could still be a gap in the historical record.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/248571/why_history_needs_software_piracy.html

>> No.971750

>>971627
To play devil's advocate, a friend of mine made some really simple game where you press different buttons to kill Kenny from South Park for a high school computer class project a few years ago. I don't think he has a copy of it anymore. I would argue it's not worth preserving because it was never meant for an audience of any capacity other than a few close friends as an afterthought and realistically it was just a scribble to help teach how a certain program worked. However a really simple counterargument to this is that even artistic scribbles and sketches can hold value pretty much forever.

>> No.971774

>>971750
>I would argue it's not worth preserving because it was never meant for an audience
I think there's something to that. A lot of games and software deserve preservation because they had a big audience/userbase, so it was a part of people's lives at one time, a common talking point and part of the culture of the time.

But even stuff that wasn't widely distributed at the time can give an insight into what people were thinking and the shape of things at one particular time. Games that were meant to be released but were cancelled are interesting too, because they show a part of that era of gaming that you can look at with fresh eyes, instead of the bias and emotion that's come over the years with well-remembered classics.

>> No.971825

>>971490
More than likely they'd be overwritten by code for some Kinect game.

>> No.971828

>>971490
Uh, no. They don't. They have a bunch or prototype boards and things which didn't get made if that's what you mean. But they're hardly secret.

>> No.971834

>>971384
After Microsoft shut down the online, most games ended up useless as well.

Years down the road we'll probably get an emu, but the netplay would be shit for a long time. I mean we saved SNES' s BS Satellaview.so it's not like emulation doesn't have experience in bygone internet content.

>> No.971894

>>970569

Starfox2 nearly fell in this category. Luckily thanks to the emulator-scene it didn't

>> No.971928

Have you seen the threads about Osamu Sato's Garage?

>> No.971964
File: 93 KB, 960x864, k3d.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
971964

Katakis 3D for the Game Boy could count.
Despite being completely finished it never saw a release since Manfred Trenz (the mastermind behind Turrican) couldn't find a publisher and the only known copy of it is supposed to be in his safe.

>> No.971971

>>971680
I think the term is generally used to refer to media that was released to the public in some way but is now unavailable. If a game was never released to the public then the public was never able to lose it to begin with. We never had it.

>> No.971986

Here are the "lost" games I found. Some atari 2600, some Colecovision. http://www.flapdangle.com/roms.zip

>> No.972092
File: 21 KB, 325x180, Rendering_Ranger_R2_box.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
972092

>>971964
He seems to have quite a history with being unable to find any publishers. This one isn't lost, but Rendering Ranger R2 was only released in Japan(about 5000 carts made) by a Japanese offshoot of Virgin Interactive, despite being made in Europe. I'm glad this got published at all, as it is a fantastic game.

>> No.972101

>>971301
Just looked at the webstore, BCR1 is still on PSN. For some reason one listing is "Unavailable" but the "Full Game Unlock" still appears purchasable.

>> No.972108

>>971419
>interesting to own.
This.
I frequent thrift stores and very rarely (I actually think most places toss stuff that old. Seems so odd to almost never find them) I'll come across loose 5.25 floppies with game labels. I always pick them up super cheap because it's just interesting.

>> No.972110

>>971426
Gamestop routinely destroys games that they can't sell. Check youtube for gamestop dumpster diving videos. These people find tons of old sports and budget games that have been scratched or broken.
Not to mention all the other shit that gamestop destroys. Generic wired controllers that don't sell, slash the cable and toss in dumpster.

Such a fucking waste.

>> No.972114

>>972110
>slash the cable and toss in dumpster.

Why would you slash the cable? If you're throwing it away then why does it matter if someone gets it and uses it? You've decided you aren't going to make any profit from it by disposing it.

>> No.972119

>>972114
To keep someone from pulling it out of the dumpster and selling it.

If they can't make money from it, NO ONE CAN.

