The lost-media/games preservation website Games That Weren't is currently celebrating 25 years since its initial formation.
Inspired by Ian Osborne's Commodore Force article "That Was The Game That Wasn’t", Frank Gasking first started the project as a column in Commodore Zone magazine back in the mid-to-late 90s, with his brother-in-law Colin suggesting the title "Games That Weren't". However, it wasn't until 1999 that he would take the column online, building his own website with the help of the internet service provider Freeserve and Microsoft Word 1997.
This website provided people with the ability to download demos of the games that were being written about and led to a significant amount of emails and tips that enabled Gasking to make exciting new finds such as the discovery of a completed unreleased version of Solar Jetman for the Commodore 64.
Over the years, the site has inevitably grown a lot and gone through changes, with Gasking recruiting a bunch of additional team members to help out. Its discoveries have regularly made headlines across various gaming websites, including here at Time Extension, and have also formed the basis of a 600+ page book from the publisher Bitmap Books.
You can read Gasking's blog celebrating the milestone here or watch the video below to hear more about the site's incredible history: