This past Christmas, intrepid games fan Jason Scott released nearly 2500 old MS-DOS games onto the internet for absolutely free.
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This may not seem like a big deal - DOS games are generally terrible - but therein lies the point. Think back to your childhood and the games you played then. Chances are, the titles that occupied your time were the socially approved titles - essentially, you played what was popular or what was noteworthy. For every Duke Nukem II, there were ten games like Capone.
Never heard of Capone? Of course you haven’t. But you can play it now, and that’s a good thing. Whether you actually play it or not is utterly irrelevant. What matters is that you have the ability, that this game is not forgotten to the dust bin - or perhaps more accurate, the desert pit - of history.
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It is estimated that 90% of all films from the Silent Era are lost forever. How many great masterpieces do we no longer have in our collective consciousness because of poor preservation or neglect? How many of George Melies' films are now but footnotes in film books because not a single frame remains?
The MS DOS project is part of Archive It, "a subscription web archiving service from the Internet Archive that helps organizations to harvest, build, and preserve collections of digital content." It's a big internet and it needs to be remembered.
The past is making a comeback. Every day, more and more titles, like Duke Nukem II, are being rereleased onto mobile devices or Steam, as well. But again, those focus on the big titles - and Duke will always be big. Here's a chance to view some lesser-known titles.
Though digital in nature, early video games could run across a similar fate. Jason Scott’s Software Library is important because it preserves the cultural heritage of the early days of video gaming. That culture may not have always amounted to a lot - shovelware will always exist, but every bit of creation should be preserved as a testament to those who made it. Let society deem what is popular, good or important, but give them as large a buffet table as possible.
So go over to the Archive and fire up Wolfenstein 3D, Eye of the Beholder II and the original Space Quest. These are great games that have made an impact. But if you’re bored, why not fire up something like Tower Toppler?
You never know, you may find some gems hiding there amongst the coal, waiting to be rediscovered.
