> The archive is for everyone, and we welcome all inquiries. However, we prioritize requests that support gaming culture, gaming history, and the games industry. /../ While the archive is not open to the public, we hope /../
The archive is for everyone, but it's only for these groups of people, and it's also not open to the public... Yikes.
I'd much rather support initiatives that actually make the games and software required to run them open to the public, like GOG.com and Internet Archive. This feels like a one-way transaction - society puts games in, society gets nothing back.
arp242 1 days ago [-]
This is how most archives work. You can't just have a stroll around for the craic. And there's no point really, because it's not a museum – most people would be bored quite fast, unless you have a specific reason.
mzajc 1 days ago [-]
Exactly, and you shouldn't have to visit the archive to play its games in the first place. That's why I mentioned IA and GOG.com in particular - both let you download games remotely.
kmoser 24 hours ago [-]
An archive of physical media serves a very different purpose from a bunch of computers loaded with the games from those media that are available to be played. It's kind of like a film vault that stores original movie film, vs. a place like YouTube that lets you play copies of those movies. And playing the game is not the same as examining and handling the original media (CD/tape/cartridge/manual/inserts/box).
Sure, archives often permit you to actually view their original media in person, but that's not always part of their mission. Sometimes the best they'll do is give you copies for a fee. Other times they may lend their original media (or sometimes copies) to qualified entities (spoiler alert: not everybody qualifies). There really is no single "right" way for this to work.
tough 23 hours ago [-]
why not process digital backups and allow anyone donating to the archive to request those digitally?
kmoser 22 hours ago [-]
That takes time and effort, and has legal implications that the archive might not want to deal with.
Barrin92 10 hours ago [-]
it's a video game archive. Virtually no video game due to the young age of the medium is in the public domain, so both creating digital backups, let alone making them available is a pretty good way to find yourself in a court with the rightsholders.
tmtvl 8 hours ago [-]
I don't think anyone would ever get in trouble for creating digital backups, but yeah: making video games available to the public without permission from the copyright owner is a good way to get at the very least ceased-and-desisted.
tough 3 hours ago [-]
isn't technically speaking -a small private group of donors- not exactly -the general public- ?
arp242 1 days ago [-]
That's like saying that a digital scan of the book of Kells is identical to the authentic object.
1 days ago [-]
johnnyjeans 1 days ago [-]
It is. I have very little respect for artists with sentimentality over such trivial bullshit. Speaking as someone who makes games. The jewel case doesn't matter.
It detracts from the thing-itself, like a showroom car that travels everywhere in a hermetically sealed container. That's not a car anymore, it's waste. Just because it gets driven 5 miles a year doesn't change shit. If someones spending money to preserve my games, I'd rather it'd just be a tarball in a well maintained magnetic tape vault available on-line than some aristocratic funko pop collection for a tiny amount of people to pog at in person.
DocTomoe 11 hours ago [-]
You may not have experienced gaming in the 1980s and 1990s. Games back then were more than just a stream of bits. They had physical maps (sometimes on cloth, not paper). They had actual manuals (and many of them were art in itself). Disks were in strange, unusual colors, later CDs had shapes, or hidden audio tracks. I vividly remember a copy-protection scheme of black, slightly shiny ink on black paper to prevent photocopying (to read one of the 400 random codes, you had to tilt the page just right.
That needs to be preserved. Just making a digital copy isn't enough.
EA-3167 23 hours ago [-]
The issue here is that a picture of a book is not a book, a copy of a game is the same game. Barring people with excellent and well-adjusted monitors looking at uncompressed images, the pics we see are (potentially excellent, but still) approximations of the original.
With software the notion of an original is meaningless though.
duskwuff 19 hours ago [-]
> The issue here is that a picture of a book is not a book, a copy of a game is the same game.
That... depends. A lot of older games shipped with physical artifacts which were an important part of the game: manuals, code wheels, custom controllers, "feelies" in Infocom games, etc. You can't easily make a copy of those. (And preserving them isn't just a matter of throwing a copy on a hard disk.)
EA-3167 3 hours ago [-]
This is a good point that I overlooked, thanks for the correction.
johnnyjeans 18 hours ago [-]
A picture of every page of a book combined in a collection is a copy of that book, and for all intents and purposes is the same book. This is because the overwhelming majority of books, the text is what matters. Gravity's Rainbow is still Gravity's Rainbow whether it's in a PDF or the very first printed copy. To extend that to games, it doesn't matter if you're playing the MS-DOS version of X-COM or OpenXcom.
