From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 1 14:22:54 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:22:54 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4893547E.4000604@aarmstrong.org> Vowell, Zachary W wrote: > I was recently approached by a game programmer who was interested in > recreating game development environments used by game developers in the 80s > and 90s, etc. Or as he called them, "asset creation environments." > I haven't seen it discussed, but as the others have said, a lot of in-house tools would have been used. Some do exist (and have been fan-modded to work today), released at some point. For instance, the Doom level editors / source code (with the compiler needed to compile it) are available. No doubt getting a similar-era PC would allow you to experience that again pretty reliably. Some others around too, give or take, but there's no list I know of. > The real trick here seems to tracking down the programmers who still have > the software/tools code, which is often written in-house for one company, or > even one game. > Yeah, that's the case. It's pretty much a given fact that they are holding onto the (much more important!) game source code, assets and game prototypes. The tools are probably even harder to track down then this however. Companies no doubt lose it frequently. Andrew From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu Fri Aug 1 15:50:32 2008 From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W) Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 14:50:32 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: <4893547E.4000604@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: > I was recently approached by a game programmer who was interested in > recreating game development environments used by game developers in the 80s > and 90s, etc. Or as he called them, "asset creation environments." > >I haven't seen it discussed, but as the others have said, a lot of >in-house tools would have been used. Yes, but doesn't the fact that they're in-house make them all the more "ripe" for preservation? (i.e., they're closer to the brink of oblivion than publicly distributed tools/editors/assets). I do agree it'll be a stroke of luck to find stuff like this, though. >Some do exist (and have been fan-modded to work today), released at some >point. For instance, the Doom level editors / source code (with the >compiler needed to compile it) are available. No doubt getting a >similar-era PC would allow you to experience that again pretty reliably. >Some others around too, give or take, but there's no list I know of. Oh yeah! I remember reading about the Doom editors- starting with something like that might be a good first step. Thanks for the refresher, Andrew. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 1 16:41:54 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:41:54 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48937512.10902@aarmstrong.org> Just to cover this; as far as I am aware starting my work on a "List of places which accept things to preserve" as I discussed previously here, it is important for sure, but has the same problems as anything else; people don't have the things any more, they can't reliably send them in (legal issues, company legal issues, time or money issues), or don't even know they can be preserved or have any value as 3 core reasons. Since I am not old enough to know however, I could be wrong and there might be a very good reason :) but I doubt it. If you do know anyone with this kind of stuff or can advocate people to get it sent to archives, great :) While they are also more "ripe" in their way, I'd think personally that the tools themselves are next to useless without the original game assets/code in any case, so if the former can be preserved it is in no doubt the latter can be too. Would be good to get something sorted on the IA regarding game software/tools/code/assets availability (to put up tools like, say, the Doom ones or others), or see what their dark archive works on and has on this - I've not ever spoken directly to whoever is working on that though, so I couldn't say who to contact for information on it. It might be worth a shot however. Andrew Vowell, Zachary W wrote: > > > Yes, but doesn't the fact that they're in-house make them all the > more "ripe" for preservation? (i.e., they're closer to the brink > of oblivion than publicly distributed tools/editors/assets). I do > agree it'll be a stroke of luck to find stuff like this, though. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simon at archive.org Fri Aug 1 16:54:37 2008 From: simon at archive.org (Simon Carless) Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 13:54:37 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: <48937512.10902@aarmstrong.org> References: <48937512.10902@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <2b19faf60808011354t369312d2yabf36c064a0092ee@mail.gmail.com> I'm probably the last person who touched 'dark archiving' at the Internet Archive, two or three years ago. It doesn't really work well with the IA's current system because either an item is COMPLETELY dark (no description or listing page for it) or completely online. Anything else is a hack which is wont to break. So if anything else was done with the Internet Archive it might be best to do it outside of the existing collections system which is used for the game video content: http://www.archive.org/details/gamevideos Thanks, Simon. On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > Just to cover this; as far as I am aware starting my work on a "List of > places which accept things to preserve" as I discussed previously here, it > is important for sure, but has the same problems as anything else; people > don't have the things any more, they can't reliably send them in (legal > issues, company legal issues, time or money issues), or don't even know they > can be preserved or have any value as 3 core reasons. > > Since I am not old enough to know however, I could be wrong and there might > be a very good reason :) but I doubt it. If you do know anyone with this > kind of stuff or can advocate people to get it sent to archives, great :) > > While they are also more "ripe" in their way, I'd think personally that the > tools themselves are next to useless without the original game assets/code > in any case, so if the former can be preserved it is in no doubt the latter > can be too. > > Would be good to get something sorted on the IA regarding game > software/tools/code/assets availability (to put up tools like, say, the Doom > ones or others), or see what their dark archive works on and has on this - > I've not ever spoken directly to whoever is working on that though, so I > couldn't say who to contact for information on it. It might be worth a shot > however. > > Andrew > > Vowell, Zachary W wrote: > > > Yes, but doesn't the fact that they're in-house make them all the more > "ripe" for preservation? (i.e., they're closer to the brink of oblivion > than publicly distributed tools/editors/assets). I do agree it'll be a > stroke of luck to find stuff like this, though. > > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 1 16:59:55 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:59:55 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60808011354t369312d2yabf36c064a0092ee@mail.gmail.com> References: <48937512.10902@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60808011354t369312d2yabf36c064a0092ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4893794B.4030508@aarmstrong.org> Yeah, absolutely. I looked up the documentation and it is really the option to "delete" really :) I was referring to the DMCA-led software preservation thing: http://www.archive.org/about/dmca.php (the page is out of date, I have no idea where the project page is either. IA is impossible to easily search, ironically). I think I asked you about it before Simon, but can't find the email. It would mean some physical access was required by Zachary or any of us to make use of any of it, but there we go, possibly better then nothing. Andrew Simon Carless wrote: > I'm probably the last person who touched 'dark archiving' at the > Internet Archive, two or three years ago. It doesn't really work well > with the IA's current system because either an item is COMPLETELY dark > (no description or listing page for it) or completely online. Anything > else is a hack which is wont to break. So if anything else was done > with the Internet Archive it might be best to do it outside of the > existing collections system which is used for the game video content: > > http://www.archive.org/details/gamevideos > > Thanks, > Simon. From simon at archive.org Fri Aug 1 17:02:11 2008 From: simon at archive.org (Simon Carless) Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 14:02:11 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: <4893794B.4030508@aarmstrong.org> References: <48937512.10902@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60808011354t369312d2yabf36c064a0092ee@mail.gmail.com> <4893794B.4030508@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <2b19faf60808011402i4545e629pe5e9f77ec15d1f88@mail.gmail.com> http://www.archive.org/details/clasp ...is the project page. On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > Yeah, absolutely. I looked up the documentation and it is really the option > to "delete" really :) > > I was referring to the DMCA-led software preservation thing: > http://www.archive.org/about/dmca.php (the page is out of date, I have no > idea where the project page is either. IA is impossible to easily search, > ironically). I think I asked you about it before Simon, but can't find the > email. > > It would mean some physical access was required by Zachary or any of us to > make use of any of it, but there we go, possibly better then nothing. > > Andrew > > Simon Carless wrote: > >> I'm probably the last person who touched 'dark archiving' at the Internet >> Archive, two or three years ago. It doesn't really work well with the IA's >> current system because either an item is COMPLETELY dark (no description or >> listing page for it) or completely online. Anything else is a hack which is >> wont to break. So if anything else was done with the Internet Archive it >> might be best to do it outside of the existing collections system which is >> used for the game video content: >> >> http://www.archive.org/details/gamevideos >> >> Thanks, >> Simon. >> > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 1 17:04:26 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:04:26 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60808011402i4545e629pe5e9f77ec15d1f88@mail.gmail.com> References: <48937512.10902@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60808011354t369312d2yabf36c064a0092ee@mail.gmail.com> <4893794B.4030508@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60808011402i4545e629pe5e9f77ec15d1f88@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <48937A5A.4060309@aarmstrong.org> Ah-ha! I is dumb are me. You're the contributor, but the activity is nil on that page so it isn't too helpful. Any idea what is up with that and if it'd be an applicable location to have game tools and editing software (either closed behind doors, or open to public download - but the former is an aim, since the latter can be put in a public collection separately) in the future? Andrew Simon Carless wrote: > http://www.archive.org/details/clasp > > ...is the project page. From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu Fri Aug 1 18:00:28 2008 From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W) Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 17:00:28 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60808011354t369312d2yabf36c064a0092ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Oh, I totally agree that the tools would be rather unhelpful without all the other accompanying development components. I guess that's why I referred to the