A couple of days ago, we reported on how the internet discovered that it could tweet playable MS-DOS games. Unfortunately, Twitter caught on soon after. Wired’s article is now no longer the thing of glory it once was.
The consensus online is that these embeddable games run afoul of Twitter’s rules surrounding Player Cards. Player Cards themselves are snippets of video and audio that are embedded into tweets. Sites are invited to individually apply for these Cards. It’s likely that the Internet Archive has one for their audio and video content that nobody thought to use for MS-DOS games. Specifically, a clause in the Player Card prohibits interactive embedded content:
“Do not build end-to-end interactive experiences inside the video or audio player unrelated to Player Card content, such as the following: purchasing, gaming, polling, messaging, and data entry. Instead, build these interactive experiences with our other Card types or enhance your Player Card content with links to your website or mobile application.”
Additionally:
“Do not circumvent the intended use of the Card. Player Cards are reserved for linear audio and video consumption only.”
What remains to be seen is what this will mean for the archive’s other content.
Of course, none of this changes the fact that Oregon Trail and other MS-DOS games are all still available on the Internet Archive, waiting for the dysentry-related deaths of you and all you love.
