Your old games aren't just bits and bytes — they're your real memory
Years ago, I found a dusty box in the attic filled with games from my childhood. The moment wasn't about primitive graphics or weak sound — suddenly I was flooded with memories of sitting with friends staring at tiny screenshots in magazines, racing to buy the new game on Friday, trading copied tapes we'd scraped together from here and there. All those lost moments from our time just came rushing back.
That's exactly what we're talking about when we discuss a game like Forbidden Solitaire — it's not just about preserving some old digital code. It's about recognizing that games shape our culture in a profound way. The visuals, the boxes, even the cheat codes and playground rumors — all of that is part of our real identity.
And here's the real problem? We forget this. We forget that games aren't throwaway goods we consume and toss. In my opinion, when we let entire games disappear because they're old or "not profitable," we lose way more than just software — we lose a piece of our history. And we Arabs especially haven't paid attention to this yet. How many local Arabic games have simply vanished? How many creative experiments have we forgotten?
Why should we care now?
Preserving old games isn't romantic nostalgia. It's a cultural duty. When a game disappears, it's not just the files that vanish — we lose an entire story about how we played, what mattered to us, how our aesthetic and artistic experience was different. That matters to future generations just as much as it matters to us.
I'm not saying we should forget about new and exciting games — but I'm urging us seriously to build real archives, document Arab games, rescue what we can. This is the responsibility of the entire Arab gaming scene, not just the specialists.
