Myrient to Shut Down March 31: 390TB Classic Game Archive Faces Permanent Closure

Myrient to Shut Down March 31: 390TB Classic Game Archive Faces Permanent Closure

February 28, 2026 — Myrient, a free video game preservation service hosting over 390 terabytes of classic game collections, has announced it will permanently shut down on March 31, 2026.

The closure was announced by the site’s founder, known as Alexey, on February 26 via Discord and Telegram, sending shockwaves through the retro gaming and game preservation community.

What Is Myrient?

Myrient describes itself as “a fast and reliable video game preservation service” offering organized collections of ROMs and ISOs from curated sources such as No-Intro and Redump. Unlike many similar sites, it carried no advertisements, imposed no download limits, and verified every file against known-good checksums to ensure integrity. It had become the go-to resource for emulation fans and retro gamers worldwide, prized for both its breadth and its speed.

Why Is It Closing?

Alexey cited three converging pressures that made continued operation impossible.

The most significant factor was a persistent funding shortfall. Despite traffic growing steadily over the past year, donations remained flat, leaving Alexey personally covering more than $6,000 per month in operating costs. “I have been paying more than $6,000 out of pocket every month in order to cover the difference, which is not sustainable,” he wrote in the shutdown notice.

Compounding the financial strain, the AI infrastructure boom has driven up prices for RAM, SSDs, and hard drives since at least September 2025. Myrient’s hosting costs rose in parallel, and necessary upgrades to its storage and caching infrastructure became unaffordable. Alexey himself noted, however, that rising hardware prices were “a small part of the shutdown” — insufficient donations remained the primary issue.

The final aggravating factor was the emergence of third-party paywalled download managers. In recent months, several specialized tools appeared that bypassed Myrient’s donation prompts and built-in download protections, with some locking features behind their own subscription fees. This directly violated Myrient’s longstanding prohibition on commercial use of its content. “Such egregious and abusive usage of the site cannot be tolerated anymore,” Alexey stated.

What Happens Now?

The site will remain accessible in its current form until March 31, giving users roughly one month to download content they wish to preserve. However, the scale of the task is daunting: with over 390TB of data, a complete personal backup would require substantial storage hardware and very fast internet connectivity — far beyond the reach of most ordinary users.

New uploads to Myrient ceased as of February 26. The Discord server and Telegram channel will remain open after the shutdown, as will hShop, a related Nintendo 3DS content service that operates separately and is unaffected by the closure. Any donations received after March 31 will be redirected to hShop’s hosting costs.

A Broader Warning Sign

Myrient’s closure is not occurring in a vacuum. German data center provider Hetzner recently announced price hikes of 30–38% on cloud services and around 30% on some dedicated servers, effective April 1 — its second increase in a short period, attributed to surging hardware procurement costs. Hard drive prices have risen an average of 46% since September 2025. Western Digital has reportedly sold out its entire hard drive production run for 2026. These pressures are being felt across the self-hosted and non-profit web.

The news spread rapidly after fellow archival site Vimm’s Lair shared Alexey’s announcement on X, where it attracted millions of views. The post’s caption — “This is what AI and greed does” — captured the mood of many in the community. While some pointed to AI-driven hardware demand as the culprit, others directed frustration at those who exploited the site through paywalled download tools.

Whether Myrient’s archive can be meaningfully preserved or the project eventually revived remains deeply uncertain. For now, those who relied on it have until the end of March.

Sources: Myrient official Discord and Telegram; Tom’s Hardware; Kotaku; The Gamer; Time Extension; GamingOnLinux; Hackaday

Myrient to Shut Down March 31: 390TB Classic Game Archive Faces Permanent Closure. With over 390TB of data, a complete personal backup would require substantial storage hardware and very fast internet connectivity — far beyond the reach of most ordinary users.