Germany shuts down the world's largest public video game collection

The shareholders of the Internationale Computerspielesammlung (ICS) voted unanimously on July 3, 2026 to dissolve the organization behind what was billed as the world's largest publicly accessible video game collection. Based in Berlin, the ICS held more than 60,000 games on cartridge, floppy disk, CD, DVD and Blu-ray, along with original packaging, manuals, promotional material and historic hardware.

Launched in 2012 with the goal of assembling the largest digital game collection in the world, the initiative put its public database online back in 2019 before becoming a non-profit company (gGmbH) in 2023. Its publicly funded phase, backed by 1.5 million euros from the Berlin Senate and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, ended in late April 2026. The Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), now responsible for video game policy, deemed the renewal proposal "not viable."

"The end of the ICS is, in our view, very regrettable, even though we understand the political reasons," the organization's shareholders said in a joint statement, while the BMFTR justified its decision on cost-effectiveness grounds.

The physical collections themselves are not disappearing: the items remain the property of their respective shareholders, including the archives of ratings body USK and Berlin's Computerspielemuseum, which will continue to house them. The closure comes just as Sony announced the end of physical disc production for its games, reviving industry-wide concerns about the long-term preservation of gaming heritage.

Source: GamesWirtschaft