>> No.972159

>>971637
This

>>971627
We can't preserve everything, ya dumb cunt. It's impossible. If the people dedicated to preservation tried they'd have a 24/7 job on their hands and the organization would be terrible. They'd burn out in a month. Some people try to seek out rare prototypes and dump them, some people try to round up every adventure game and put them in a torrent, some people collect arcade PCBs and use chip readers to dump them. some people focus on a particular system but still one person is only capable of so much and if they don't focus on their own interest and make judgement calls on what to pursue over some other thing too much energy will be wasted. All they can do is the best they can do and to try to get others interested in their passion and contributing.

>>972110
>>972119
Yeah I used to work at Babbage's before it became Gamestop and back then they just reduced prices on stuff to 1 cent. I got so much cool stuff that way. We would get these "B-Mails" on the POS in the mornings and practically every morning was like Christmas. So many $5 import Saturn games.

Now nobody does it that way anymore. Gamestop doesn't even stock anything risky and bigger stores never mark stuff down that low they just donate it to Goodwill and write it off their taxes as charitable donation then Goodwill tries to sell it for damn near retail price because it's "new". Welcome to Jew-world.

>> No.972162

>>970761

This right here. Many Satellaview (and possibly some sega channel) games are legitametly lost.

>> No.972163

>>971318
The really sad part is that, in the short term, we have flash carts at least. But how much longer are they going to produce those when the DS is now considered last gen?

>> No.972190

>>971395
Is it even possible to get the DLC for Dreamcast games (not /vr/; I know)? I know that Skies of Arcadia had joke weapons you could download, but I don't know if they're really available anywhere. Since DLC is often stuck on a server, I wonder how easy it will be to archive that stuff in the future.

>> No.972195

>>972190
Dreamcast doesn't have a hard drive and the memory cards were still pretty small so I would assume most DLC was actually on the disc to just be unlocked.

>> No.972482

>>971928
I don't think Garage is by Osamu Sato

>> No.972497

>>972110
The Gamestop the next town over from me still had a few hundred PS1 games up until last year. Most were $0.99 to $1.99. All of them came in paper sleeves instead of jewel cases so I never bought any, as well as almost all being sports/racing games. Suddenly they weren't there anymore. :/

>> No.972505

>>972159
>ya dumb cunt
Not that guy but can we try to avoid /v/-like arguing? /vr/ is a magical place where conflict doesn't exist.

>> No.972547

>>971301
>It's already impossible to find some stuff that was practically just released, like Bionic Commando Rearmed 1 (no longer on PSN though it is on XBLA)

This makes me really sad. I loved Bionic Commando Rearmed. There is no reason a game as great as Rearmed should die and be forever lost on PSN.

>> No.972548

>>972505
I just pick on namefags, especially that one.

/vr/ is a place where we should be recognized by our wisdom and our gear, not our trip.

>> No.972554

>>971421
I went into Gamestop a few months ago to pick up a copy of King's Field for ps2 and when the neckbeard behind the counter rang it up he laughed and told me I was lucky it was marked at $3.99, because they had just destroyed all the ones marked $3.98 or lower.

Anecdotal evidence at best, I know, but it's what the guy said.

>> No.972567

>>972554
>neckbeard behind the counter
Oh come on man I thought at a least a meckbeard would be able to see the travesty unfolding

>> No.972860

>>972547
see
>>972101
BCR1 is still up for me.

>> No.972890

>>971894
I wonder if SF2 is actually perfectly preserved or if the fact that it had to be "fixed" to make it playable put it off a bit from what the final game was supposed to be. No huge deal but for someone who cares about perfectly representing the devs' will like byuu it might be an issue.

>> No.972897

>>971971
The line between "the public" and private individuals is a bit illogical, no? How many individuals have to have it before it becomes public?

>> No.972924

>>971964
That's rather sad. If I were him I'd almost embrace the emulation community, rip the game and maybe charge a fee to download it knowing that at least some people would want to pay for it to support the creator or offer it for free and ask for donations. Although there might be contracts with other people who helped make the game preventing him from doing that or something.

>> No.972925

>>972114
The capitalist beast.

>> No.972931

>>972163
And also, flash carts may not last very long. I know one I got around 2006 or so is already dying; it won't accept saves 100% of the time.

>> No.972945

>>971301
Isn't it on Steam too?

>> No.972949

>>971698
Its already begun. I heard that we can't access some of the stuff from the Apollo missions because our computers are too advanced for the stuff.

>> No.972962

>>971204
Any link to the thread?

>> No.972971

Panzer Dragon's Source code, along with other SEGA game's, is lost, does that count?

>> No.972973

>>972962
>The thread where he announced his find was locked and someone said "NINTENDO FOUND OUT." A year later, a friend said he died in a car accident.
>Mods refuse to speak of what went on in that thread.
Sounds like typical /x/ bullshit, and if it's not the thread probably isn't available.

>> No.973012

>>972971
Sega seems to have a bad habit of losing source codes. Hell didn't they lose sonic 06 source code while they were making the game?

>> No.973014

>>971513
>Thankfully someone supposedly bought the PCB and is in the process in dumping the ROM.

Where did you hear that?
Was it the Guru? I'd love to see this get emulated.

I would hope that if someone has the PCB they should know the hardware it runs on.

>> No.973029

Back in the early 90s Time Warner started this e-magazine. It was pretty revolutionary for the time in terms of how it worked and was designed and got decently popular. However it ended up failing because it took too long to load and was a little obtuse to navigate. It was an extremely important and influential website though, but there is nearly no record of its existence. There's one amateur website dedicated to it. That's essentially it.

>> No.973103

>>971283
>>971316
Here in Rochester, NY we have the International Center for the History of Electronic Games. John and Brenda Romero recently visited, and they gave a Q and A at RIT. It was awesome.

http://www.icheg.org/

>> No.973261

>>972971
Does this mean some kind of Panzer Dragoon collection is never going to happen?

>> No.973414
File: 42 KB, 300x213, Jumpman.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
973414

I remember reading an interview with Miyamoto regarding the development of Mario 64 2 sometime during the late 90's. (would have been 97 or 98 i think) Don't remember what newspaper it was, but I hope I come across it around my house someday, because this information seems to have been lost in time.

For those curious, here's what I remember.

>Simultaneous two player game
>Mario can use a hammer, and Luigi can use a wrench for puzzle solving.
> 2 maybe 3 screenshots of Mario and Luigi inside Peach's Castle.
> Mock up logo pic. Just said "Super Mario 64 2" same font as before, but it had a detailed background of a dark sky with clouds.
>Miyamoto saying it'll be significantly different than simply Mario 64 + more levels. (which makes me wonder about the development of galaxy 2) He was emphasizing this point to a great extent, saying something down the lines of "wanting it to feel as groundbreaking and different as the first mario 64 game" and how "if the sequel doesn't feel vastly different, he's not going to make it.

>> No.973660

>>973414
Callin bullshit on this.

>> No.973681

>>973660
seconding

>> No.973682

>>973261
There are emulators.

>> No.973712

>>972567
In fairness to him it was more like a laugh of total exasperation with the shit company he worked for. Like "Jesus I hate this job and working for these idiots."

>> No.974638

>>973682
Orta is going to be forever lost

>> No.974785

>>973029
Do you have a link to the amateur website?

>> No.974815

>>971209
Is this the worst spelling of Oregon I've ever seen, or you attempting a different word that should be capitalized, like a software company?

>> No.975316

This thread makes me depressed. I'm very interested in the subject but I just feel like I shouldn't even read about it because it will just destroy my mind. Maybe it's best to just look away from the horrors of the world and live in happy ignorance.

>> No.975916

>>975316
Welcome to escapism.

>> No.975924

>>975316
You could always try and, you know, help preserve things if it bothers you so much.

>> No.975930

>>970574
>Earthbound Zero
That's not a game.
There is no game named Earthbound Zero.

