DDI Dump
The Data Design Interactive lot is a collection of hard disk drives formerly owned by British video game developer Data Design Interactive. The hard drives were purchased by members of the video game preservation website Obscure Gamers in September 2020. The files recovered from the hard drives have been referred to as the Data Design Interactive dump or DDI Dump. As a number of the hard drives were damaged, recovery efforts are still underway.
History
On 13 September 2020, Obscure Gamers founder Damien announced plans to purchase a lot of hard disk drives that had previously been owned by Data Design Interactive;[1] the company's original British office had shut down by 2012, several years after owner Stewart Green had opened an American office in Florida in 2008.[2][3] The lot was priced as US$1,000 and contained twenty-two hard drives; nine of the drives were damaged or would not power on, however, and required specialist repair work that would cost more than the purchase price. Damien posted a thread on the site's forums with a fundraiser to help purchase and repair the drives. The initial fundraising goal was US$2,500 (plus a buffer of $250 for PayPal's fees); the first thousand dollars would be used for purchasing the lot, and any additional fund would go towards recovery costs.[1]
The following day Damien announced that the fundraiser had reached 37% of its goal, enough to ensure the lot could be purchased. Damien initially planned on releasing recovered files in weekly batches, with most of the time each week to be spent recovering and renaming deleted files; the group would also be removing any personal information, family photos, and pornographic content before releases.[4]
The hard drives had been used by Data Design during the development of LEGO Rock Raiders and for a number of years after.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Damien (13 September 2020). "Data Design Interactive HDD Group Buy & Repair costs". Obscure Gamers (Forum thread). Archived from the original on 21 September 2020.
- ↑ "Data Design Interactive Limited - Insolvency". Companies House. Archived from the original on 4 August 2018.
- ↑ Lee, James (27 May 2008). "Data Design Interactive opens new US office". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on 17 July 2009. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
- ↑ Damien (14 September 2020). "Just a minor update, we've hit 37% of the goal meaning the HDD's are now secured (minus repair/recovery costs)". Obscure Gamers (Reply to forum thread "Data Design Interactive HDD Group Buy & Repair costs"). Archived from the original on 17 November 2020.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Baraklava (13 February 2024) [15 September 2020]. "Let's save the largest Rock Raiders prototype content dump ever". Reddit (r/RockRaiders post). Archived from the original on 19 March 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