And for that matter, if you're concerned about minute granular details of visual media being an integral component of the meaning and essence of that media, you should be far more concerned with whether or not the cultural context is one that's even accessible to you in a meaningful capacity, because most are not. The whimsy of the Mona Lisa in person isn't actually all that deep.
EA-3167 3 hours ago [-]
For many books that's true, for the book in this example (The Book of Kells) it isn't. Having seen it in pictures and then in person, the difference is notable, partly because of the difference between a camera and a human eye, and partly because what you get in person isn't a 2D map of a 3D object.
DocTomoe 11 hours ago [-]
> To extend that to games, it doesn't matter if you're playing the MS-DOS version of X-COM or OpenXcom.
Oh boy, are you mistaken. The 1990s version of XCOM was a mess. If it wasn't enough that it was hard as a nail, it also was buggy beyond belief. To many of us, X-COM (and to a lesser extend the reskin 'Terror from the deep') was what started the 'compulsively save the game after every move' trend. OpenXcom in comparison is a lot more forgiving.
> The whimsy of the Mona Lisa in person isn't actually all that deep.
That is in large parts because you never get to experience the original as you are the copies. You always have a thousand tourists around you, all loud, all pushing to get a glimpse of the real painting once in their lives. They do not understand art needs time to work, impressions do not come between a hotdog and a trip to a café - that is why in most galleries, you see little benches that invite you to sit down and immerse yourself in a picture.
Similarly ... just giving the games to anyone without context will lead to people pushing and prodding, getting bored or frustrated easily, and eventually losing interest. For those people, it doesn't matter if you give them a masterpiece like Ultima III or junk. They consume, they move on. Abandonware sites exist for them. A scholarly archive of gaming history, not generally available to the public, still is useful.
giancarlostoro 1 days ago [-]
Better off going to 'myabandonware' which provides games you simply cannot buy anywhere. No nonsense, just games.
Zardoz89 1 days ago [-]
Here is an actual video game archive worth donating to
Archive, library, and museum are three different things.
pathartl 23 hours ago [-]
GoG makes games available for purchase, but on multiple occasions they've sold games where functionality has been stripped out, or they sell something that straight up doesn't work.
ixtli 16 hours ago [-]
This isn’t how most serious archives work. Archiving media is sensitive, careful work which takes time and space. Providing tours is at very least expensive and at worst a serious risk to the collection.
tumsfestival 4 hours ago [-]
So what is the point of spending money and effort to preserve video games if nobody can play them? Seems like a waste of time and resources, especially for something so trivial as games.
danparsonson 15 hours ago [-]
You think maybe someone might knock their copy of Captain Comic off its pedastal and break it?
DocTomoe 11 hours ago [-]
See, here's the thing: Archives do not have pedestals - they use archival storage. This may come in different forms, but to the uninitiated eye, it often looks a lot like narrow pathways between storage shelves, with labeled cardboard boxes, which may contain, in acid-free paper, sometimes with foam inlays - objects.
Archives exist to preserve what is there, not to show it off. Sometimes, that's for future scientific research. And sometimes, they may participate in museal work as well, lending off objects.
rasz 1 days ago [-]
>The archive is for everyone, but it's only for these groups of people, and it's also not open to the public...
Its Lars Wingefors private collection.
DonHopkins 1 days ago [-]
Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors: "I'm sure I deserve a lot of criticism":
Isn't that the company that bought the IP to a bunch of games franchises just to kill all ongoing development? Ironic.
awkwardpotato 1 days ago [-]
Yes, they're also currently $2 billion dollars in debt and are attempting to split into 3 separate companies.
"Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends" - The legal successor to Embracer. For their triple A studios and major ip rights (they currently own the rights to LOTR-based games)
"Coffee Stain & Friends" - For their indie studios. (Named after their most successful indie studio, the people behind Goat Simulator and Satisfactory)
Asmodee - Their board and card game group. They took out a 900 million euro "financial agreement" with Embracer to pay back part of their debts. Officially a separate entity as of February.
Embracer acquired Asmodee 12/2021, made a spree of other debt-funded accquisitions packaged and prepped to sell the whole company to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund in 2022, but that deal fell through in 2023 and Embracer reportedly incurred €2 billion losses, laid off 8% of 17,000 Asmodee employees, then subsequently spun Asmodee out (now the board and card game unit) saddled with €900m Euro debt to pay off Embracer's actions.
The Asmodee spinout officially became a separate entity as of 2/2025, and has an 18 month deadline to refinance that debt. Fitch rates this BB- [0], which apparently implies >6% probability of default (at current interest rates). Asmodee will presumably achieve that by jacking up prices on existing (boardgame and cardgame) IP, and/or killing stuff that doesn't pay much, and/or refreshing newer versions of existing IP (like Sony Games' 2024 attempt to do forced relicensing on existing PS owners' libraries).