>> No.975950
File: 232 KB, 640x643, 934134_77475_front.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
975950

SEGA lost the source code to Sonic the Hedgehog.
Or at least, that's the excuse they gave regarding the use of Sonic Advance's engine in this monstrosity.

>> No.975951
File: 23 KB, 502x417, 1373350526175[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
975951

>>975930

>> No.975982
File: 150 KB, 500x500, 3704707436.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
975982

Why do you think there hasn't been an HD version of FF7 8 or 9?

>> No.975981

Turok Rage Wars for the N64 (Grey Cartridge) from before 1 year ago. Nobody knew it even existed until a box of 128 factory sealed ones were discovered.

>> No.975996

>>975982
Wasn't the PC re-release of FFVII able to do HD? Of course the backgrounds are pre-rendered and the models are pretty basic so it must look horrible

>> No.976002

>>975950
How does that even work? The sonic advance engine was made for faster gameplay than the original sonic had.

In a way it's better than a normal quick cash in port like every other rerelease though.

>> No.976062 [DELETED] 

>>975951
What? There simply isn't.

>> No.976072

>>975996
yes and yes
I don't see why they don't just take a few months to "try" to remake the backgrounds. they're pretty basic in terms of modeling, and even if it's shit they'll make lots and lots and lots of money.

>> No.976073

>>975951
>What? There simply isn't.

>>975930
The same guy says Polybius "may have been real". Don't be surprised.

>> No.976124

>>972548
Yet the trip allows you to see who someone is if they so choose. Why should someone continuously have to repost their merits if they can just post under a name to achieve the same effect with little effort?

Besides, if you don't like the particular person, their using a trip allows you to easily filter their posts.

>> No.976309
File: 17 KB, 583x536, gXra8cw0zDdGCXhE.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
976309

>>970569
Many of the earliest examples of video games are lost. Games made on large networked computers between colleges were often deleted because admins thought they were a waste of resources. I'm sure there are countless PC games released on floppy and cassette that have never been dumped and are rotting away in people's attics and basements.

Gaming really needs an true proper digital archive of games. Video games are far too important to our culture to just let them die and disappear forever. Games deserve preservation just as much as books and film.

>> No.976356

>>970569
Yes, and just like many list films, you can now find them online.
For example: Tyranisaurus Tex, a cancelled FPS for the Game Boy Color.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SDUJTlzzGcI&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DSDUJTlzzGcI

>> No.976357

>>975950

>Sega lost the source code for the Sonic games
>Lost the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga

I bet about 10 years from now they'll announce that they lost the source code to the Yakuza series.

>> No.976371

>>970761
To be fair, the way their carts work, some eccentric rich man could have games and other things on tons of little 8MB expansion carts. That's pretty much impossible though.

I'm shocked no one has done anything like the Satellaview in this day and age

>> No.976409

>>976309
>Gaming really needs an true proper digital archive of games. Video games are far too important to our culture to just let them die and disappear forever. Games deserve preservation just as much as books and film.

Slightly off-topic, but there's a museum near me - the Strong Museum of Play - that actually has an arcade section.
http://www.museumofplay.org/see-do/exhibits/egamerevolution
Someone actually visited it and dumped all the photos they took to /v/ some time back and they notice some issues - I think they had a R.O.B. holding a controller facing the wrong way is all I remember specifically.

>> No.976704

>>973414
>released pics and logo
>Quality, not the dying DD, canceled the game
>wrench and hammer

Where the hell did you get all THAT from?

>> No.976902

>>975924
No matter what one person does though, it will never be enough. And a lot of preservation efforts require a lot of money and time

>> No.976904

>>976371
You mean broadcast games directly to consumers through their gaming consoles?

'Cause that's a pretty big thing these days.

>> No.976915

>>976902
If you don't have the skills or time do it yourself, you can still donate to projects that you like. I was reading that article on bsnes earlier and even though they had people with the technical abilities to get work done, they still had to have donators to fund it. I guess my point is that you don't have to start your own project or something.