whole bundle as "environments" in the first place- but that idea probably got lost in my imprecise terminology. :/ Preserving the interactivity - the experience of sitting down to a machine and experiencing the way a certain developer approached his/her task through some set of tools/assets/code/etc. -- would seem to be as important a preservation concern as it is with preserving the games themselves. Zach On 8/1/08 3:54 PM, "Simon Carless" wrote: I'm probably the last person who touched 'dark archiving' at the Internet Archive, two or three years ago. It doesn't really work well with the IA's current system because either an item is COMPLETELY dark (no description or listing page for it) or completely online. Anything else is a hack which is wont to break. So if anything else was done with the Internet Archive it might be best to do it outside of the existing collections system which is used for the game video content: http://www.archive.org/details/gamevideos Thanks, Simon. On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: Just to cover this; as far as I am aware starting my work on a "List of places which accept things to preserve" as I discussed previously here, it is important for sure, but has the same problems as anything else; people don't have the things any more, they can't reliably send them in (legal issues, company legal issues, time or money issues), or don't even know they can be preserved or have any value as 3 core reasons. Since I am not old enough to know however, I could be wrong and there might be a very good reason :) but I doubt it. If you do know anyone with this kind of stuff or can advocate people to get it sent to archives, great :) While they are also more "ripe" in their way, I'd think personally that the tools themselves are next to useless without the original game assets/code in any case, so if the former can be preserved it is in no doubt the latter can be too. Would be good to get something sorted on the IA regarding game software/tools/code/assets availability (to put up tools like, say, the Doom ones or others), or see what their dark archive works on and has on this - I've not ever spoken directly to whoever is working on that though, so I couldn't say who to contact for information on it. It might be worth a shot however. Andrew Vowell, Zachary W wrote: Yes, but doesn't the fact that they're in-house make them all the more "ripe" for preservation? (i.e., they're closer to the brink of oblivion than publicly distributed tools/editors/assets). I do agree it'll be a stroke of luck to find stuff like this, though. _______________________________________________ game_preservation mailing list game_preservation at igda.org http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Mon Aug 4 14:29:44 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:29:44 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Early Game Preservation Message-ID: Right now, I'm digging through some ancient games magazines to find relevant news articles for the Metroid Database (currently looking for old Famitsu's!). Here is one article from Gmae PLayers 034 (November 1993), page 24 that might be of interest: "Video Games a Work of Art "Hot circuits: A Video Arcade," an exhibit that recently completed a ten-city U.S. tour, is now on display in the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, NY through May 1, 1994. The AMMI is the only museum in the country devoted exclusively to motion pictures, television, and video. The hand-on exhibition - the first museum retrospective of the video game - features everything from the first commercial arcade game, 1971's Computer Space to classics such as Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. Nearly all the 30 games in the exhibition are operable. Cutting-edge developments are also highlighted, such as 3DO, virtual reality devices, the Activator, and interactive game networks. Most of the machines are part of the AMMI's permanent collection. Curators who put together the exhibit, however, say that many classic games are near extinction. "We found ourselves not just mounting an exhibit, but conducting a conservation effort, saving games from oblivion," says museum director Rochelle Slovin. New games will be added throughout the exhibition, and in December, "The Imagination Network," a cyberspace theme park, will be added. In addition, visitors get a sneak peak at The Sega Channel this spring." Anyone know Rochelle? She sounds a tad bit ahead of her time... Too bad nobody was thinking about this in detail 15 years ago! Devin -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Mon Aug 4 14:45:43 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:45:43 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Early Game Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48974E57.4080803@aarmstrong.org> The museum that hosted it might be able to provide more detail (I might contact them). It's still running today and actually has an online section about games: http://www.movingimage.us/exhibitions/cs98/Default.htm - one "Carl Goodman" might know more. I should probably ask what they're up to, I'll note it down. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Right now, I'm digging through some ancient games magazines to find > relevant news articles for the Metroid Database (currently looking for > old Famitsu's!). Here is one article from Gmae PLayers 034 (November > 1993), page 24 that might be of interest: From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu Mon Aug 4 15:08:23 2008 From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W) Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 14:08:23 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Early Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <48974E57.4080803@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: There's a nice feature-length article about that 1993 exhibit in this book: http://tinyurl.com/5lz3oj And yeah, they were way ahead of their time. I've actually corresponded with Carl Goodman a little bit- not sure what they're up to now, as far as games go, but they recently launched a new publication called Moving Image Source, which looks to 'develop an online index of Moving Image Studies-related online research resources.' Games here are classified under the "digital media" wing of moving images. Here's the link: http://www.movingimagesource.us/research Zach On 8/4/08 1:45 PM, "Andrew Armstrong" wrote: The museum that hosted it might be able to provide more detail (I might contact them). It's still running today and actually has an online section about games: http://www.movingimage.us/exhibitions/cs98/Default.htm - one "Carl Goodman" might know more. I should probably ask what they're up to, I'll note it down. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Right now, I'm digging through some ancient games magazines to find > relevant news articles for the Metroid Database (currently looking for > old Famitsu's!). Here is one article from Gmae PLayers 034 (November > 1993), page 24 that might be of interest: _______________________________________________ game_preservation mailing list game_preservation at igda.org http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowood at stanford.edu Mon Aug 4 18:07:05 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:07:05 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Lost Server Connection Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080804150650.060e64f0@stanford.edu> From the HTGG blog: "Lost Server Connection": The Last Minutes of a Virtual World" http://www.stanford.edu/group/htgg/cgi-bin/drupal/?q=node/239 Henry Henry Lowood, Ph.D. Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; Film & Media Collections HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall Stanford University Libraries Stanford CA 94305-6004 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowood at stanford.edu Mon Aug 4 19:40:35 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:40:35 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Early Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <48974E57.4080803@aarmstrong.org> References: <48974E57.4080803@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080804163953.03423b08@stanford.edu> I know Carl (virtually) and have contact information for him. Let me know off-forum if you want to try contacting him. Henry At 11:45 AM 8/4/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >The museum that hosted it might be able to provide more detail (I >might contact them). It's still running today and actually has an >online section about games: >http://www.movingimage.us/exhibitions/cs98/Default.htm - one "Carl >Goodman" might know more. I should probably ask what they're up to, >I'll note it down. > >Andrew > >Captain Commando wrote: >>Right now, I'm digging through some ancient games magazines to find >>relevant news articles for the Metroid Database (currently looking >>for old Famitsu's!). Here is one article from Gmae PLayers 034 >>(November 1993), page 24 that might be of interest: >_______________________________________________ >game_preservation mailing list >game_preservation at igda.org >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation Henry Lowood, Ph.D. Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; Film & Media Collections HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall Stanford University Libraries Stanford CA 94305-6004 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Mon Aug 4 20:29:47 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:29:47 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Lost Server Connection In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080804150650.060e64f0@stanford.edu> References: <6.2.5.6.2.20080804150650.060e64f0@stanford.edu> Message-ID: <48979EFB.1080202@aarmstrong.org> That video was quite touching. I never knew much about EA-Land/The Sims Online, imagine all the effort those people left creating their communities in the game all lost. Sucks because they can't even connect to just each other or anything through the game, it requires a dedicated server connection. Do you know of any further worlds shutting down? I know many already have, just would be interesting to see further videos, not just of them shutting down of course though ;-) but that is an exceptionally less captured area. Andrew Henry Lowood wrote: > > > From the HTGG blog: > "Lost Server Connection": The Last Minutes of a Virtual World" > > http://www.stanford.edu/group/htgg/cgi-bin/drupal/?q=node/239 > > Henry > > > > Henry Lowood, Ph.D. > Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; > Film & Media Collections > HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall > Stanford University Libraries > Stanford CA 94305-6004 > 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowood at stanford.edu Mon Aug 4 21:20:11 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:20:11 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Lost Server Connection In-Reply-To: <48979EFB.1080202@aarmstrong.org> References: <6.2.5.6.2.20080804150650.060e64f0@stanford.edu> <48979EFB.1080202@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <200808050120.m751KDEJ008133@smtp-roam.Stanford.EDU> Andrew, We have quite a bit of video on EA-Land and several other worlds that we created, plus a huge trove of earlier virtual world captures from Bruce Damer. I rushed the last 5 minutes clip out as a kind of preview and because of its timeliness. Other worlds closing soon? None with quite as much history due to close soon (that I know of). A propos your comments; I realized after posting this that an exhibit that appeared in an exhibition I curated a few years back (Game Scenes, at YBCA) had been in TSO, Katherine Isbister and Rainey Strauss' virtual Art Gallery. Gone now, as far as I know. Henry At 05:29 PM 8/4/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >That video was quite touching. I never knew much about EA-Land/The >Sims Online, imagine