The good thing is, on Android you can get an APK without root or anything like that, same for installing it, and you can use an emulator (or something like waydroid) to run it on a computer. For cases where the game doesn't use any more specialized servers, and just uses the app store for authentication, DRM, etc. the situation is no different from PC games with DRM - it's bypassable, and if done right, will work for all games, not just one.

That said though, it's very true for multiplayer/always online games, and those are very common on mobile. While it's possible to reverse engineer and rewrite the servers, for most of them nobody is going to bother. And in the world of aggressively monetized games, developers have an incentive to keep it that way - they can't make money from players who are still enjoying a game they've already squeezed every penny out of.

I am old enough that already have lost some childhood (e.g. early iPod touch) games to time

Like all the donout games Or papi games Doodle jump ..

Some still exist, but got updates that they not at all behaving like remembered or having tons of ads making it impossible to game

As an example:

I am so happy that they released Hill Climb Racing again without ads, sadly it is on Apple Arcade, but luckily my parents have a Apple One subscription that I am allowed to use through family sharing (for the time being)

But if this subscription is ended, I have no way on playing Hill Climb Racing in a version without tons of micropayments and ads.

Apps are challenging to preserve, but it's the MMORPGs and online games that are almost impossible since there is no game without active servers and people playing the game. Hardware can be emulated and code preserved, so the apps you're talking about could be preserved IF Apple, Google et al wanted to - which of course probably won't happen, but still.

Are you kidding? Think about all the skilled contributors that currently work on emulators, do you not think that some of them would switch to working on re-compiling games? And I agree there are probably weird platforms that it wouldn't be easy for, but anything x86 is going to be much more trivial. I mean, someone was even reverse-engineering Super Mario 64, re-coding the entire game. The original source code and ability to use the code without getting sued would make things so much easier. Yeah, not every game would be done, but the big titles would be.

As far as emulating the rest, access to the source code would make it far, far simpler to figure out compatibility issues and make sure that every game is actually playable.

SimCity 2000 isn't on ProtonDB because they only list Steam games. It's on Lutris though with multiple automatic install scripts for different versions, so it should be fairly easy to get running.

In general I've had way less trouble getting ancient Windows games to run on modern Linux than on modern Windows.

PS3 in particular has very weird hardware. There aren't any good PS3 emulators for PC. Basically the only way to play PS3 games is on an actual PS3.

That's because these consoles and source code are not always compatible. To make them it would cost them time, money and the compromise to maintain them.

I would rather these companies to be forced to open source their older hardware and source code, so the community could do something with them and not have all the hardware laid to waste. Or at least support the development of emulators

I don’t understand why a company like Sony wouldn’t provide you a way to play ps1-3 games on your ps5. I would even be ready to pay for it.

They want you to buy new games. Not to play your old games.

PS5 doesn’t support CD, so popping in PS1 games (and a few early PS2 games) won’t work even if PS5 had a proper PS1 emulator. It’s only a matter of time until DVD support will be dropped for future consoles as well.

Re-releasing old games digitally is also difficult. More from a legal aspect. They need the permission of the holder of the IP. If they want to release Crash Bandicoot again, they need permission from Microsoft, who’s the current IP holder.

It’s also extra problematic if the game uses licensed music, which became common in the PS1 era. Then they need permission from all the involved artists. The Tony Hawk games are problematic in this regard for example.

New releases of Sonic 3 doesn’t include some of the original tracks. Possibly due to the potential involvement of Michael Jackson.

I think it'd be good to release them under a timebomb license: closed source for 5 years, let the dev make money, after which they have to release their source under a permissive license.

Similar way is how I ended up finding out about Mindustry. Found it on F-Droid and liked it enough to buy it on Steam when I found out it's available there. Definitely a good idea if done right.

They could potentially release source only with no art assets. Then you wouldn’t be able to compile the game without either owning the game or pirating the assets elsewhere. But it would allow community members to update the game when it breaks or to add new features. Similar to the Mario 64 decompile.

While all this would be great for consumers it would probably take legislation to get publishers on board with something like this. Publishers have a financial incentive to let the games languish then force you to pay to get a “remastered” version.

I have purchased every single open source game that I've seen listed on steam as paid. Examples:

• Shattered pixel dungeon (and also the original Pixel Dungeon)
• TOME
• Shapez
• Open Hexagon
• Mindustry
• Lugaru
• Mega Glest
• Marvellous Inc
• Hydra Slayer
• HyperRogue

For more FOSS games on steam, there's a decent list collected on this curator (also pointing which ones are only partially open): https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38475471-Libre-Open-Source-Games/?appid=1769170

Part of the spirit of open source is that commercial distribution be allowed. So there's no issue with doing this.