Right after the acquisition, Asmodee silently delisted beloved Steam titles like 'Pandemic' in early 2022 [1][2], without even notifying existing owners; and only 4 years after it had been released in 2018. Supposedly this after-sale revocation violates consumer laws in California and Australia (and maybe elsewhere); if Steam ever pulls the trigger on removing them we get to find out; meanwhile back up your binaries.
Asmodee also acquired the superb online site BoardGameArena.com in 2021, cofounders Grégory and Emmanuel both left in 2023 at the height of Embracer's pillaging.
I commented previously on Asmodee (mostly pre-Wingefors) milking the awful digital implementation of Terraforming Mars (which should have been a huge hit) for like 6 years without any meaningful playtesting or bugfixing [3][4].
Here are some Redditors helpfully filling in the gaps on Wingefors "I'm sure I deserve a lot of criticism" token gesture towards humility [5].
Wingefors' behavior in divesting Asmodee and sticking it with much of the debt for his/ Embracer's failed Covid-era acquisition spree feels something like Bruce Willis strapping plastic explosive to the monitor and chair and dropping it down a 36-storey elevator shaft. Make impressive noise. Or like Restaurant at the End of the Universe when they crash the starship into the sun.
Given Lars Wingefors' trail of digital tears, why he is now begging private individuals to donate their physical copies of old videogames to a private physical archive noone can access or visit, to make him somehow look like a community-minded benefactor, is bizarre. He could simply donate to an existing online archive.
Here's more coverage of these events and user reactions from Reddit r/boardgames and citing industry insider articles; I was slightly wrong that the 2023 layoffs were from the other parts of Embracer Group not Asmodee:
"Welcome to Delisted Games, a growing archive of 2,163 games you can't play" from game console libraries, Steam, etc. ("the town criers of video game disappearances... We research, catalog, and inform about today’s digital gaming landscape (hellscape) including store delistings, online service shutdowns and, simply put, cultural erasure").
(mentioned on HN previously in connection with the PS4 debacle [0]).
I mean there's a legitimate discussion to be had about game lifecycles and between Steam, Kickstarter, games publishers, video game consoles, value resellers like GOG, HumbleBundle, about what are more transparent, ethical ways to publish(/unpublish) and monetize games throughout their lifecycle, to different constituencies of player:
- early adopters/ alpha playtesters, who are happy with the tradeoff of buggy and incomplete game they can play online with friends in return for a deep discount, early access, the ability to positively influence game devpt, maybe some swag or convention events
- beta playtesters, who expect a reasonably complete and stable game
- main-phase, who are happy to pay full price for a complete, bug-free game with tutorials, user guides, multilanguage online help, forums, etc., and have an expectation that they can quickly start an online multplayer/remote game with friends, strangers and AI.
- owners who still expect a basic post-lifecycle ability to play a game solo or against AI or other existing owners (after the publisher has disappeared or the game site has taken down infrastructure servers, achievements, forums, etc.) Such as happened with 'Pandemic' and Asmodee.
- to what extent should publishers be able to use exclusivity to lock in owners and extract revenues? what happens to digital rights after the monetizing is over? Can they retroactively convert a sale to a licensing (time-limited, region-locked, limited rights to play with friends and family...)? This is something where consumer law and regulators can limit bad behavior.
As a positive example of how to do this profitably and ethically, Civilization (Sid Meier Games/ Firaxis Games).
Embracer group has been around for a while but, in recent years, they acquired far more companies than they could realistically do anything with because they thought they could flip them for a profit. They failed and had to take a hatchet to much of what they acquired, pissing off fans of companies that were either completely obliterated or hollowed out and outsourced.
>* Our mission is to have an archive of physical games as extensive as possible. With the purpose of contributing to the joint preservation of video game culture and history.
Now they're looking for donations to a private collection that will not be open to the public. They likely plan to sell the collection the highest bidder at some point. If they can't find a buyer, they'll bin the lot of it rather than continue to pay storage costs. The employees working for them may believe in what they're doing, but Embracer group now has a history of pulling the rug out from under such people.
--------------
Edit: The archive is based in Sweden, which has a really hopping museum scene. They could make a for-profit museum with these materials and a few talented museologists and it would likely do well. They mention no such plans and that's very odd.
For-profit museums aren't really a thing in Sweden either, because you won't be making a profit, unless you're the Vasa Museum, but even that is struggling.
beloch 1 days ago [-]
Museums are sort of like farms in that you can lose money every year for entire lifetimes and still have a tremendously valuable farm. Like land, the past is an appreciating asset. That's big, traditional museums. I suppose it should be no surprise that the smaller museums are still struggling in the post-covid era. I based my opinion on visits prior to the pandemic, so I'm out of date. Hopefully the popularity of museums in Sweden will rebound.