all the effort those people left creating their >communities in the game all lost. Sucks because they can't even >connect to just each other or anything through the game, it requires >a dedicated server connection. > >Do you know of any further worlds shutting down? I know many already >have, just would be interesting to see further videos, not just of >them shutting down of course though ;-) but that is an exceptionally >less captured area. > >Andrew > >Henry Lowood wrote: >> >> >> From the HTGG blog: >>"Lost Server Connection": The Last Minutes of a Virtual World" >> >> >> >>http://www.stanford.edu/group/htgg/cgi-bin/drupal/?q=node/239 >> >>Henry >> >> >> >>Henry Lowood, Ph.D. >>Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; >> Film & Media Collections >>HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall >>Stanford University Libraries >>Stanford CA 94305-6004 >>650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; >>http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood >> >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>game_preservation mailing list >>game_preservation at igda.org >>http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation >> >_______________________________________________ >game_preservation mailing list >game_preservation at igda.org >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation Henry Lowood Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; Film & Media Collections HRG, Green Library 557 Escondido Mall, Stanford University Libraries Stanford CA 94305-6004 USA lowood at stanford.edu; 650-723-4602 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 5 15:03:10 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:03:10 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Lost Server Connection In-Reply-To: <200808050120.m751KDEJ008133@smtp-roam.Stanford.EDU> References: <6.2.5.6.2.20080804150650.060e64f0@stanford.edu> <48979EFB.1080202@aarmstrong.org> <200808050120.m751KDEJ008133@smtp-roam.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: <4898A3EE.2040304@aarmstrong.org> Henry Lowood wrote: > Other worlds closing soon? None with quite as much history due to > close soon (that I know of). I wonder if Fury would be included in that appraisal (I've NO idea :) ). http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/08/fury-servers-of.html http://forums.auran.com/fury/forum/showthread.php?t=9341 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(computer_game) http://unleashthefury.com/ (I like the note "Free Forever" - of course, without servers...yeah...doesn't matter much!) Probably not, only been around since 2007? But in any case, interesting how a news story came up *today* on it! Andrew PS: I also replied about the museum contact. Are my emails getting through to you Henry? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 5 18:45:04 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:45:04 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] [August SIG] So much stuff posted up! Message-ID: <4898D7F0.8070009@aarmstrong.org> So the month of August rolls around. This is late coming due to posting a ton of new blog links from me missing a week of content, but I wanted to try out the monthly progress reports/articles posted links. Helps me at least keep myself on track! :) *Preservation SIG Updates * If anyone remembers, the Memorials project was launched more officially in June. This has lead to a total of exactly /no one/ emailing Devin about it as far as I'm aware (boo!) /however/, we're working on it ourselves (yay!). Contributions welcome, there's a lot of Biographies to do. People who died in July added to the project are Randy Pausch (Professor), and Melissa Batten (Xbox 360 Developer). Both are rather sad cases - Randy for his inevitable death from cancer, and Melissa because of it being a murder-suicide by her husband. I have been working on plans to update the SIG's information lists - which are now outdated, and in fact were always incomplete. Starting afresh is the Contributions page, where museums and archives will be listed who can accept material. I personally am working on emailing who I can, and in am in contact in person with the UK National Museum of Computing (which I visited recently ). Contributions to this section or knowledge of /any/ computer museums welcome - I have only two USA museums to contact at the moment, there must be more! :) Finally, as an aside project, I am gearing up my uploading efforts at the Internet Archive , despite my internet connection here being absolutely terrible for uploads. I'm uploading more Kikizo and Fileshack material in bits and pieces, and also the online gamer show Pure Pwnage, which is easier since Wikipedia provides a nice description of the content :) - Henry and his Standford groupies are doing some work in the Virtual Worlds section too! I might also be onto getting some older E3 videos/documentary stuff up from someone who might be interested, we'll see - the E3 of yesteryear isn't going to come back so soon, so it'll be interesting to put that material up. There will also be some effort if I run out of everything else to start uploading trailers and promo material. I'll link to anything interesting, and try and root out some strange stuff for the collection. *August Preservation SIG Work* I have no idea how Henry is doing for workload - so I don't expect the whitepaper will get started yet. I personally will try and finish in as much as I can the contributions section before tackling the projects & resources pages. Not much else to note that's of any interest, maybe you guys are up to something good this month? I'm also currently reading "The A-Zof Cool Computer Games" - giving me the thought to review it's contents for an updated "Resources" section. You might well be asked for book lists, reviews or anything else in the future once I get some templates up. I am sure many of you have shelves of the annuals of time, it might be time to dust them off for a little while if I can't find them online to index on our site! :) *Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links ***Note: Have I missed anything? Then email it in. I really should get a "Preservation newsdesk" email setup, there's a lot more I simply don't know about which I keep missing. This is everything from July (the August stuff is really from July or the very start of August). 10 things everyone should know about Space Invaders Interview with Beno?t Sokal Discworld Game Remakes The First Video Game Sequel with modding? Henry Lowood on Machinima and the History of Digital Games The Importance Of History In The Excellence Of Video Games Stanford Workshop: "Preserving Knowledge in Virtual Worlds" GOG from CD-Projekt to Offer Classic Games SomethingAwful Game Articles Defender...in a Favicon The Good and Bad of Sport Videogames Making Tennis For Two On Modern Hardware Journal Starting "Historical Studies of Digital Entertainment Media" The World of Western RPGs Word Play: The Evolution of Game Journalism The History of Video Games: The First Video Game?... A History of Gaming Platforms: Atari 8-Bit Computers Simon Turns 30: The History of the Toy and Gaming's First Grudge Game Mag Weaseling: Where to begin? Introducing the Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection Blog "Lost Server Connection": The Last Minutes of a Virtual World ** Simon did suggest pictures - I must start doing this, despite the fact this version of Movable Type is rubbish for it (ie; there's no way to upload pictures ;) ). The new IGDA site is not going to be here quick - it's being redone, although I'm not sure I can divulge in what software, and there is no timeline. *Final Thoughts* The Vintage Game Club started up last month, with Grim Fandango. Mine keeps crashing, I'll have to tinker with it more, but the intro sure has me in the mood for more despite the agonising cries of "illogical puzzles". They're not doing a "Game a month" but instead seeing what works, and who knows what will be done in the future? Might be worth keeping an eye out on. This is also a trial. I'll stick this on the wiki, and all comments are welcome on format/content. Thanks all, Andrew Armstrong IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowood at stanford.edu Tue Aug 5 19:27:08 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:27:08 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] [August SIG] So much stuff posted up! In-Reply-To: <4898D7F0.8070009@aarmstrong.org> References: <4898D7F0.8070009@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080805160343.06686548@stanford.edu> About the White Paper, here is what I have been meaning to write and just have not had time to put down. So I am giving up on the longer tome and summarizing what we need to do: 1) The discussion about methods for collaborating pretty much bogged down. (I will reserve comment on the odds of a successful conclusion on any topic to discussion of meta-issues.) We do have a group of volunteers to work as a kind of committee for the project, plus we have the entire group. So, let's just get started. 2) In that spirit, I have set up a "White paper brainstorm" page here: http://www.igda.org/wiki/White_paper_brainstorm Have a look, and get busy! And if you do contribute, please consider adding yourself to the contributors page, which will then identify our de facto editorial committee. 3) IGDA has just opened up a fund for internal funding or projects. In the next weeks, I will submit a proposal for a modest level of funds to produce a print version of the white paper. If we are both good and lucky, we may have this to distribute at GDC 2009. If not, well, we'll find a way to get it out there. 4) Keep in mind: This first paper is a "call to arms" effort. It will focus on goals, benefits, reasons for worrying about this. We need passionate and compelling arguments, good examples of positive efforts and painful losses, etc. We can get into solutions with a second white paper on practices, which perhaps we could finish for GDC 2010. However, if somebody would like to get us started now on the second text, no reason not to -- just set up a page for brainstorming! 5) Feel free to muck around with the wiki pages I set up for us to get started. That's what a wiki is for! Best, Henry At 03:45 PM 8/5/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >So the month of August rolls around. This is >late coming due to posting a ton of new blog >links from me missing a week of content, but I >wanted to try out the monthly progress >reports/articles posted links. Helps me at least keep myself on track! :) > >Preservation SIG Updates > >If anyone remembers, the >Memorials >project was launched more officially in June. >This has lead to a total of exactly no one >emailing Devin about it as far as I'm aware >(boo!) however, we're working on it ourselves >(yay!). Contributions welcome, there's a lot of >Biographies to do. People who died in July added >to the project are >Randy >Pausch (Professor), and >Melissa >Batten (Xbox 360 Developer). Both are rather sad >cases - Randy for his inevitable death from >cancer, and Melissa because of it being a murder-suicide by her husband. > >I have been working on plans to update the SIG's >information lists - which are now outdated, and >in fact were always incomplete. Starting afresh >is the >Contributions >page, where museums and archives will be listed >who can accept material. I personally am working >on emailing who I can, and in am in contact in >person with the UK >National Museum of Computing (which I >visited >recently). Contributions to this section or >knowledge of any computer museums welcome - I >have only two USA museums to contact at the moment, there must be more! :) > >Finally, as an aside project, I am gearing up my >uploading efforts at the >Internet >Archive, despite my internet connection here >being absolutely terrible for uploads. I'm >uploading more Kikizo and Fileshack material in >bits and pieces, and also the online gamer show >Pure Pwnage, which is easier since Wikipedia >provides a nice description of the content :) - >Henry and his Standford groupies are doing some >work in the >Virtual Worlds section too! > >I might also be onto getting some older E3 >videos/documentary stuff up from someone who >might be interested, we'll see - the E3 of >yesteryear isn't going to come back so soon, so >it'll be interesting to put that material up. >There will also be some effort if I run out of >everything else to start uploading trailers and >promo material. I'll link to anything >interesting, and try and root out some strange stuff for the collection. > >August Preservation SIG Work > >I have no idea how Henry is doing for workload - >so I don't expect the whitepaper will get >started yet. I personally will try and finish in >as much as I can the contributions section >before tackling the projects & resources pages. >Not much else to note that's of any interest, >maybe you guys are up to something good this month? > >I'm also currently reading "The A-Zof Cool >Computer Games" - giving me the thought to >review it's contents for an updated "Resources" >section. You might well be asked for book lists, >reviews or anything else in the future once I >get some templates up. I am sure many of you >have shelves of the annuals of time, it might be >time to dust them off for a little while if I >can't find them online to index on our site! :) > >Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links > >Note: Have I missed anything? Then email it in. >I really should get a "Preservation newsdesk" >email setup, there's a lot more I simply don't >know about which I keep missing. This is >everything from July (the August stuff is really >from July or the very start of August). > >10 >things everyone should know about Space Invaders >Interview >with Beno?t Sokal >Discworld >Game Remakes >The >First Video Game Sequel with modding? >Henry >Lowood on Machinima and the History of Digital Games >The >Importance Of History In The Excellence Of Video Games >Stanford >Workshop: ?Preserving Knowledge in Virtual Worlds? >GOG >from CD-Projekt to Offer Classic Games >SomethingAwful >Game Articles >Defender...in >a Favicon >The >Good and Bad of Sport Videogames >Making >Tennis For Two On Modern Hardware >Journal >Starting "Historical Studies of Digital Entertainment Media" >The >World of Western RPGs >Word >Play: The Evolution of Game Journalism >The >History of Video Games: The First Video Game?... >A >History of Gaming Platforms: Atari 8-Bit Computers >Simon >Turns 30: The History of the Toy and Gaming's First Grudge >Game >Mag Weaseling: Where to begin? >Introducing >the Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection Blog >"Lost >Server Connection": The Last Minutes of a Virtual World > >Simon did suggest pictures - I must start doing >this, despite the fact this version of Movable >Type is rubbish for it (ie; there's no way to >upload pictures ;) ). The new IGDA site is not >going to be here quick - it's being redone, >although I'm not sure I can divulge in what software, and there is no timeline. > >Final Thoughts > >The >Vintage >Game Club started up last month, with Grim >Fandango. Mine keeps crashing, I'll have to >tinker with it more, but the intro sure has me >in the mood for more despite the agonising cries >of "illogical puzzles". They're not doing a >"Game a month" but instead seeing what works, >and who knows what will be done in the future? >Might be worth keeping an eye out on. > >This is also a trial. I'll stick this on the >wiki, and all comments are welcome on format/content. > >Thanks all, > >Andrew Armstrong >IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor >_______________________________________________ >game_preservation mailing list >game_preservation at igda.org >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation Henry Lowood, Ph.D. Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; Film & Media Collections HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall Stanford University Libraries Stanford CA 94305-6004 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 5 20:14:52 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:14:52 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] [August SIG] So much stuff posted up! In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080805160343.06686548@stanford.edu> References: <4898D7F0.8070009@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080805160343.06686548@stanford.edu> Message-ID: <4898ECFC.5060008@aarmstrong.org> Awesome Henry :D I'm totally impressed. Henry Lowood wrote: > 2) In that spirit, I have set up a "White paper brainstorm" page here: > http://www.igda.org/wiki/White_paper_brainstorm > Have a look, and get busy! And if you do contribute, please consider > adding yourself to the contributors page, which will then identify our > de facto editorial committee. I'll just moved this one page to a preservation subpage - http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_paper_brainstorm - makes sure we know it's a preservation thing (the Writers SIG might get annoyed otherwise :) ). It'll redirect, so the link will still work though. I also made the other links subpages, else those *would* get confusing :) I'll contribute some things when I have finished my other SIG work. Thanks a lot Henry! Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 5 20:28:30 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:28:30 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] [August SIG] So much stuff posted up! In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080805160343.06686548@stanford.edu> References: <4898D7F0.8070009@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080805160343.06686548@stanford.edu> Message-ID: <4898F02E.80402@aarmstrong.org> Additional note; which I just thought of - does anyone think we could get the news of this put in the IGDA newsletter? There might be some interested parties who would be able to help who read it. I've put a note on the blog at least. :) Shame there is no "SIG News" we have access to for the IGDA front page. That'd be nice place to put it too. In any case, circling it around to the email address list you got at GDC would be good Henry :) - if you've still got it handy of course, heh. Andrew From lowood at stanford.edu Wed Aug 6 01:31:15 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:31:15 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] [August SIG] So much stuff posted up! In-Reply-To: <4898F02E.80402@aarmstrong.org> References: <4898D7F0.8070009@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080805160343.06686548@stanford.edu> <4898F02E.80402@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <200808060531.m765VFH5023331@smtp-roam.Stanford.EDU> Yes, I do still have the list. Many of the people are now on this list, but I'm sure nobody will mind too terribly much if there they get one extra mail. We're all swamped as it is. Henry At 05:28 PM 8/5/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >Additional note; which I just thought of - does anyone think we >could get the news of this put in the IGDA newsletter? There might >be some interested parties who would be able to help who read it. >I've put a note on the blog at least. :) > >Shame there is no "SIG News" we have access to for the IGDA front >page. That'd be nice place to put it too. > >In any case, circling it around to the email address list you got at >GDC would be good Henry :) - if you've still got it handy of course, heh. > >Andrew >_______________________________________________ >game_preservation mailing list >game_preservation at igda.org >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation Henry Lowood Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; Film & Media Collections HRG, Green Library 557 Escondido Mall, Stanford University Libraries Stanford CA 94305-6004 USA lowood at stanford.edu; 650-723-4602 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Fri Aug 8 01:28:07 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 23:28:07 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Hironobu Takeshita on MM9 Message-ID: Here's the Gamasutra interview with Hironobu Takeshita, the producer for Mega Man 9. He discusses how they made the game, and brings up some interesting points related to preservation: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3752/he_is_8bit_capcoms_hironobu_.php?page=1 For one, MM9 is not made using Famicom tools - but it is done in the Famicom style. In fact, MM9 is much too big and complex to fit on an NES cart anyway. This tells us something interesting: that the development tools for those old systems, they're not really used anymore (and it's a stretch to ask whether or not Capcom even has original Famicom dev kits still). So to begin with, the old technology is not readily available for work. However, you can still make an NES-style game today because the technology allows us to make something that 'emulates' (or rather, replicates) the style of the past. However, knowing what the hardware could do is important still for making an 'authentic' Famicom game versus simply replicating the look and feel. However, there are still people today who make NES games (and not by hacking existing ones). I don't recall the name of the team, but I believe it was led by a guy named Snowbro who is legendary for his NES hacking abilities. Second, the people who are making games today do not know how to make the games the way they did 25 years ago. This is another interesting point for preservation, because now from a design perspective, we wouldn't be concerned just with development environments but rather with techniques. Who teaches people today to make games like this? Only the people who made games 25 years ago and who are now in producer or lead design roles. Whether or not we want to consider things like this as our main turf of preservation, it's certainly something that's going to be needed by the production side if we want to understand 8-bit as an option. Knowing what you can and can't do with 8-bit style is as important as being able to use it as a means of expression. I also think that I was going to somehow write Cave Story into this, but I can't remember how :) So from a design perspective, there is not only tools but also technique. -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 8 17:39:19 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:39:19 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] University of Texas now into MMO Preservation Message-ID: <489CBD07.30000@aarmstrong.org> No news to those who read GameSetWatch, but interesting none the less and worth bringing up here: http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2008/08/university_of_t.html I wonder if the person going to run it, Megan Winget, even knows about our small group, or about the Library of Congress efforts on Virtual World preservation. Austin is a good place to start though, I'd admit that much, and the amount of money isn't exactly tiny (although I have no idea what they intend to do!) Looks interesting, I hope something good comes out of it :) Andrew From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu Fri Aug 8 17:49:23 2008 From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W) Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 16:49:23 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] University of Texas now into MMO Preservation In-Reply-To: <489CBD07.30000@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: Hey Andrew, I mentioned this here!: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2008-June/000416.html I'm not sure if she knows about the SIG, but since we'll be working with her some, I can definitely clue her in. Also, I think Henry's on her project's advisory board. For the most part, I think she wants to gather data (i.e., interviews) on how MMO developers create games, and the artifacts that are produced along the way. Also, I know she'll be running a