It's the age of Stop Killing Games, but one of the biggest ROM sites around is about to become a graveyard. As reported by Kotaku, Myrient, a self-described "game preservation service" launched in 2022 with hundreds of terabytes' worth of retro videogames, is closing its doors March 31.
Myrient's solo operator, Alexey, outlined why in messages on Discord and Telegram. The first reason is a lack of funding from people using the site. "As traffic continued to increase last year, the amount of funding from donations remained the same," wrote Alexey. "I have been paying more than $6,000 out of pocket every month in order to cover the difference which is not sustainable."
This was made worse by rising RAM prices, which Alexey explained are "due to the ongoing extreme demand for AI datacenters." This significantly increased Myrient's hosting expenses. With the monthly costs going up, further maintenance of the site has become unsustainable. If you're curious about the RAMpocalypse and its effects specifically, we have an explainer article for you.
Alexey also noted that "many specialized download managers" have been created that circumvent the site's "download protections" and donation messages, with some of them doing so behind a paywall. Alexey said "such egregious and abusive usage of the site cannot be tolerated anymore." They added that there are other reasons for the closure, but "nobody would want to read it" and the gist is "I can no longer afford to run the site."
Notably, this does not affect hShop, a 3DS piracy—not their language, but come on—site that Myrient's header links to. Myrient donations received after March 31 will be forwarded to hShop, according to Myrient's Telegram page.
It also bears mentioning that ROM distribution sites of this type regularly come and go, just for very different reasons. Game publisher legal departments are rarely sympathetic to the preservationist defense, but the vintage of pirated games on offer typically allows them to escape notice, at least for a time.
Even distributing "abandonware" without express consent of its copyright holders is legally questionable. What's exceptional here is that it wasn't a threatening letter or DMCA takedown that ended Myrient, it's the unprecedented strain on hardware prices caused by AI data center construction.
