Myrient, One of the Largest Video Game Archives (390TB), Shuts Down Amid AI-Driven Hardware Price Surge

A Massive Loss for Game Preservation

One of the internet's largest video game archives, Myrient, has announced it will be taken offline. The site housed an enormous 390 terabytes of video game content and served as a crucial hub for retro game preservation enthusiasts worldwide.

The Cause: AI-Driven Hardware Inflation

The primary driver behind the closure is the dramatic rise in RAM, SSD, and hard drive prices—a trend directly linked to the explosive growth of AI data centers. As demand for high-capacity storage has surged to support large language models and AI training pipelines, prices have climbed to levels that make it economically unsustainable for small-scale archiving operations to continue.

The archive's creator also cited abuse from bad actors who were monetizing Myrient's content by bypassing download protections and placing the freely accessible content behind paywalls—a direct violation of the site's policies.

Community Reaction

The announcement sent shockwaves through the game preservation community. Many users shared their experiences discovering rare titles through Myrient—such as the arcade-exclusive Half-Life 2: Survivor. Comments ranged from grief to sardonic observations: 'So is AI improving all our lives yet?'

On a hopeful note, preservation groups have reportedly begun working to back up Myrient's collection before the servers go dark.

A Warning Sign

This closure is a stark reminder of the fragility of digital game preservation and a tangible example of how AI infrastructure expansion is creating unintended collateral damage across the broader tech and gaming ecosystem. Archives like Myrient are irreplaceable custodians of gaming history—once they're gone, decades of gaming culture can vanish with them.