blog that tracks the project's development, so I can let the list know when that goes up. -- Zach Vowell Archivist, UT Videogame Archive Center for American History 512.495.4405 http://www.utvideogamearchive.org On 8/8/08 4:39 PM, "Andrew Armstrong" wrote: No news to those who read GameSetWatch, but interesting none the less and worth bringing up here: http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2008/08/university_of_t.html I wonder if the person going to run it, Megan Winget, even knows about our small group, or about the Library of Congress efforts on Virtual World preservation. Austin is a good place to start though, I'd admit that much, and the amount of money isn't exactly tiny (although I have no idea what they intend to do!) Looks interesting, I hope something good comes out of it :) Andrew _______________________________________________ game_preservation mailing list game_preservation at igda.org http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 8 17:58:25 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:58:25 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] University of Texas now into MMO Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <489CC181.5070201@aarmstrong.org> Ahh, my bad! I didn't realise that was specifically this funding. The word "online world" "MMO" or anything didn't spring to mind since I thought you had posted nothing on those words specifically :) Actually, it's rather a shame it is now specifically MMO/Online only. Austin has a lot of non-MMO developers ;-) I suppose the work you're doing is more general. In any case, that's *ubercool*. ^_^ - Let us know if anything interesting goes online - if it is videos, and you don't have bandwidth spare, the IA is happy to accept anything (even at really low quality) if it allows it to be viewed! I'm also totally envious of being able to ask questions to developers for storage in history. I should really look into seeing what I can get done in the UK regarding that...hmmm, maybe next year...once you know, I have money or something and know more people, hehe. Andrew Vowell, Zachary W wrote: > > Hey Andrew, I mentioned this here!: > > http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2008-June/000416.html > > I'm not sure if she knows about the SIG, but since we'll be working > with her some, I can definitely clue her in. Also, I think Henry's on > her project's advisory board. For the most part, I think she wants to > gather data (i.e., interviews) on how MMO developers create games, and > the artifacts that are produced along the way. > > Also, I know she'll be running a blog that tracks the project's > development, so I can let the list know when that goes up. > > > > -- > Zach Vowell > Archivist, UT Videogame Archive > Center for American History > 512.495.4405 > http://www.utvideogamearchive.org > > > > On 8/8/08 4:39 PM, "Andrew Armstrong" wrote: > > No news to those who read GameSetWatch, but interesting none the less > and worth bringing up here: > http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2008/08/university_of_t.html > > I wonder if the person going to run it, Megan Winget, even knows about > our small group, or about the Library of Congress efforts on Virtual > World preservation. Austin is a good place to start though, I'd admit > that much, and the amount of money isn't exactly tiny (although I have > no idea what they intend to do!) > > Looks interesting, I hope something good comes out of it :) > > Andrew > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowood at stanford.edu Sat Aug 9 03:44:27 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:44:27 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] University of Texas now into MMO Preservation In-Reply-To: References: <489CBD07.30000@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <200808090744.m797iUeM017469@smtp-roam.Stanford.EDU> Yes, that's correct. I'm on the advisory board. Also, Megan attended the kickoff meeting for the NDIIPP project. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Megan is on this list. Henry At 02:49 PM 8/8/2008, Vowell, Zachary W wrote: >Content-Language: en >Content-Type: multipart/alternative; > boundary="_000_C4C2299316A3zvowellaustinutexasedu_" > > >Hey Andrew, I mentioned this here!: > >http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2008-June/000416.html > >I'm not sure if she knows about the SIG, but since we'll be working >with her some, I can definitely clue her in. Also, I think Henry's >on her project's advisory board. For the most part, I think she >wants to gather data (i.e., interviews) on how MMO developers create >games, and the artifacts that are produced along the way. > >Also, I know she'll be running a blog that tracks the project's >development, so I can let the list know when that goes up. > > > >-- >Zach Vowell >Archivist, UT Videogame Archive >Center for American History >512.495.4405 >http://www.utvideogamearchive.org > > > >On 8/8/08 4:39 PM, "Andrew Armstrong" wrote: > >No news to those who read GameSetWatch, but interesting none the less >and worth bringing up here: >http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2008/08/university_of_t.html > >I wonder if the person going to run it, Megan Winget, even knows about >our small group, or about the Library of Congress efforts on Virtual >World preservation. Austin is a good place to start though, I'd admit >that much, and the amount of money isn't exactly tiny (although I have >no idea what they intend to do!) > >Looks interesting, I hope something good comes out of it :) > >Andrew >_______________________________________________ >game_preservation mailing list >game_preservation at igda.org >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > >_______________________________________________ >game_preservation mailing list >game_preservation at igda.org >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation Henry Lowood Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections; Film & Media Collections HRG, Green Library 557 Escondido Mall, Stanford University Libraries Stanford CA 94305-6004 USA lowood at stanford.edu; 650-723-4602 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mike at multimedia.cx Sun Aug 10 03:13:10 2008 From: mike at multimedia.cx (Mike Melanson) Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:13:10 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Hironobu Takeshita on MM9 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <489E9506.9040502@multimedia.cx> Captain Commando wrote: > For one, MM9 is not made using Famicom tools - but it is done in the > Famicom style. In fact, MM9 is much too big and complex to fit on an NES > cart anyway. This tells us something interesting: that the development > tools for those old systems, they're not really used anymore (and it's a > stretch to ask whether or not Capcom even has original Famicom dev kits > still). So to begin with, the old technology is not readily available > for work. Somewhere, I have an ancient issue of Nintendo Power magazine that shows some photographs of Nintendo developers working on the graphics and music for a game. As an aspiring game designer, I studied those photos carefully. > However, you can still make an NES-style game today because the > technology allows us to make something that 'emulates' (or rather, > replicates) the style of the past. However, knowing what the hardware > could do is important still for making an 'authentic' Famicom game > versus simply replicating the look and feel. However, there are still > people today who make NES games (and not by hacking existing ones). I > don't recall the name of the team, but I believe it was led by a guy > named Snowbro who is legendary for his NES hacking abilities. Also, check out Retrozone: http://retrousb.com/ They sell a variety of components that allow you develop software on an actual NES console. This is perhaps their crowning achievement-- a Flash-based NES cart which lets you just download your program: http://retrousb.com/index.php?productID=133 I bought one a year ago but still have not put it into service. > Second, the people who are making games today do not know how to make > the games the way they did 25 years ago. This is another interesting > point for preservation, because now from a design perspective, we > wouldn't be concerned just with development environments but rather with > techniques. Who teaches people today to make games like this? Only the > people who made games 25 years ago and who are now in producer or lead > design roles. I was about to protest that I *do* know how to make games for the NES. However, I realize that I know how to make them with today's tools. I wouldn't know what the tool set looked like 20 years ago. -- -Mike Melanson From evilcowclone at gmail.com Sun Aug 10 13:25:10 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:25:10 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Get Well Soon OCR album Message-ID: This is kind of related to the Memorials project (though not to be morbid - I hope this guy gets well soon and lives for another 80 years). The folks over at Overclocked Remix have started a get well soon album for one of the remixers, BliNd. http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17154 This is pretty amazing as you can see how the project develops over time, and also some of the choices that were made in terms of content and album composition - every single track was included because it was the thought, not the overall quality or consistency of the album, that counted. It is very rare that you have an example of public outpourings of support for someone in the industry or industry-related (remember that some of these mixers eventually become composers). -Devin -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Sun Aug 10 13:27:50 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:27:50 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Get Well Soon OCR album In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <489F2516.5040109@aarmstrong.org> That's really nice of them. Must be tough even having the possibility of losing a talented friend, even if you only know them online. What a decent gesture, in a fitting way too. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > This is kind of related to the Memorials project (though not to be > morbid - I hope this guy gets well soon and lives for another 80 > years). The folks over at Overclocked Remix have started a get well > soon album for one of the remixers, BliNd. > > http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17154 > > This is pretty amazing as you can see how the project develops over > time, and also some of the choices that were made in terms of content > and album composition - every single track was included because it was > the thought, not the overall quality or consistency of the album, that > counted. It is very rare that you have an example of public > outpourings of support for someone in the industry or industry-related > (remember that some of these mixers eventually become composers). > > -Devin > > -- > The sleep of Reason produces monsters. > > "Until next time..." > Captain Commando > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mike at multimedia.cx Tue Aug 12 02:31:47 2008 From: mike at multimedia.cx (Mike Melanson) Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:31:47 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation Message-ID: <48A12E53.7010103@multimedia.cx> This will bring a tear to the eye of anyone interested in game preservation: http://www.wcnews.com/articles/mythicarchiving/index.shtml Executive summary: The highups at the game company that owns all the Wing Commander IP gave permission for a group of WC fanatics and to come on-site for an entire week and thoroughly catalog everything relating to the series. -- -Mike Melanson From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 12 07:31:39 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:31:39 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <48A12E53.7010103@multimedia.cx> References: <48A12E53.7010103@multimedia.cx> Message-ID: <48A1749B.4030306@aarmstrong.org> Certainly interesting but...fans? Hmm? While there are some brilliant fansites, I know as well as anyone else that many just go offline at random times or have funding problems/update problems :( - It'd be much more interesting if a museum or archive got hold of the information, and was able to make use of it or store it properly. After all, the Wing Commander range of games is no small amount of information. Or maybe at some point the fans can send copies of that stuff to somewhere more permanent. Still much better then nothing! Applauding from the sidelines here, at least it isn't all just stored at EA Mythic. I just hope Mythic don't just bin it all now, with the excuse being someone else has it, hehe. Andrew Mike Melanson wrote: > This will bring a tear to the eye of anyone interested in game > preservation: > > http://www.wcnews.com/articles/mythicarchiving/index.shtml > > Executive summary: The highups at the game company that owns all the > Wing Commander IP gave permission for a group of WC fanatics and to > come on-site for an entire week and thoroughly catalog everything > relating to the series. > From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu Tue Aug 12 10:11:52 2008 From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:11:52 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <48A1749B.4030306@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: I think you're right to be wary, Andrew, but fortunately I think the WCNews/Origin Museum are a great example of Henry's pt-boats (if you'll recall his analogy of academic battleships and collector/hobbyist pt-boats). They're very serious about preserving these records for history, and to that end have put a lot of time into organizing the materials that they receive, and in talking with them it's even possible that they will provide duplicate files to one or more archives. They have to make sure it's alright with EA before doing so, but they understand the instability of digital records, and so I think this will indeed turn out to be a triumph in the long run. But man, I'm crossing my fingers about Mythic keeping the physical objects/hard copies too. That would be a shame if they threw anything away. -- Zach Vowell Archivist, UT Videogame Archive Center for American History 512.495.4405 http://www.utvideogamearchive.org On 8/12/08 6:31 AM, "Andrew Armstrong" wrote: Certainly interesting but...fans? Hmm? While there are some brilliant fansites, I know as well as anyone else that many just go offline at random times or have funding problems/update problems :( - It'd be much more interesting if a museum or archive got hold of the information, and was able to make use of it or store it properly. After all, the Wing Commander range of games is no small amount of information. Or maybe at some point the fans can send copies of that stuff to somewhere more permanent. Still much better then nothing! Applauding from the sidelines here, at least it isn't all just stored at EA Mythic. I just hope Mythic don't just bin it all now, with the excuse being someone else has it, hehe. Andrew Mike Melanson wrote: > This will bring a tear to the eye of anyone interested in game > preservation: > > http://www.wcnews.com/articles/mythicarchiving/index.shtml > > Executive summary: The highups at the game company that owns all the > Wing Commander IP gave permission for a group of WC fanatics and to > come on-site for an entire week and thoroughly catalog everything > relating to the series. > _______________________________________________ game_preservation mailing list game_preservation at igda.org http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 12 10:15:00 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:15:00 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48A19AE4.2060807@aarmstrong.org> Oh, absolutely. I applaud it, just I've seen several sites I used to visit for games now shut down or "lose files", which is never fun. One thing is that since EA, or someone at Mythic allowed it, they'd probably be okay with doing it again sometime in the future or something. Who knows? Might be a nice precedent to say "hey, these guys were able to do some real good, why can't you?" :) Andrew Vowell, Zachary W wrote: > > I think you're right to be wary, Andrew, but fortunately I think the > WCNews/Origin Museum are a great example of Henry's pt-boats (if > you'll recall his analogy of academic battleships and > collector/hobbyist pt-boats). They're very serious about preserving > these records for history, and to that end have put a lot of time into > organizing the materials that they receive, and in talking with them > it's even possible that they will provide duplicate files to one or > more archives. > > They have to make sure it's alright with EA before doing so, but they > understand the instability of digital records, and so I think this > will indeed turn out to be a triumph in the long run. > > But man, I'm crossing my fingers about Mythic keeping the physical > objects/hard copies too. That would be a shame if they threw anything > away. > > > -- > Zach Vowell > Archivist, UT Videogame Archive > Center for American History > 512.495.4405 > http://www.utvideogamearchive.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chris at artfulgamer.com Tue Aug 12 20:33:38 2008 From: chris at artfulgamer.com (Chris Lepine) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:33:38 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Although I'm a newcomer to this list - I've been lurking here for a while - and had a couple of thoughts on this story. Since the WC team, Joe Garrity, and Dan Chisarick, among others, did such a wonderful job digitally archiving these materials, would any of the following ideas make sense: - Speaking with Joe or the WC people to determine how they went about approaching EA and Mythic for the clearances on archiving the materials. It might make the job for future archival projects much, much easier. - Possibly putting the WC team in contact with one of the software repositories, or physical archive projects, so that they don't have to bear the complete burden of storage. - Assisting in some other way to disseminate archival material? Although I'm deeply appreciative of their efforts, the WCnews site is hardly an ideal place to disseminate materials. Etc, etc. I'm just thinking out loud - I'd welcome any input, further ideas, or suggestions. Obviously the Game Preservation wiki is already loaded with ongoing projects, helping to take advantage of such a huge archive seems like an infinitely valuable opportunity. Cheers, - Chris --- The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games http://www.artfulgamer.com > Oh, absolutely. I applaud it, just I've seen several sites I used to > visit for games now shut down or "lose files", which is never fun. > > One thing is that since EA, or someone at Mythic allowed it, they'd > probably be okay with doing it again sometime in the future or > something. Who knows? Might be a nice precedent to say "hey, these > guys > were able to do some real good, why can't you?" :) > > Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Tue Aug 12 20:47:22 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:47:22 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Chris, I've been listening in, and these suggestions make perfect sense. You think we should have PT Boat awards? -DM On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Chris Lepine wrote: > Although I'm a newcomer to this list - I've been lurking here for a while - > and had a couple of thoughts on this story. Since the WC team, Joe Garrity, > and Dan Chisarick, among others, did such a wonderful job digitally > archiving these materials, would any of the following ideas make sense: > - Speaking with Joe or the WC people to determine how they went about > approaching EA and Mythic for the clearances on archiving the materials. It > might make the job for future archival projects much, much easier. > - Possibly putting the WC team in contact with one of the software > repositories, or physical archive projects, so that they don't have to bear > the complete burden of storage. > - Assisting in some other way to disseminate archival material? Although > I'm deeply appreciative of their efforts, the WCnews site is hardly an ideal > place to disseminate materials. > > Etc, etc. I'm just thinking out loud - I'd welcome any input, further > ideas, or suggestions. Obviously the Game Preservation wiki is already > loaded with ongoing projects, helping to take advantage of such a huge > archive seems like an infinitely valuable opportunity. > > Cheers, > - Chris > --- > The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games > http://www.artfulgamer.com > > > Oh, absolutely. I applaud it, just I've seen several sites I used to > visit for games now shut down or "lose files", which is never fun. > > One thing is that since EA, or someone at Mythic allowed it, they'd > probably be okay with doing it again sometime in the future or > something. Who knows? Might be a nice precedent to say "hey, these guys > were able to do some real good, why can't you?" :) > > Andrew > > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Wed Aug 13 04:05:11 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:05:11 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48A295B7.90201@aarmstrong.org> Sure, all those suggestions are very good - you don't want to take the initiative and do any of them? :) (For the archive repository, if the data is all digital at the very least I am sure the Internet Archive can have the majority of it in one form or another). I am still in the process (offline) of thinking how to revamp the wiki information, and these projects should be listed there along with other good fansites/source of info. I can't disseminate information on the wiki, it's just a poor location for it since everything is manual, but I hope to get some form of DB-run site (perhaps the DGC one) which can work to do the metadata and linking/searching to media side, especially Archive.org things which are hopeless to search through :) Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Chris, I've been listening in, and these suggestions make perfect > sense. You think we should have PT Boat awards? > > -DM > > On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Chris Lepine > wrote: > > Although I'm a newcomer to this list - I've been lurking here for > a while - and had a couple of thoughts on this story. Since the WC > team, Joe Garrity, and Dan Chisarick, among others, did such a > wonderful job digitally archiving these materials, would any of > the following ideas make sense: > > - Speaking with Joe or the WC people to determine how they went > about approaching EA and Mythic for the clearances on archiving > the materials. It might make the job for future archival projects > much, much easier. > - Possibly putting the WC team in contact with one of the software > repositories, or physical archive projects, so that they don't > have to bear the complete burden of storage. > - Assisting in some other way to disseminate archival material? > Although I'm deeply appreciative of their efforts, the WCnews site > is hardly an ideal place to disseminate materials. > > Etc, etc. I'm just thinking out loud - I'd welcome any input, > further ideas, or suggestions. Obviously the Game Preservation > wiki is already loaded with ongoing projects, helping to take > advantage of such a huge archive seems like an infinitely valuable > opportunity. > > Cheers, > - Chris > --- > The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games > http://www.artfulgamer.com > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu Thu Aug 14 15:08:03 2008 From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W) Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:08:03 