The contributions they're looking for are apparently games and not monetary donations.
What exactly they're doing with the archive isn't stated. The FAQ doesn't explain, other than vague intentions to have the ability to do research and possibly some sort of museum (I think?)
The archive isn't even open to the public, why should the public donate games then?
ThrowawayR2 1 days ago [-]
What other archives or museums are there for video games that are accepting donations of physical game media? There are probably a lot of HN readers with old games in the attic that are bound for the landfill once they get around to it.
Their Library Director Phil Salvador is a serious historian, who extensively researched, interviewed people, and wrote a comprehensive deep dive into the history of Maxis's serious games division, Maxis Business Simulations, John Hiles, and SimRefinery.
It was such an widely read, well received investigation, that it led to the recovery of SimRefinery when a reader discovered an old floppy disk of it that had been sitting in a drawer for decades!
> "To donate items to the MADE, bring your donation to the front desk during open hours."
Quite a long trip for many. That seems to signify that they're not a large enough organization to be an archive.
ForOldHack 19 hours ago [-]
So sorry, I am just a block away right now. I should go and take a photo. It's a great place. They have a Vetrix vector game computer, but they said it was
... Delicate... And I said and probably irreplaceable.
dtech 1 days ago [-]
I know of one in my small country, I thus assume there's many especially in the US
We'll miss it, now that it's moved from Baltimore to a larger space in Pittsburg. I have donated to it, and hope it continues on well past my lifetime.
GauntletWizard 18 hours ago [-]
I've been to the new space, and it's gonna be great - though there's a lot of work ahead in moving.
ForOldHack 18 hours ago [-]
Try sending it to www.themade.org or email info@themade.org. they have like 17,000 or more, and 50,000 items.
rubitxxx 1 days ago [-]
It’s like the seed bank, except all the seeds are effectively dead, because no one can use them. But, they have the seeds’ pretty shells and can imagine what plants they once were.
Personally, I think there should be a non-profit that works with non-profits like this, computer and console equipment museums, Internet Archive, and a spacefaring company to ensure that history is protected in a logical way.
Jolter 1 days ago [-]
They do state that researchers are welcome to visit and use the material. I think that makes the collection not-entirely-useless to the public. Presumably any research they enable will be published.
zabzonk 1 days ago [-]
> Embracer Games Archive is a part of Embracer Group - the parent company of businesses led by entrepreneurs in PC, console and mobile games, as well as other related media.
very unclear who these people actually are
shakna 1 days ago [-]
Embracer started out as Nordic Games.
They ran around buying and gutting every IP they could get their hands on. Nordic became THQ Nordic, whilst continuing to eat everyone around them, whilst also nearly going bankrupt multiple times, before eventually ditching the name because investors didn't like people noticing just who they were.
They are the group that ate Dark Horse, CoffeeStain, Gearbox, Square Enix, Saber Interactive and so many more.
Today, they are majority-owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
bitwize 1 days ago [-]
Square Enix is still independent. They've got their fingers in so many pies, they're almost in the "too big to fail" category.
The SE-Embracer connection is that SE spun off Crystal Dynamics and its properties like Tomb Raider, selling them to Embracer Group.
biglyburrito 20 hours ago [-]
lol they absolutely are NOT too big to fail
biglyburrito 1 days ago [-]
Sorry, but I don't trust Embracer with being a good steward of games in any capacity.
Is there something specific in that corporate saga you're referring to?
I'm not inclined to trust corporate do-gooding either, but it would be nice to have some detail.
stego-tech 1 days ago [-]
The long and short of it is Embracer has spent its entire existence as a consumption entity, buying every IP and studio it could get its hands on, with the intention of being a gaming publisher juggernaut. This was all done on ZIRP-era credit.
They then proceeded to run it into the ground. Waves of layoffs and studio closures, mismanagement, and a credit crunch that ultimately debilitated the company.
In other words, from the outside anyway, it looks like a classic Private Equity layup and cashout.
Do not trust the Embracer Group.
thenthenthen 1 days ago [-]
So their name is a hint at “ Embrace, (extend), and extinguish”?
stego-tech 1 days ago [-]
...damn, that's a good one!
nomdep 1 days ago [-]
Well, for starters, partially owned by the Saudi state. It might be common to take a lot of money from them, but I personally think it’s morally wrong
DonHopkins 1 days ago [-]
So they embrace game developers, then cut them up into small pieces with a bone saw?
