Oakland's nonprofit "Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment" housed 40,000 historic pieces of videogame memorabilia — including 11,000 playable games has been forced to close.

The outfit used to be quite important in 2017 - it was the one urging America's copyright office to allow museums and libraries to circumvent DRM to preserve abandoned online games like FIFA World Cup, Nascar and The Sims. The museum's sponsors include GitHub, Google, PlayStation, and Dolby Digital.

But now the MADE is "set to close its doors, with uncertainty ahead about whether it'll ever be able to reopen.

Founder and director Alex Handy said in an interview with GamesBeat that the group managing the museum couldn't reach an agreement on rent for the place during the COVID-19 crisis.

More than  80 percent of the outfit’s  budget comes from admissions, its website says, and since it's been closed since March due to the pandemic, it's now forced to shut down and move its collections to storage.

Storage will be paid for thanks to donations — still open -  and will go towards eventually finding a new space for the museum.

 "The current plan is to stay in storage for two years while we raise the funds and make plans to create our dream video game museum. When we're ready, we will be back and better than ever, mark our words", the museum said in a statement.