Editorial premise
Why files alone do not preserve a game
The opening essay is the editorial premise: preservation includes technology, context, rights and the systems that make access possible in the first place.
Read the essayIndependent games publication · Survival Atlas
Which games remain when their services disappear?
We break games into the dependencies that keep them playable: files, entitlements, accounts, servers and local saves.
Files→Store entitlement→Publisher login→Game server→Core game
MVP · two reviewed contrast cases · Updated 29 August 2026
First comparison
The Crew / The Crew 2
One franchise, two radically different answers. The first game became inaccessible with its servers. The second later gained an official offline path.
Investigate the contrastThe model
Not “online or offline.” A dependency chain.
A single label hides where a game can actually break. The atlas makes those points visible and lets readers simulate failure.
The product
A small archive of inspectable answers.
The MVP does not begin with thousands of profiles. It begins with defensible contrasts, explicit uncertainty, primary sources and a public change history.
- 01
A direct answer
At the top: what remains playable for an owner of an installed copy?
- 02
An interactive map
Every dependency is visible and can be applied as a failure condition.
- 03
Evidence and history
Sources, review dates, historical changes and open gaps stay attached to the case.
- 04
English and German
Every reviewed case receives distinct URLs and complete language editions.
Open experiment
How this project came to exist
The open case study documents the rights-safe rebuild of the acquired domain and separates experiment, method and SEO outcomes that remain unproven.
Read the case study