Then they disposed of the Pieces Interactive by feeding them to Piranha Bytes!
Aeolun 20 hours ago [-]
The whole history of that company is just a big list of flags. It’s depressing how many good studios are owned by these people.
nrb 1 days ago [-]
Is it too cynical to think they’re just building this to train AI against your donated games?
blharr 1 days ago [-]
It looks more like they're just hoarding a massive personal collection of games... No mention of if this is open to public.
Or if they're even digitizing the games for some use of preservation. I always feel like when you hoard things in one location like this, one fire or other natural disaster and the entire collection is gone!
kmeisthax 23 hours ago [-]
You don't need a physical archive to do that; a torrent of a bunch of SNES games would be good enough.
astrange 11 hours ago [-]
Pretty much every game ever published has been digitally preserved already. I don't think you're going to get much out of feeding a binary into a pretraining dataset though.
Jolter 1 days ago [-]
They would be violating Swedish copyright law if they did, so they better not!
Much easier to get away with such things in the US (it seems).
protocolture 10 hours ago [-]
I have a couple pieces that might be worth donating but after reading the history of the company thats absolutely not going to happen.
Is there somewhere better, preferably outside the USA?
jll29 1 days ago [-]
At least part of the collection, preferedly a rotating part, should be a public exhibit. They can charge an entrance fee, and they will get way more support if there is public awareness compared to a 100% closed shop.
integricho 1 days ago [-]
what does the public gain from them?
gitroom 19 hours ago [-]
Man, keeping all those games locked away where most can't check them out just feels off. If you're asking for people to donate, at least make it so the public can benefit too.
MyPasswordSucks 22 hours ago [-]
> We aim to assist and grant access to people within the games industry, researchers, schools, and other institutions. While the archive is not open to the public, we hope our website and social media channels will offer insight into the work being done by our team. [1]
Then maybe people within the games industry, researchers, schools, and other institutions can provide those needed contributions. Very poor form to be coming to the public, hat in hand, asking them to help finance your private vidya collection.
this talk with acquisition manager there illuminates a lot of things, including how it started. Back of the envelope calc it looks like to be anywhere between 5-10m euro swing to get it where it is at right now (including space and people). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKXEUG_tKks
Keyframe 23 hours ago [-]
now, I have a full SNES collection (without boxes since cardboard is hard to keep up), almost full N64 collection, and on my way to complete Mega Drive and Master System (with boxes) and probably more than halfway through NES games.. bunch of amigas, commodores, spectrums, SGIs, monitors, some exotics like Sam Coupe, Tatung Einstein, Schneider CPCs, etc. but this is on another level.
Future collectors beware though, even though I collected a whole bunch as you can see, at the end of the day I still play either on Analogue's with Everdrive or original machines (RGB of course) with Everdrives. Sometimes even, yes, emulators. If anything, I'd honestly donate to a digital archive and emulator development. Only thing right now that really can't be emulated are CRTs - but I am honestly convinced we're soon close enough if not already 98% there with great 4k OLEDs (like sony A95L series) and some pre-processing. I can tell by the pixels when I'm looking at both A95L and BVM20 and/or B&O TV which I also have, to my wife's disapproval.
merbanan 1 days ago [-]
Doesn't seem like they are digitising the media.
dlundqvist 1 days ago [-]
No, only cataloguing. I asked them this when I was there January last year. They didn't do this then and if I remember correctly it was because of licensing concerns and also not wanting to open boxes. I know Royal Library in Stockholm digitally archive various media, not sure what Embracer would need to be allowed to do that.
Jolter 1 days ago [-]
I think you’re right, they would need some kind of copyright exemption in order to properly preserve the games by migrating them to new media regularly. I’m not sure it’s possible to get such an exemption for a private corporation under Swedish law?
Jolter 1 days ago [-]
Ah, found it. Only some government and municipal archives have such an exemption.
What?!? How can one preserve games without opening boxes? Physical media don't last forever.
Unless they're interested in preserving the boxes themselves? (or other goodies inside)
Reads like they're looking for donations to enlarge a private collection. Or perhaps obtain some physical copies for stuff in their IP portfolio?
devwastaken 1 days ago [-]
this will be demolished before 5 years time. physical archives dont work, theyre inefficient and costly. people get bored. the best archive is torrent seeding.
Jolter 1 days ago [-]
Physical archives have literally worked for thousands of years.
You do have a point in that commercial ventures like Embracer don’t tend to last for very long. Presumably the collection would not be auctioned off piecemeal if the company goes under, but rather sold as a unit to some other entity.
kouteiheika 20 hours ago [-]
No, the OP is right, although perhaps for the wrong reasons.
