6 ms·

In the 90s a lot of companies (including big ones like Square Enix) simply deleted the source code once the game launched. They truly thought they had no need f

In the 90s a lot of companies (including big ones like Square Enix) simply deleted the source code once the game launched. They truly thought they had no need for it any more.

itwy 9y ago
That's not true. They needed the work for other games.
- sotojuan 9y ago
  If the game is part of a series or potential series, they would not delete them. If it's a one off, they definitely deleted a lot of assets. A lot of backgrounds, models, and assets from PSOne Final Fantasy games do not exist anymore, for example. This is why a lot of companies that remaster games for HD actually "reverse engineer" the game disc.
  - crankybear1337 9y ago
    Yeah, they do this for PC games as well. A good example is the Steam release of Final Fantasy VII - it actually ships the original binaries from the 90's PC version mostly intact. Code for things like the Direct3D 6 and software renderers, and MIDI sound is still there in the binary, just unused. All the new features like cloud saves, achievements, and original music are implemented using a separate DLL that hooks a lot of stuff in the game, like the graphics and audio subsystems. It's a pretty fascinating thing to reverse engineer. That must've been an interesting job :)
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      Back in the day, I remember using Glide wrappers to run the UltraHLE emulator on non-3DFX hardware. Now, a lot of older games need a DirectX shim to fix various issues (palette and some kinds of slowdowns, especially).
johansch 9y ago
I'm pretty sure at least some of the individual developers kept private backup copies that they then "forgot" to erase.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  And, if that's the case, what's the best way to approach said developers to ask if it might be made available for some kind of preservation? There are a lot of old games that I'd like to see the code for, at least for curiosity's sake.
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
While I support YAGNI, I only support it when there is a copy somewhere in the source control history. I don't understand why they would permanently delete it even if they weren't planning on ever using it again? Was space that limited? Or was this a middle management kind of thing?
- egypturnash 9y ago
  To be honest this is pretty normal for any modern medium. There's a period where nobody bothers to do any kind of archiving. TV shows didn't get routinely archived until quite some time after things like "video tape" existed. Now and then early episodes of something important being discovered is news. Most of the early history of comic strips and comic books has been lost. Original art was thrown away; modern restorers have gone through some heroic efforts to piece together archives from whatever copies of the stuff they can find. Games? Hell, there's a not-insignificant chance nobody was even using source control until the time when video game budgets started to match feature film budgets. Companies die, and if you're lucky then someone takes home source archives. before all the drives are wiped. History repeats itself.

In the 90s a lot of companies (including big ones like Square Enix) simply deleted the source code once the game launched. They truly thought they had no need for it any more.

itwy 9y ago

That's not true. They needed the work for other games.

sotojuan 9y ago
If the game is part of a series or potential series, they would not delete them. If it's a one off, they definitely deleted a lot of assets. A lot of backgrounds, models, and assets from PSOne Final Fantasy games do not exist anymore, for example. This is why a lot of companies that remaster games for HD actually "reverse engineer" the game disc.
- crankybear1337 9y ago
  Yeah, they do this for PC games as well. A good example is the Steam release of Final Fantasy VII - it actually ships the original binaries from the 90's PC version mostly intact. Code for things like the Direct3D 6 and software renderers, and MIDI sound is still there in the binary, just unused. All the new features like cloud saves, achievements, and original music are implemented using a separate DLL that hooks a lot of stuff in the game, like the graphics and audio subsystems. It's a pretty fascinating thing to reverse engineer. That must've been an interesting job :)
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Back in the day, I remember using Glide wrappers to run the UltraHLE emulator on non-3DFX hardware. Now, a lot of older games need a DirectX shim to fix various issues (palette and some kinds of slowdowns, especially).

johansch 9y ago

I'm pretty sure at least some of the individual developers kept private backup copies that they then "forgot" to erase.

khedoros1 9y ago
And, if that's the case, what's the best way to approach said developers to ask if it might be made available for some kind of preservation? There are a lot of old games that I'd like to see the code for, at least for curiosity's sake.

BearGoesChirp 9y ago

While I support YAGNI, I only support it when there is a copy somewhere in the source control history. I don't understand why they would permanently delete it even if they weren't planning on ever using it again? Was space that limited? Or was this a middle management kind of thing?

egypturnash 9y ago
To be honest this is pretty normal for any modern medium. There's a period where nobody bothers to do any kind of archiving. TV shows didn't get routinely archived until quite some time after things like "video tape" existed. Now and then early episodes of something important being discovered is news. Most of the early history of comic strips and comic books has been lost. Original art was thrown away; modern restorers have gone through some heroic efforts to piece together archives from whatever copies of the stuff they can find. Games? Hell, there's a not-insignificant chance nobody was even using source control until the time when video game budgets started to match feature film budgets. Companies die, and if you're lucky then someone takes home source archives. before all the drives are wiped. History repeats itself.