Lifelong friends are made in dead and dying games

Dead videogames are like catnip for the terminally online like myself. Even a slight dip in a game’s player count is enough to generate countless hours of hasty YouTube punditry, breathless news articles and misguided comparisons. Although these narratives are usually misguided, our terminal obsession with player counts touches on something that is somehow both overlooked and over-commodified.

Games die all the time, often by passing into cultural obscurity. Sometimes, developers and publishers choose to kill the game themselves by ending development and turning off servers. And just like a real death, the death of a game often feels capricious and unfair.

Although each death represents a tragic historical loss, the outcomes are not completely negative. Truly dead games – like the long-forgotten Dirty Bomb – create player-led communities that other games can only dream of. Developed by British developer Splash Damage, the objective-based game combines high-intensity gunfights with match-altering character abilities and parkour.

Read the full article in Unwinnable magazine