Even on PC, where a multitude of online distributors exist, bringing classic games into the modern day can require a lot of reworking and restoration that copyright holders have little incentive to do.
That means the ability to play them is contingent on the availability of often-aging, out-of-print equipment and peripherals. Abandonware games are at high risk of disappearing forever since, unlike other media, video games require proprietary hardware to play. In other cases, those creators are defunct. Sometimes that means a game has been largely ignored or forgotten by its creators. As he'd come to learn, System Shock 2 was one of many pieces of 'abandonware'-games not supported or distributed by the copyright holder.
