31 - Ghosts of Games That Never Were

The Life & Times of Video Games

What about the games that never make it to market? Do they have stories worth telling, or lessons worth learning? These are the ghosts of games that never were.

With help from The Video Game History Foundation's Frank Cifaldi, The Strong Museum of Play's Andrew Borman, Games That Weren't author/curator Frank Gasking, Tomb Raider superfan Ash Kaprielov, and a couple of old developer interviews, I round out season four by looking at the life and death (and afterlife) of Half-Life for Mac, Desert Bus, Citizens, and Core Design's Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition — along with the strange fascination we have with games that didn't get published.

LINKS

• PtoPOnline YouTube channel
• Tomb of Ash page about Core Design's cancelled Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition (with instructions on how to play it)
• Ash's highlights video from his Twitch livestream (and his Twitch channel)
• The Games That Weren't book
• Desert Bus for Hope
• The Video Game History Foundation blog (which includes stories of a few cancelled games as well as a cancelled Sega VR headset)
• Episode 7 - The Tomb Raider Grid

Thank you to my patreon supporters for making this episode possible — especially my producer-level backers Chaun Huff, Carey Clanton, Rob Eberhardt, Simon Moss, Seth Robinson, Scott Grant, Vivek Mohan, and Wade Tregaskis.

To support my work, so that I can uncover more untold stories from video game history, you can make a donation via paypal.me/mossrc or subscribe to my Patreon. (I also accept commissions and the like over email, if you're after something specific or just don't want to deal through those platforms.)

Thank you also to my sponsor, Richard Bannister, for his support. You can check out his modern reimaginings of classic arcade games at retrogamesformac.com.