>> No.976924
File: 141 KB, 494x500, 3439638694_2640feef3d.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
976924

>>970569

Pretty much every single iOS and Android game is eventually a lost game.

As a developer myself, we are pretty sure nobody has v1.0 of our game anymore. And I'd have to research our archives to find it ourselves.

Something's pretty weird about current platforms.

You don't have JUST the game, but it exists in as combination itself and the platform's OS. This leads not only makes testing way more complex (you have to do a cartesian-product-combination-type multiplied testing), but makes preserving actual versions of the game quite hard.

I myself have a "snapshots" folder for all our projects, which is horrifyingly huge (a 300mb game can have a 5gb snapshot folder), but most of these don't work anymore.

It's terrible, but due to DRM, DLC and software updates, conserving a platform and it's games has nowadays become pretty much an imposibilty.

The best thing I can say is "it's not my fault"

>> No.976978

>>976924
You know, it's funny that in the age of the internet software can still get lost (or at least buried). Just imagine all the different versions of games that regularly receive patches.

>> No.976982

>>975950
See, that's the sort of unorganized crap that made the Saturn fail in the market

>> No.976986

>>976978

You're not even close.

I'm not talking about patches. I'm talking about whole features lost forever. Characters. Entire areas of the game.

The best example you can get for this are online games like WOW or any Tabula Rasa or all those korean MMORPGS.

Where is Vanilla wow 1.0 now? Nowhere. Where can you play Everquest 1.0? In your fucking memory that's where.

Multiply that by several million, -for every single game on android and iOS- and you have an idea of the memories we're losing here.

It's very sad, but history, in this case, will be told by shill reviews and let's plays.

>> No.977005

The original release of Akalabeth is missing (at least the title screen was different, someone did find a copy of the manual). Any multiplayer game on the original Xbox is now unplayable because the Live servers have been gone for years and no one has ever written an emulator. All of these games http://www.ea.com/1/service-updates

>> No.977038

>>975981
Haven't heard of this before. Any more details?

>> No.977053

I guess you can consider scrapped projects as 'lost' videogames

I always like to see what weird things devs put in early test stages

>> No.977087

>>976986
>implying anyone cares about preserving grindy mmos

>> No.977091

i don't know anything about programming

how can you have the game but lose the source code???

>> No.977178

>>977091
It would be like having an image you photoshopped but having lost the Photoshop project file, if that makes sense. You have the compiled final project but you no longer have the individual pieces that you used to make it.

>> No.977198

>>977091

Modern non-interpreted code exists in two states: the "source" code, which is for the developer's use, and the compiled program which is the finished product. Once a program is compiled, it can't be edited and is no longer human-readable. If you have the program but not the source, you can't take the program and turn it back into the source code.

Extremely broad strokes since I have very little in-depth knowledge of programming, but that's basically it.

>> No.977213

>>976072
SE are too busy making Final Fantasy Visual Novels.

>> No.977215

>>976072

They've already milked FFVII all they can, it looks like they've found a new cash cow with the XIII series.

>> No.977216

>>977198
You can kinda decompile it, but it's incredibly hard to unravel compiler optimisations back into their human-readable forms; and you lose all things like variable names and code comments.

>> No.977224

>>977091
Career programmer here
>>977178
>>977198
are pretty right.
here's a quick example I like to show what compiling does to code:
http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.0.3.js
is the code humans are meant to read and write to
http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.0.3.min.js
is the "compiled" code (minified in this case).
it is literally impossible to go from the minified code to the unminified version, so if the first file were to be lost (say, deleted), then pretty much all chances of changing it past little inject hacks is lost

>> No.977241

>>976978
That's because for the majority of those in control of the industry, something is worthless once it can no longer make a substantial profit for them and thus they find no reason to preserve it

>> No.977312

>>977087
Not the guy you were replying to, but I would love to go back and play vanilla versions of some MMOs. This is either because I came in late and missed that content or, because let's face it this is why /vr/ exists, "it was better the way it used to be" nosfagging.

Polite sage since this is technically off-topic.

