[game_preservation] Game preservation videos?

[Andrew Armstrong]

Historically recorded videos (or other media; including save games and 
replays) would be certainly important to improve the metadata of, 
indeed, citations are nearly impossible (although citing by URL and time 
point is possible to a degree, it can be hard to find some other data 
involved). This is one area that, if the Internet Archive can improve 
its services with some help from us, be worth discussing or sorting 
(whether here, or in the Congress project, anywhere would do :) ).

Videos really have a few mediums for marking points - some formats 
include the concept of chapters, some do . There are some up and coming 
open source video formats (Theora for instance) which may allow 
inclusion of more metadata then the standard ones (OGG for instance can 
have any amount added in the container, with some standard ones being 
usually readable by players).

Possibly subtitles allow extra metadata (copyright data, time of 
recording, author, etc.) and chapter points to be marked visually.

On the technical aspects of demo viewers; I think emulation has a shot 
at this, some games are pretty simple and might be worth recording 
inputs and simply replaying them back into the game - however, some do 
not work like this - such as the earlier video by Jim on Punch Out 
Arcade - which in fact, could not be saved at any point and had to be 
played from start to finish, due to how the game worked.

Newer games, certainly a select few genre's with multiplayer involve 
replay saves - RTS games have this commonly (although it is dependant, 
obviously, on the correct patch) but for multiplayer only. FPS games may 
have demo recording for multiplayer and singleplayer (usually the same 
commands, as in Half Life, and Quake). Not many other games do this, for 
whatever reason (singleplayer only games, why'd you need to record them?)

Without the games source code for non-emulated games, it'd be pretty 
hard to reproduce replays, nevermind replay them - a viewer would be 
nigh on impossible on most games themselves, even to get them just 
working in a modern OS.

They would be by far the smallest and most compact way of losslessly 
recording a game's events however, they'd be a good resource to collect 
- is the Internet Archive up for the task? You said that it'd be more 
auxiliary, but some games do support it fully (even if you need the full 
game to replay them).

On the other sections; it is a big shame there isn't any named 
"historical" or "preservation" section, you didn't mention any a 
documentary might go readily into, or a critical study of a game, or a 
simple recording of playing it with thoughts. I came to this conclusion 
when I looked at the archive a bit, the only real section is "Videogame 
Previews", but that's not exactly a good place for historical content 
made today.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the project mentioned too, but I 
doubt am not really a candidate to help much with it.

Andrew

Henry Lowood wrote:

> Hi all,

>

> I just caught up on this interesting discussion.  This is a hugely 

> important topic for preservation activities. 

>

> First, let me just say up front that I think we can try to figure out 

> how to use the moving image collections at the Internet Archive's 

> Moving Image Collections (Internet Archive = archive.org) as a 

> repository for videos.  Just as a review, these collections are available:

>

> Under Video Games:

>

> Videogame Previews.  (Could perhaps be supplemented by describing the 

> collection as including a third source -- namely, a project we might 

> define or encourage.)

> Speed Runs.  Definitely a possibility as we have already seen in the 

> discussion.

> Software/Game EPKs.  Probably not applicable to this topic, but btw if 

> you have footage in this genre, please upload it.

> Videogame Replays.  This rubric is especially close to my interests, 

> and I have been hoping for years that someone would develop replay or 

> demo viewers for various titles (which is really tricky, given patches 

> and expansions).  I much prefer the interactive viewing of demo/replay 

> files to video captures, and the resolution is usually so much 

> better.  However, note that the archive right now is better set up for 

> video presentation, so we might have to consider the replay files as 

> auxiliary files to video captures.  The good news, of course, is that 

> replay files are tiny compared to video.

>

> Under Animation & Cartoons

>

> Machinima.  I curate this collection and have a little more editorial 

> say in things like metadata and such.  Heavily commented videos could 

> go here -- we have a few from Second Life that have something of an 

> explanatory function.  This might be a possibility if the videos are 

> documentary in nature, but which I mean that there is commentary on 

> what happens. Videos like stunt movies are included, as well, so there 

> are some possibilities here.

>

> Another interesting topic besides those already mentioned is that of 

> "citation."  How does one write about a section of a game and cite 

> it?  What is the equivalent of a page number?  Commented videos or a 

> speedrun format with tagging or some of the other possibilities might 

> help in this regard, if there were a common format.  Maybe this is 

> something we can work on in the Library of Congress project?  We will 

> be looking at video capture and tagging.

>

> As a quick heads-up, I'll compose another note later today describing 

> the events that will launch the project in February of next year, just 

> before GDC.   If enough people are interested, perhaps we could make 

> this a workshop topic at one of the events, or try to make this a 

> focus of a GDC roundtable?   Would anyone be interested in that?

>

> Henry

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