How do video game companies sometimes “lose” the source code to an older title? Do they not back up resources, and can they not somehow extract it from an existing copy or disc of said game?
In: Technology
Couple things…
1. Source code is not the same as compiled binaries. What you have on your existing copy is the compiled version, not the source code.
2. Sometimes when you’ve “lost” the source code, you may still TECHNICALLY have it, but it’s on a medium that is obsolete and you cannot access. 5 1/4” floppies. A Zip Drive. Tape backup. Etc.
While data is often backed up, a question because how was it backed up and was that backup kept secure and validated functional. Magnetic tape can degrade. Hard drives can fail. Backup media can be misplaced (especially in the case of media held by companies that have gone thru various acquisitions). Employee A may have been the one in charge of the backup, but hasn’t worked there in X number of years so nobody there currently knows what became of the media. Or there could be actual disasters. Fires. Floods. Etc which damage the backup media.
Also, sometimes when they say they have lost the sources, they could be referring to some of the data used to put the game together, and not the final source code as shipped. Sometimes high res audio or images were produced for production, but it’s down converted to save space or for performance reasons on the original target systems. They may then lose track of the original high res versions that would be required for a remaster or rerelease on modern hardware, and the low quality versions that remain cannot be up converted to an acceptable quality for modern audiences and equiptment without prohibitive costs
To note… it’s not just games that have suffered this way. Babylon 5 was a television series produced in the 90’s that famously filmed in wide screen on film, and created their cgi effects in a near HD quality (although 4:3 for the televisions at the time). This was more expensive, but the production team felt it helped future proof what they were creating. Skip forward a couple decades, and the only version we can see today is very questionable quality due to decision made at the studio that owned the rights. They upscaled an old dvd release, which has introduced a TON of video defects that didn’t exist in the original source.
> can they not somehow extract it from an existing copy or disc of said game?
The disc generally does not contain source code, only the binary machine code. You can’t recover the original source from that, because information is lost in the compilation process.
With a lot of effort, it is possible to reverse-engineer the machine code back into usable code. What you end up with is not the same as the original source code though.
As other comments state, it’s impossible to get the original source code back from the compiled binary end product, since lots of useful information is lost in the compilation process, and what’s left, while functionally equivalent, will be hard to decipher for a developer.
Most of the time you’re talking about source code that is decades old. Staff turnover, companies that go in and and of business, get taken over by a parent company, sold off to another, another group buys the rights to the business, companies that focus more on delivery than good backup practices, media degrades etc. It’s very easy for 30+ year old code to get lost in that mess when possibly no one who works at the company now was even born when the old game released, even if the company itself stuck around as a single continuous entity.
I’ve read a few stories about companies getting bought out and all the files and disks going into storage “somewhere” and who ever was in charge did a crap job keeping track.
A game is a complete failure and the source code isn’t worth keeping and people move one. Then sometimes the game becomes a cult classic and the owner regrets deleting it or tossing the computer it was on.
The back up is stored incorrectly physically damaging it.
The person with the code dies. Know one knows where/if there is a back up.
In the older days, the idea of re-releasing or remastering a game wasn’t a thing.
Once a game is out in stores, why do you need to maintain the master copy?
So maintaining this copy of the source code was usually not well done or a high priority.
You can reverse engineer the code, but odds are that it won’t be a 1 to 1 copy, and it’s a huge headache.
A good example for this is the silent hill remaster collection. Konami lost the source code and ended up having to reverse engineer the games from scratch.
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