The National Library of Korea will host a special exhibition titled 'Discontinued Korean Games: Powering Back On' from this July through May 2027.

The exhibition was organized to raise awareness about the reality of early domestic games facing extinction due to platform discontinuation and to re-examine them as digital cultural heritage that must be preserved.

The library aims to highlight the historical and cultural value of the discontinued games in its collection and build a consensus on the importance of their preservation and management.

The exhibition space is divided into six thematic sections. #1, 'The Library Collects Games,' demonstrates that games are also a form of record, showcasing deposited game packages and magazines. #2, 'Games Beyond the Bookshelf,' covers cases of games that never saw the light of day due to development cancellations or technical limitations.

#3, 'Discontinued Korean Games,' displays actual released titles that are now unplayable, such as 'Legend of the Divine Sword' (Sin-geom-ui Jeon-seol). #4, 'People Who Protect Games,' highlights the preservation and restoration efforts of the National Library of Korea and the Nexon Computer Museum.

#5, 'Time Travel of Korean Games,' examines the chronological flow of Korean gaming history, and the final section, #6, 'Turning Korean Games Back On,' is designed to allow visitors to experience discontinued games reinterpreted through artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

This exhibition is highly significant in that it re-evaluates the historical and cultural value of disappearing games and serves as an opportunity to recognize them not merely as consumer goods, but as 'national digital cultural heritage' that must be preserved.

It is expected to help visitors intuitively grasp the potential for digital records to vanish due to technological changes, thereby building social consensus and spreading public awareness regarding software preservation. Furthermore, by expanding the library's function into the digital cultural sphere, it demonstrates that games, like books, are records that should be collected and managed, offering a new model for record preservation in the digital age.

A professional seminar will also be held in conjunction with the exhibition. Under the theme of 'Preservation and Utilization of Discontinued Games,' the seminar will discuss the results of foundational research on collecting and preserving Korean discontinued games, as well as the current state of game archiving from a museum perspective.