According to a study conducted in 2023 by the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network, as much as 87 percent of older video games released in the United States are no longer commercially available.
In other words, only about 13 percent of video game history is currently represented in the market. The study covered games from the period of 1960 to 2009, and no observed period had an availability greater than 20 percent.
This means that a large part of gaming history is practically inaccessible to ordinary players. To access older titles, they often have to rely on used physical copies, old equipment, visits to specialized archives, or unofficial methods.
The Video Game History Foundation warns that libraries and archives can digitally preserve games, but they cannot freely share them digitally with users in the U.S. in the same way as books, movies, or music.
The organization emphasizes that the industry cannot rely solely on re-releases, remasters, and modern digital stores. A large number of games are already disappearing from public reach, and without clearer preservation rules, this problem could become even bigger over the years.
