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Germany's largest video game archive, the Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS), is set to close, just months after its funding from the Berlin Senate and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media expired in April (as reported by gameswirtschaft, thanks, notebookcheck for the spot).
The ICS began as a project in 2019, as a joint effort between "the Computer Games Museum Berlin, the Entertainment Software Self-Regulation (USK), the Computer Games Collections of the Centre for Computer Games Research at the University of Potsdam (DIGAREC), the Game Association, and the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur."
Its stated aim was to build the "world's largest collection of digital games," with the collection set to include the extensive archives of both the "Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK) and the Computer Games Museum," for use in research and education.
The initial collection was said to contain roughly 60,000 titles across cartridge, floppy disk, CD, DVD, Blu-ray disc, and other formats, and was later launched as a non-profit limited liability company (GmbH) in 2023. This was reportedly supported with 1.5 million euros in funding from the Berlin Senate and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media — a period which ultimately concluded in April 2026.
According to gameswirtschaft, in the spring of this year, a representative for the Berlin State Department, Senator Franziska Giffey, warned that additional funding was "not yet guaranteed." With the next step in the proposal being "the permanent establishment of the ICS as a physical facility, with its own archive rooms and workspaces for accessing the archived material," meaning long-term institutional funding, a spokesperson for Giffey's economic affairs agency told gameswirtschaft that the proposal would exceed "the current scope of the ICS in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and the described scope of tasks," so it was considered "unviable."
As a result of failing to cover this hole in their budget, those behind the archive have therefore had to admit that the project is unfeasible moving forward, citing "the lack of necessary public support" and funding.
As stated in an update on the original gameswirtschaft, the physical holdings will return to their respective owners. As for the digital archive and its infrastructure, their future is now in question and subject to "legal and technical" review.