>> No.977814

Unless someone leaks it, Battlefront 3

>> No.978298

>>977312
Yep.

There are a lot of people who played the first version of an MMO (like UO before T2A expansion) that would love to go back and play it.

UO is fairly unique in this regard as shard emulators exist and there are a lot of free shards that attempt to recreate the original experience.

>> No.978423

>>978298
Why don't the purveyors of these MMOs offer a nostalgia-mode for extra money?

>> No.978434

>>977814
Well there's the new Star Wars: Battlefront that's coming out in the near future and that's supposedly what BFIII became
>battlefront 1 came out 9 years ago, therefore the series is so old it needs an entire reboot instead of just the next instalment people have been asking for

>> No.978790

>>978423
That costs too much money.

>> No.979561

>>978423
The people who own Runescape sorta did this recently.

>> No.979620

>>978790
Why? There won't be many people using it so they could probably just piggyback the functions on one of their existing servers.

>> No.981165
File: 29 KB, 640x426, ict_equipment33_mid.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
981165

there was a game we played in primary school around '95 or so that i THINK was called "King of the jungle" it was on either this machine or one very similar, you drove around in a jeep and had to avoid lions and rhinos n shit in a jungle maze, never ever seen it again, thats probably lost forever

>> No.982021 [DELETED] 

>>976704

>Quality, not the dying DD, canceled the game

I'm not saying the death of the DD contributed nothing to the cancellation of the game. This is just one of the quotes I remember him stating in the interview.

>> No.982028

>>976704

>Quality, not the dying DD, canceled the game

I'm not saying that the death of the DD did not contribute to the cancellation of the game. This is just one of the quotes I remember him stating in the interview.

>> No.982074

Wouldn't one of the rarest be that battlezone stand up that was made for the military but ended up in the trash or something because they thought it was dildos?

>> No.982110

>>971204
Dude, I gotta hear more about this.

>> No.982114

>>971204
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYpkWYoUmn0
I JUST FUCKING FOUND THIS VIDEO WHILE SEARCHING THROUGH ASSEMBLER
OH SHIT

>> No.982147
File: 276 KB, 864x1152, bb.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
982147

>> No.982167
File: 203 KB, 1265x750, kesMap.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
982167

Quite a few old online games that are probably completely lost these days.

This pic is from an old online RPG on AOL back in the mid-90s called Legends of Kesmai. Maybe someone's running a private server somewhere or something. Best I could find was an emulated server site from 2003.

Guy who posted about EQ1 was spot-on too. Sure, there's private servers, but are there private servers for every revision? When a game gets content patches on a monthly or bi-monthly basis, how do you preserve the state that it's in at any given time? You just can't... kind of sad when you think about it, all you have are the memories.

>> No.982173
File: 200 KB, 1265x750, lengMap.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
982173

>>982167
Another pic from Legends of Kesmai. One of the things that really intrigued me about this game is that when you died you were actually sent to an afterlife based on the Egyptian Land of the Dead, and you had to find your body parts in order to resurrect yourself.

It was a really scary place to navigate because all the monsters were super powerful and dying again would send you back to the beginning of the underworld.

Pretty neat concept... haven't seen anyone else try something like that. Guess nobody can draw inspiration from it because the game's been dead for at least 15-20 years.

>> No.982179
File: 191 KB, 1265x750, uwMap.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
982179

>>982173
Here's a map of the underworld.

http://archive.legendsofkesmai.com/

This site seems to be the only archive/info about the game I could find anywhere on the Internet. It hasn't been updated since 2006 so I imagine the servers are dead. The official servers were closed in 2000.

>> No.982250

>>982114
>that video quality
why.exe

>> No.982337

>>982074
It's dumped and supported by MAME, so it's not lost compared to most of this thread.

>> No.982371

holy shit i haven't played Spacewar since my old XT clone

4.77 MHz of raw computing power

Hercules Monochrome

>> No.982404

I've been looking for a copy of crayola 3d castle creator anyone got one.
Also the Osamu Sato Rolly polly games and GARAGE are technically lost to america.