In a 100 (or a few hundred) years none of the games from that physical archive will be playable, as both the physical media and the physical consoles needed to play those games will become unusable. Physical archives work only as long as the physical medium itself lasts.
The only way to actually preserve games is to digitize them. Period. Collecting physical media and consoles is a fun hobby, but in the long term it's completely useless if the goal is preservation. If you want to preserve games you should be dumping whatever undumped games still exist, contribute to databases like no-intro.org, and download and seed/share what has already been dumped. This is what will help preserve those games, not a physical collection that will turn into an unusable paperweight sooner or later.
> Can I visit the archive?
> The archive is for everyone, and we welcome all inquiries. However, we prioritize requests that support gaming culture, gaming history, and the games industry. /../ While the archive is not open to the public, we hope /../
The archive is for everyone, but it's only for these groups of people, and it's also not open to the public... Yikes.
I'd much rather support initiatives that actually make the games and software required to run them open to the public, like GOG.com and Internet Archive. This feels like a one-way transaction - society puts games in, society gets nothing back.
Sure, archives often permit you to actually view their original media in person, but that's not always part of their mission. Sometimes the best they'll do is give you copies for a fee. Other times they may lend their original media (or sometimes copies) to qualified entities (spoiler alert: not everybody qualifies). There really is no single "right" way for this to work.
It detracts from the thing-itself, like a showroom car that travels everywhere in a hermetically sealed container. That's not a car anymore, it's waste. Just because it gets driven 5 miles a year doesn't change shit. If someones spending money to preserve my games, I'd rather it'd just be a tarball in a well maintained magnetic tape vault available on-line than some aristocratic funko pop collection for a tiny amount of people to pog at in person.
That needs to be preserved. Just making a digital copy isn't enough.
With software the notion of an original is meaningless though.
That... depends. A lot of older games shipped with physical artifacts which were an important part of the game: manuals, code wheels, custom controllers, "feelies" in Infocom games, etc. You can't easily make a copy of those. (And preserving them isn't just a matter of throwing a copy on a hard disk.)
And for that matter, if you're concerned about minute granular details of visual media being an integral component of the meaning and essence of that media, you should be far more concerned with whether or not the cultural context is one that's even accessible to you in a meaningful capacity, because most are not. The whimsy of the Mona Lisa in person isn't actually all that deep.
Oh boy, are you mistaken. The 1990s version of XCOM was a mess. If it wasn't enough that it was hard as a nail, it also was buggy beyond belief. To many of us, X-COM (and to a lesser extend the reskin 'Terror from the deep') was what started the 'compulsively save the game after every move' trend. OpenXcom in comparison is a lot more forgiving.
> The whimsy of the Mona Lisa in person isn't actually all that deep.
That is in large parts because you never get to experience the original as you are the copies. You always have a thousand tourists around you, all loud, all pushing to get a glimpse of the real painting once in their lives. They do not understand art needs time to work, impressions do not come between a hotdog and a trip to a café - that is why in most galleries, you see little benches that invite you to sit down and immerse yourself in a picture.
Similarly ... just giving the games to anyone without context will lead to people pushing and prodding, getting bored or frustrated easily, and eventually losing interest. For those people, it doesn't matter if you give them a masterpiece like Ultima III or junk. They consume, they move on. Abandonware sites exist for them. A scholarly archive of gaming history, not generally available to the public, still is useful.
https://library.gamehistory.org
Archives exist to preserve what is there, not to show it off. Sometimes, that's for future scientific research. And sometimes, they may participate in museal work as well, lending off objects.
Its Lars Wingefors private collection.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1cb93xy/embracer_ceo...
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/embracer-ceo-lars-wingefors-im...
"Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends" - The legal successor to Embracer. For their triple A studios and major ip rights (they currently own the rights to LOTR-based games)
"Coffee Stain & Friends" - For their indie studios. (Named after their most successful indie studio, the people behind Goat Simulator and Satisfactory)
Asmodee - Their board and card game group. They took out a 900 million euro "financial agreement" with Embracer to pay back part of their debts. Officially a separate entity as of February.
[0] https://embracer.com/releases/embracer-group-announces-its-i...
The Asmodee spinout officially became a separate entity as of 2/2025, and has an 18 month deadline to refinance that debt. Fitch rates this BB- [0], which apparently implies >6% probability of default (at current interest rates). Asmodee will presumably achieve that by jacking up prices on existing (boardgame and cardgame) IP, and/or killing stuff that doesn't pay much, and/or refreshing newer versions of existing IP (like Sony Games' 2024 attempt to do forced relicensing on existing PS owners' libraries).
