Everything You Need to Know About Yerlan Dzhaksybekov's 212 Games Nobody Ever Sold
A flat above a bakery in Almaty holds the largest shelf of cancelled games anywhere. Its owner would like to talk about the shelf, not about playing them.
The hum starts the moment Yerlan switches on the tube television. Fifty hertz, steady as a fridge. He will not fix it.
Behind him, four pine shelves hold 212 games that never reached a shop. Grey cartridges, taped labels, one box with a corner chewed by a previous owner's dog. Downstairs the bakery is pulling the first loaves and the whole flat smells of them. Outside, Almaty is a white haze at minus two.
I ask what I came to ask. Has he ever played one to the end?
"Define the end," he says.
I define it. Credits, a last boss, anything.
He offers tea. I ask again. He pours.
Two hundred and twelve games, and the most finished thing in the room is the hum.