>> No.982423

>>976309
Yeah allot of those games were either space games or games like dungeons and dragons.
Like ultima zero and stuff.

>> No.982425

>>975982
Why couldn't they just use a regular disc.

>> No.982451
File: 126 KB, 1024x768, Goku.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
982451

This would have happened to some LaserActive games (Goku, Melon Brains, etc.) if I hadn't personally gotten ahold of footage and uploaded it to Youtube. A LaserActive emulator will probably never happen due to lack of demand and the hard work invovled, so this is the best we'll ever get.

>> No.982453

>>977215
Hahaha, they really haven't, good Anon.

>> No.982468

>>970604
Good news about the Galaxian 3/Attack of the Zolgear cabinet, Anon. A couple of arcade museums in Japan have gotten ahold of them and restored them. I'm sure this video will warm your heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiwqpbrtwTg

>> No.982478
File: 68 KB, 256x300, hardahts.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
982478

>>970574
Pretty sure Polybius is one huge internet hoax, bro.

>> No.982481

The NES version of SimCity is pretty much lost since it's stuck in Nintendo's vault. I'm sure there's plenty more lost NES and SNES games/ports in there too.

>> No.982602

>>982481
At least we can play the NES version of SimCity though. The thing that troubles me is if these companies have info or beta/alphas which would provide insight into the development of the game but will never release said info.

>> No.982613

>>982602
Can't let you get those trade secrets that haven't been relevant for twenty years.

>> No.983335
File: 10 KB, 320x240, 1373001605797.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
983335

>>971384
I'm fairly sure there's an ISO on torrents for every OG Xbox game ever. Just like the Wii, the OG Xbox was exploited by the Homebrew community within its own lifetime. You can load any ISO on your $50 dollar Xbox and play any game you want.

>> No.983360

>>972945
It used to be. Like every unlisted title (doesn't matter if it's on PSN, Live Marketplace or Steam) you can still redownload it if you bought it before it got delisted. I don't think there are any games delisted on Wii.

>> No.983371

>>975930
Maybe not named but the Earthbound game exists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOqnD5WyQ5c

>> No.983393

>>979620
Because, as you can learn on this thread, lots of people give less than two fucks about preserving game assets.

>> No.983484

I found this site that has some good references.

http://www.unseen64.net

>> No.983545

Films were only really lost because home video didn't exist yet. I don't think there's much chance of it happening now that we're able to make, and share copies, of almost anything.
look at Doctor Who. Some early episodes are missing, because fans weren't able to make personal copies. But the audio track of every lost episode survived, because the one thing fans were able to record was audio.

>> No.984950

>>983335
What happens when the last Xbox dies?

>> No.984952

>>983393
So the old MMO assets no longer exist?

>> No.984962

The Laseractive will almost certainly be completely lost to time.
We can dump all the Xbox, 360 and PS3 ISO's we want, but without the consoles themselves around, they're just no good.
As a PC guy, I've acquired several undumped DOS games on floppies over the years - it happens a lot, actually. Don't worry, I did my duty and dumped them.

>> No.984969

>>984950
We'll finally be free.

>> No.984978
File: 245 KB, 600x540, 1357536819060.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
984978

>>984950
I guess we'll hold a memorial for the Ex-boxes

>> No.984981

>>984962
Where do you send dumps of rare PC games these days, anyway?

>> No.984991

>>984969
Hey, no more Gunvalkyrie would fucking suck.

>> No.984986

>>984981
With DOS, you usually just see if the companies are defunct (99% of undumped games are abandonware) and send rips to Abandonia or something.
You can also just upload them wherever, and they'll eventually make their way around all the major sites.

>> No.985034

>>984962
LDs can be converted. Alas, I do not have an LD player with s-video or RGB capabilities.

>> No.985069

>>971302
made sense to me

>> No.985226

>>983335
I still need to hack my Xbox, fucking thing is a PitA. I heard you have to make some custom USB cable BS.