Right after the acquisition, Asmodee silently delisted beloved Steam titles like 'Pandemic' in early 2022 [1][2], without even notifying existing owners; and only 4 years after it had been released in 2018. Supposedly this after-sale revocation violates consumer laws in California and Australia (and maybe elsewhere); if Steam ever pulls the trigger on removing them we get to find out; meanwhile back up your binaries.
Asmodee also acquired the superb online site BoardGameArena.com in 2021, cofounders Grégory and Emmanuel both left in 2023 at the height of Embracer's pillaging.
I commented previously on Asmodee (mostly pre-Wingefors) milking the awful digital implementation of Terraforming Mars (which should have been a huge hit) for like 6 years without any meaningful playtesting or bugfixing [3][4].
Here are some Redditors helpfully filling in the gaps on Wingefors "I'm sure I deserve a lot of criticism" token gesture towards humility [5].
Wingefors' behavior in divesting Asmodee and sticking it with much of the debt for his/ Embracer's failed Covid-era acquisition spree feels something like Bruce Willis strapping plastic explosive to the monitor and chair and dropping it down a 36-storey elevator shaft. Make impressive noise. Or like Restaurant at the End of the Universe when they crash the starship into the sun.
Given Lars Wingefors' trail of digital tears, why he is now begging private individuals to donate their physical copies of old videogames to a private physical archive noone can access or visit, to make him somehow look like a community-minded benefactor, is bizarre. He could simply donate to an existing online archive.
[0]: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/fitc...
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29968054 [2]: https://delistedgames.com/pandemic-the-board-game/
[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42303399 [4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraformingMarsGame/comments/1443i...
[5]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1cb93xy/embracer_ceo...
"What the Asmodee debt deal means for the board game industry (a deeper dive)" (2024/5) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1cht230/what_th...
"Can anyone explain what exactly is going on with Asmodee games?" (ObiWahnKenobi, 2024/5) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1crau93/can_any...
"Asmodee spun out of Embracer Group, to become a standalone publicly traded company" (2024/4) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1ca8wdv/asmodee...
"Board game giant Asmodee’s corporate owner allegedly loses $2bn deal with Saudi Arabian partner | Dicebreaker" (2023/8) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/15yd0g7/board_g...
https://delistedgames.com/
"Welcome to Delisted Games, a growing archive of 2,163 games you can't play" from game console libraries, Steam, etc. ("the town criers of video game disappearances... We research, catalog, and inform about today’s digital gaming landscape (hellscape) including store delistings, online service shutdowns and, simply put, cultural erasure").
(mentioned on HN previously in connection with the PS4 debacle [0]).
I mean there's a legitimate discussion to be had about game lifecycles and between Steam, Kickstarter, games publishers, video game consoles, value resellers like GOG, HumbleBundle, about what are more transparent, ethical ways to publish(/unpublish) and monetize games throughout their lifecycle, to different constituencies of player:
- early adopters/ alpha playtesters, who are happy with the tradeoff of buggy and incomplete game they can play online with friends in return for a deep discount, early access, the ability to positively influence game devpt, maybe some swag or convention events
- beta playtesters, who expect a reasonably complete and stable game
- main-phase, who are happy to pay full price for a complete, bug-free game with tutorials, user guides, multilanguage online help, forums, etc., and have an expectation that they can quickly start an online multplayer/remote game with friends, strangers and AI.
- owners who still expect a basic post-lifecycle ability to play a game solo or against AI or other existing owners (after the publisher has disappeared or the game site has taken down infrastructure servers, achievements, forums, etc.) Such as happened with 'Pandemic' and Asmodee.
- to what extent should publishers be able to use exclusivity to lock in owners and extract revenues? what happens to digital rights after the monetizing is over? Can they retroactively convert a sale to a licensing (time-limited, region-locked, limited rights to play with friends and family...)? This is something where consumer law and regulators can limit bad behavior.
As a positive example of how to do this profitably and ethically, Civilization (Sid Meier Games/ Firaxis Games).
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25134263
>* Our mission is to have an archive of physical games as extensive as possible. With the purpose of contributing to the joint preservation of video game culture and history.
Now they're looking for donations to a private collection that will not be open to the public. They likely plan to sell the collection the highest bidder at some point. If they can't find a buyer, they'll bin the lot of it rather than continue to pay storage costs. The employees working for them may believe in what they're doing, but Embracer group now has a history of pulling the rug out from under such people.
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Edit: The archive is based in Sweden, which has a really hopping museum scene. They could make a for-profit museum with these materials and a few talented museologists and it would likely do well. They mention no such plans and that's very odd.
Citation needed. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/25/s...
https://swedenherald.com/article/tough-economic-situation-fo...
