10 Video Games That Were SAVED From Destruction
2. Fallout
The Fallout source code saga encapsulates the best and the worst of gaming preservation.
Back in April, Fallout creator Tim Cain said that the source code to the original game had been lost to time thanks to its publisher's Smaug-like desire to keep its riches for itself. Cain revealed that Interplay - the publisher in question - ordered him to destroy his entire Fallout archive (via Games Radar) when he left the company, from the source code to any scribbled notes. Cain was understandably surprised, then, when the company subsequently called him years later asking if he had any copies of the code as they'd lost theirs.
Fortunately, salvation was at hand. Another former Interplay employee, Rebecca Heineman, was fully aware that her ex-employers were as good at safeguarding their property as a hungry doberman in a sausage factory. As such, she made it a point to personally archive the code as Interplay were, in her own words, "definitely not doing that". The Fallout source code was one such beneficiary of Heineman's foresight, preserving the landmark RPG for future generations.