How this site is made

Every ranking hides a set of judgement calls. Here are mine, so you can decide how much weight to give them.

How a game gets on the list

The 505 classics here are ordered by roughly how many people played them, drawing on published sales figures, platform install bases and how much contemporary press a game attracted. That is an estimate, not a measurement. Where two games were close I used my own judgement about which one more people actually sat down and played. Ranking positions are editorial and do not move when people vote.

How alternatives are chosen

For each classic I look for the best ways to get the same experience today, in roughly this order of preference: an official remaster or re-release, a faithful remake, a free open-source engine that runs the original data files, a spiritual successor by the same people, and finally an indie game built in the same spirit. A game only goes on the list if it is genuinely available to buy or download right now.

Within a game page, alternatives are ordered by a blended score: community votes count for most, then how many of the 10 tracked devices it runs on, then quality signals such as whether it is free and its Steam Deck rating. Curated entries edge out unreviewed community submissions.

Where the data comes from

• Prices - the regular (non-sale) price from the store the link points to, in euro, as shown to a shopper in the Netherlands. Prices elsewhere in the eurozone and beyond will differ.
• Steam Deck compatibility - Valve's own published rating for that title, not my own testing.
• Platform availability - the publisher's own store listings for each device.
• Screenshots - Wikipedia and the relevant store pages.
• Game descriptions - written for this site, drawing on the usual published histories.

How often it is checked

Prices, availability and Steam Deck ratings change constantly and this is a spare-time project, so treat everything here as a starting point rather than a live feed. The date shown on each game page is the last time that game or its alternatives actually changed. It is not a page-view counter and it does not tick over on its own.

Money

There is none. No advertising, no sponsorship, no affiliate links, no tracking. The store links are plain links and this site earns nothing if you follow one. Nothing on the list was placed here because someone paid for it.

Corrections

If something here is wrong - a dead store link, a game that has been delisted, a price that is nowhere near right, a platform marked wrong - please tell me and I will fix it. Email info@corbata.nl. Substantive corrections get logged below.