For-profit museums aren't really a thing in Sweden either, because you won't be making a profit, unless you're the Vasa Museum, but even that is struggling.
What exactly they're doing with the archive isn't stated. The FAQ doesn't explain, other than vague intentions to have the ability to do research and possibly some sort of museum (I think?)
https://embracergamesarchive.com/#faq
Has a large collection of old systems and games, magazines and anything else they can get hold of. It's also open to visitors.
That is two museums. It's in the title: "Hands-On Vintage Technology Museums" and mentioned all over the front page.
https://gamehistory.org/
Their Library Director Phil Salvador is a serious historian, who extensively researched, interviewed people, and wrote a comprehensive deep dive into the history of Maxis's serious games division, Maxis Business Simulations, John Hiles, and SimRefinery.
It was such an widely read, well received investigation, that it led to the recovery of SimRefinery when a reader discovered an old floppy disk of it that had been sitting in a drawer for decades!
https://archive.org/details/sim-refinery
https://gamehistory.org/library-director-phil-salvador/
https://gamehistory.org/ep-11-simrefinery-simulated-by-a-ref...
https://obscuritory.com/
https://obscuritory.com/sim/when-simcity-got-serious/
https://obscuritory.com/sim/simrefinery-recovered/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ6Cqn5rTfs
Quite a long trip for many. That seems to signify that they're not a large enough organization to be an archive.
Personally, I think there should be a non-profit that works with non-profits like this, computer and console equipment museums, Internet Archive, and a spacefaring company to ensure that history is protected in a logical way.
very unclear who these people actually are
They ran around buying and gutting every IP they could get their hands on. Nordic became THQ Nordic, whilst continuing to eat everyone around them, whilst also nearly going bankrupt multiple times, before eventually ditching the name because investors didn't like people noticing just who they were.
They are the group that ate Dark Horse, CoffeeStain, Gearbox, Square Enix, Saber Interactive and so many more.
Today, they are majority-owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
The SE-Embracer connection is that SE spun off Crystal Dynamics and its properties like Tomb Raider, selling them to Embracer Group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group#History
I'm not inclined to trust corporate do-gooding either, but it would be nice to have some detail.
They then proceeded to run it into the ground. Waves of layoffs and studio closures, mismanagement, and a credit crunch that ultimately debilitated the company.
In other words, from the outside anyway, it looks like a classic Private Equity layup and cashout.
Do not trust the Embracer Group.
Then they disposed of the Pieces Interactive by feeding them to Piranha Bytes!
Or if they're even digitizing the games for some use of preservation. I always feel like when you hoard things in one location like this, one fire or other natural disaster and the entire collection is gone!
Much easier to get away with such things in the US (it seems).
Is there somewhere better, preferably outside the USA?
Then maybe people within the games industry, researchers, schools, and other institutions can provide those needed contributions. Very poor form to be coming to the public, hat in hand, asking them to help finance your private vidya collection.
1: https://embracergamesarchive.com/#faq
Future collectors beware though, even though I collected a whole bunch as you can see, at the end of the day I still play either on Analogue's with Everdrive or original machines (RGB of course) with Everdrives. Sometimes even, yes, emulators. If anything, I'd honestly donate to a digital archive and emulator development. Only thing right now that really can't be emulated are CRTs - but I am honestly convinced we're soon close enough if not already 98% there with great 4k OLEDs (like sony A95L series) and some pre-processing. I can tell by the pixels when I'm looking at both A95L and BVM20 and/or B&O TV which I also have, to my wife's disapproval.
https://riksarkivet.se/utforska-och-bestall/vad-du-har-ratt-...
What?!? How can one preserve games without opening boxes? Physical media don't last forever.
Unless they're interested in preserving the boxes themselves? (or other goodies inside)
Reads like they're looking for donations to enlarge a private collection. Or perhaps obtain some physical copies for stuff in their IP portfolio?
You do have a point in that commercial ventures like Embracer don’t tend to last for very long. Presumably the collection would not be auctioned off piecemeal if the company goes under, but rather sold as a unit to some other entity.
In a 100 (or a few hundred) years none of the games from that physical archive will be playable, as both the physical media and the physical consoles needed to play those games will become unusable. Physical archives work only as long as the physical medium itself lasts.
The only way to actually preserve games is to digitize them. Period. Collecting physical media and consoles is a fun hobby, but in the long term it's completely useless if the goal is preservation. If you want to preserve games you should be dumping whatever undumped games still exist, contribute to databases like no-intro.org, and download and seed/share what has already been dumped. This is what will help preserve those games, not a physical collection that will turn into an unusable paperweight sooner or later.