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] University of Texas now into MMO Preservation In-Reply-To: <489CC181.5070201@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: Megan Winget has her project's website up and running: http://www.preservegames.net/ One excerpt, related to Andrew's interest in seeing results of the project online: "With permission from project participants, all of the collected materials: digital audio interviews, their transcripts, case study reports of the interviews at the studio and individual level (if the interviews are considered too intrusive by participants or the corporation that employs them), observation transcripts, and creation artifacts will be made freely available on the Internet, through the Video Game Archive, housed at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin." Also, she's crafted some good language about the need to preserve materials created during the game dev process, that might be helpful for the white paper. -Zach On 8/8/08 4:58 PM, "Andrew Armstrong" wrote: Ahh, my bad! I didn't realise that was specifically this funding. The word "online world" "MMO" or anything didn't spring to mind since I thought you had posted nothing on those words specifically :) Actually, it's rather a shame it is now specifically MMO/Online only. Austin has a lot of non-MMO developers ;-) I suppose the work you're doing is more general. In any case, that's ubercool. ^_^ - Let us know if anything interesting goes online - if it is videos, and you don't have bandwidth spare, the IA is happy to accept anything (even at really low quality) if it allows it to be viewed! I'm also totally envious of being able to ask questions to developers for storage in history. I should really look into seeing what I can get done in the UK regarding that...hmmm, maybe next year...once you know, I have money or something and know more people, hehe. Andrew Vowell, Zachary W wrote: Re: [game_preservation] University of Texas now into MMO Preservation Hey Andrew, I mentioned this here!: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2008-June/000416.html I'm not sure if she knows about the SIG, but since we'll be working with her some, I can definitely clue her in. Also, I think Henry's on her project's advisory board. For the most part, I think she wants to gather data (i.e., interviews) on how MMO developers create games, and the artifacts that are produced along the way. Also, I know she'll be running a blog that tracks the project's development, so I can let the list know when that goes up. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Thu Aug 14 20:40:35 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:40:35 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] University of Texas now into MMO Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48A4D083.9020901@aarmstrong.org> Awesome! I like things I can get my digital hands on. I'll report this in the blog tomorrow. If Megan, or you, are willing, we could use some good ideas if she wants to help contribute at all to the whitepaper, since absolutely no one has come forward on the wiki site yet or emailed on this list ;-) I'll have a look in more detail tomorrow, in any case (and check, if I have time, other sources of possible ideas and throw something up here), thanks Zach! Andrew Vowell, Zachary W wrote: > > Megan Winget has her project?s website up and running: > > http://www.preservegames.net/ > > One excerpt, related to Andrew?s interest in seeing results of the > project online: > > ?With permission from project participants, all of the collected > materials: digital audio interviews, their transcripts, case study > reports of the interviews at the studio and individual level (if the > interviews are considered too intrusive by participants or the > corporation that employs them), observation transcripts, and creation > artifacts will be made freely available on the Internet, through the > Video Game Archive, housed at the Center for American History at the > University of Texas at Austin.? > > Also, she?s crafted some good language about the need to preserve > materials created during the game dev process, that might be helpful > for the white paper. > > > -Zach > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chris at artfulgamer.com Fri Aug 15 12:05:29 2008 From: chris at artfulgamer.com (Chris Lepine) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:05:29 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> Per your suggestion Andrew, I contacted Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum and passed along a few of my thoughts. Here is his response: /// I'll be happy to tell the IDGA guys the story, but I'm not sure how much good it'll do. Our good fortune was not much more than sending an email, and a boatload of luck. We just happened to catch Paul Barnett at a generous moment in his tenure. He found what we did interesting, and appreciated our passion. Our 'technique' probably won't help the GP guys, but they are welcome to use our success as 'proof-of-concept' to other publishers. Due to our lucky circumstances, I think that other publishers might be more interested in cooperating if they think, "Hmmm--if EA thinks this was a good idea..." (just as long as the other publishers are led to believe that it was EA's idea in the first place--and as long as I'm involved somehow!) ;) Like I said, we haven't developed a magic formula, or anythig. We simply asked, and the planets were in alignment. But acquiring the data was the easy part--distribution will be more of an issue. The way I see it, we got the data on the good graces of Paul Barnett. I'm sure that he told the EA suits in LA, but their legal department may only catch wind of it later. "you gave the fans WHAT?!" We were told that no code should be released, and that everything else shouldd go thru them first. But Paul gave us a wink, and said he wants to see this stufff out--This leaves us at an empass. I want to put some of the more juicy stuff out on the net, but I also want to respect EA's IP as well--it's their stuff after all. There's also potential legal entanglements. I'd hate to give the Museum a bad reputation among EA execs--everything we've worked for would be shot to pieces. Dee the dilemma? I think the best strategy is to advertise--and then wait. I've seen EA do some incredibly nice things for the fans if they are treated with respect. I've also seen them crush individuals who have good intentions, but get a little snotty/cocky. I always hated those petitions that make demands of the publisher, based solely on some kid's envy--"It's an old game and you've already made your money--why don't you just give us the scource code?!" /// I'll let Joe know about the mailing list - there's a good chance he might even want to join up here. I'll be speaking to him next week, so hopefully I'll get some more details then. Cheers, - Chris --- The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games http://www.artfulgamer.com > > Sure, all those suggestions are very good - you don't want to take the > initiative and do any of them? :) (For the archive repository, if the > data is all digital at the very least I am sure the Internet > Archive can > have the majority of it in one form or another). > > I am still in the process (offline) of thinking how to revamp the wiki > information, and these projects should be listed there along with > other > good fansites/source of info. I can't disseminate information on the > wiki, it's just a poor location for it since everything is manual, > but I > hope to get some form of DB-run site (perhaps the DGC one) which can > work to do the metadata and linking/searching to media side, > especially > Archive.org things which are hopeless to search through :) > > Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Aug 15 12:42:23 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:42:23 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> References: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> Message-ID: <48A5B1EF.7000505@oldskool.org> Chris Lepine wrote: > I'll let Joe know about the mailing list - there's a good chance he > might even want to join up here. I'll be speaking to him next week, so > hopefully I'll get some more details then. I probably should have let him know too, but it means more coming from someone else than a fringe person :) I was able to advise them on the video acquisition process before they got down there; for speed at the highest quality, I recommended they get VHS->DVD units and use them at their lowest compression setting (ie. 2 hours of video = one DVD-R) without any filtering or enhancements. Hopefully this preserved all of the interlacing (most of the Wing Commander III and IV video assets and interviews are true 60 field-per-second video) and no composite video generational artifacts. That's what they did, but I haven't seen a DVD .ISO file yet to see how successful it was. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 15 12:48:18 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:48:18 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> References: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> Message-ID: <48A5B352.3060500@aarmstrong.org> Brilliant! Thanks a lot Chris, outstanding work. I hope he just says "IGDA" if he ever mentions the SIG again though, hehehe :) Looks like a lucky break, but who knows what we can hope to achieve in the future. I reported on Sega's archive pictures today , so there are obviously other publishers with much wider collections (and not just of the physical games, as Wing Commander's case shows!). Just needs some benevolence, and less lawyers. I hope Joe joins up, and thanks again Chris, Andrew Chris Lepine wrote: > Per your suggestion Andrew, I contacted Joe Garrity of the Origin > Museum and passed along a few of my thoughts. Here is his response: > > /// > I'll be happy to tell the IDGA guys the story, but I'm not sure how > much good it'll do. Our good fortune was not much more than sending > an email, and a boatload of luck. We just happened to catch Paul > Barnett at a generous moment in his tenure. He found what we did > interesting, and appreciated our passion. Our 'technique' probably > won't help the GP guys, but they are welcome to use our success as > 'proof-of-concept' to other publishers. Due to our lucky > circumstances, I think that other publishers might be more interested > in cooperating if they think, "Hmmm--if EA thinks this was a good > idea..." (just as long as the other publishers are led to believe that > it was EA's idea in the first place--and as long as I'm involved > somehow!) ;) > > Like I said, we haven't developed a magic formula, or anythig. We > simply asked, and the planets were in alignment. But acquiring the > data was the easy part--distribution will be more of an issue. The > way I see it, we got the data on the good graces of Paul Barnett. I'm > sure that he told the EA suits in LA, but their legal department may > only catch wind of it later. > "you gave the fans WHAT?!" > We were told that no code should be released, and that everything else > shouldd go thru them first. But Paul gave us a wink, and said he > wants to see this stufff out--This leaves us at an empass. I want to > put some of the more juicy stuff out on the net, but I also want to > respect EA's IP as well--it's their stuff after all. There's also > potential legal entanglements. I'd hate to give the Museum a bad > reputation among EA execs--everything we've worked for would be shot > to pieces. Dee the dilemma? > I think the best strategy is to advertise--and then wait. I've seen > EA do some incredibly nice things for the fans if they are treated > with respect. I've also seen them crush individuals who have good > intentions, but get a little snotty/cocky. I always hated those > petitions that make demands of the publisher, based solely on some > kid's envy--"It's an old game and you've already made your money--why > don't you just give us the scource code?!" > /// > > I'll let Joe know about the mailing list - there's a good chance he > might even want to join up here. I'll be speaking to him next week, so > hopefully I'll get some more details then. > > Cheers, > - Chris > --- > The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games > http://www.artfulgamer.com > >> >> Sure, all those suggestions are very good - you don't want to take the >> initiative and do any of them? :) (For the archive repository, if the >> data is all digital at the very least I am sure the Internet Archive can >> have the majority of it in one form or another). >> >> I am still in the process (offline) of thinking how to revamp the wiki >> information, and these projects should be listed there along with other >> good fansites/source of info. I can't disseminate information on the >> wiki, it's just a poor location for it since everything is manual, but I >> hope to get some form of DB-run site (perhaps the DGC one) which can >> work to do the metadata and linking/searching to media side, especially >> Archive.org things which are hopeless to search through :) >> >> Andrew > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Fri Aug 15 18:19:30 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:19:30 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <48A5B352.3060500@aarmstrong.org> References: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> <48A5B352.3060500@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: RE: Sega - I'm not sure I like the looks of that post-it down there that says 'keep': http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaamerica/2742924930/in/set-72157606602243465/ This assumes they are throwing stuff out as well. On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > Brilliant! Thanks a lot Chris, outstanding work. I hope he just says > "IGDA" if he ever mentions the SIG again though, hehehe :) > > Looks like a lucky break, but who knows what we can hope to achieve in the > future. I reported on Sega's archive pictures today, > so there are obviously other publishers with much wider collections (and not > just of the physical games, as Wing Commander's case shows!). Just needs > some benevolence, and less lawyers. > > I hope Joe joins up, and thanks again Chris, > > Andrew > > Chris Lepine wrote: > > Per your suggestion Andrew, I contacted Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum > and passed along a few of my thoughts. Here is his response: > /// > I'll be happy to tell the IDGA guys the story, but I'm not sure how much > good it'll do. Our good fortune was not much more than sending an email, > and a boatload of luck. We just happened to catch Paul Barnett at a > generous moment in his tenure. He found what we did interesting, and > appreciated our passion. Our 'technique' probably won't help the GP guys, > but they are welcome to use our success as 'proof-of-concept' to other > publishers. Due to our lucky circumstances, I think that other publishers > might be more interested in cooperating if they think, "Hmmm--if EA thinks > this was a good idea..." (just as long as the other publishers are led to > believe that it was EA's idea in the first place--and as long as I'm > involved somehow!) ;) > > Like I said, we haven't developed a magic formula, or anythig. We simply > asked, and the planets were in alignment. But acquiring the data was the > easy part--distribution will be more of an issue. The way I see it, we got > the data on the good graces of Paul Barnett. I'm sure that he told the EA > suits in LA, but their legal department may only catch wind of it later. > "you gave the fans WHAT?!" > We were told that no code should be released, and that everything else > shouldd go thru them first. But Paul gave us a wink, and said he wants to > see this stufff out--This leaves us at an empass. I want to put some of the > more juicy stuff out on the net, but I also want to respect EA's IP as > well--it's their stuff after all. There's also potential legal > entanglements. I'd hate to give the Museum a bad reputation among EA > execs--everything we've worked for would be shot to pieces. Dee the > dilemma? > I think the best strategy is to advertise--and then wait. I've seen EA do > some incredibly nice things for the fans if they are treated with respect. > I've also seen them crush individuals who have good intentions, but get a > little snotty/cocky. I always hated those petitions that make demands of > the publisher, based solely on some kid's envy--"It's an old game and you've > already made your money--why don't you just give us the scource code?!" > /// > > I'll let Joe know about the mailing list - there's a good chance he might > even want to join up here. I'll be speaking to him next week, so hopefully > I'll get some more details then. > > Cheers, > - Chris > --- > The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games > http://www.artfulgamer.com > > > Sure, all those suggestions are very good - you don't want to take the > initiative and do any of them? :) (For the archive repository, if the > data is all digital at the very least I am sure the Internet Archive can > have the majority of it in one form or another). > > I am still in the process (offline) of thinking how to revamp the wiki > information, and these projects should be listed there along with other > good fansites/source of info. I can't disseminate information on the > wiki, it's just a poor location for it since everything is manual, but I > hope to get some form of DB-run site (perhaps the DGC one) which can > work to do the metadata and linking/searching to media side, especially > Archive.org things which are hopeless to search through :) > > Andrew > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing listgame_preservation at igda.orghttp://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Fri Aug 15 18:40:37 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:40:37 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: References: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> <48A5B352.3060500@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <48A605E5.8010207@aarmstrong.org> Well, as they say, crap! Hmm, might be worth contacting them, this is obviously the US branch and all. Anyone want to take a crack at it? It's the weekend so they'd likely not answer till Monday, but I'm too busy this weekend (or at least, away from my PC) to do so. I presume they don't just bin them and employees take them home, but still...that's...sad. I'll email them on Monday if no one else has by then. Thanks for the tipoff, I didn't check all the photos, hehe. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > RE: Sega - > > I'm not sure I like the looks of that post-it down there that says 'keep': > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaamerica/2742924930/in/set-72157606602243465/ > > This assumes they are throwing stuff out as well. > > On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Andrew Armstrong > > wrote: > > Brilliant! Thanks a lot Chris, outstanding work. I hope he just > says "IGDA" if he ever mentions the SIG again though, hehehe :) > > Looks like a lucky break, but who knows what we can hope to > achieve in the future. I reported on Sega's archive pictures today > , > so there are obviously other publishers with much wider > collections (and not just of the physical games, as Wing > Commander's case shows!). Just needs some benevolence, and less > lawyers. > > I hope Joe joins up, and thanks again Chris, > > Andrew > > Chris Lepine wrote: >> Per your suggestion Andrew, I contacted Joe Garrity of the Origin >> Museum and passed along a few of my thoughts. Here is his response: >> >> /// >> I'll be happy to tell the IDGA guys the story, but I'm not sure >> how much good it'll do. Our good fortune was not much more than >> sending an email, and a boatload of luck. We just happened to >> catch Paul Barnett at a generous moment in his tenure. He found >> what we did interesting, and appreciated our passion. Our >> 'technique' probably won't help the GP guys, but they are welcome >> to use our success as 'proof-of-concept' to other publishers. >> Due to our lucky circumstances, I think that other publishers >> might be more interested in cooperating if they think, "Hmmm--if >> EA thinks this was a good idea..." (just as long as the other >> publishers are led to believe that it was EA's idea in the first >> place--and as long as I'm involved somehow!) ;) >> >> Like I said, we haven't developed a magic formula, or anythig. >> We simply asked, and the planets were in alignment. But >> acquiring the data was the easy part--distribution will be more >> of an issue. The way I see it, we got the data on the good >> graces of Paul Barnett. I'm sure that he told the EA suits in >> LA, but their legal department may only catch wind of it later. >> "you gave the fans WHAT?!" >> We were told that no code should be released, and that everything >> else shouldd go thru them first. But Paul gave us a wink, and >> said he wants to see this stufff out--This leaves us at an >> empass. I want to put some of the more juicy stuff out on the >> net, but I also want to respect EA's IP as well--it's their stuff >> after all. There's also potential legal entanglements. I'd hate >> to give the Museum a bad reputation among EA execs--everything >> we've worked for would be shot to pieces. Dee the dilemma? >> I think the best strategy is to advertise--and then wait. I've >> seen EA do some incredibly nice things for the fans if they are >> treated with respect. I've also seen them crush individuals who >> have good intentions, but get a little snotty/cocky. I always >> hated those petitions that make demands of the publisher, based >> solely on some kid's envy--"It's an old game and you've already >> made your money--why don't you just give us the scource code?!" >> /// >> >> I'll let Joe know about the mailing list - there's a good chance >> he might even want to join up here. I'll be speaking to him next >> week, so hopefully I'll get some more details then. >> >> Cheers, >> - Chris >> --- >> The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games >> http://www.artfulgamer.com >> >>> >>> Sure, all those suggestions are very good - you don't want to >>> take the >>> initiative and do any of them? :) (For the archive repository, >>> if the >>> data is all digital at the very least I am sure the Internet >>> Archive can >>> have the majority of it in one form or another). >>> >>> I am still in the process (offline) of thinking how to revamp >>> the wiki >>> information, and these projects should be listed there along >>> with other >>> good fansites/source of info. I can't disseminate information on >>> the >>> wiki, it's just a poor location for it since everything is >>> manual, but I >>> hope to get some form of DB-run site (perhaps the DGC one) which >>> can >>> work to do the metadata and linking/searching to media side, >>> especially >>> Archive.org things which are hopeless to search through :) >>> >>> Andrew >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> _______________________________________________ game_preservation >> mailing list game_preservation at igda.org >> >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > > > > -- > The sleep of Reason produces monsters. > > "Until next time..." > Captain Commando > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mike at multimedia.cx Fri Aug 15 22:06:44 2008 From: mike at multimedia.cx (Mike Melanson) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:06:44 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <48A605E5.8010207@aarmstrong.org> References: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> <48A5B352.3060500@aarmstrong.org> <48A605E5.8010207@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <48A63634.6060408@multimedia.cx> Perchance, is it the Sega office in San Francisco? Because that's just across the street from my office. Maybe I could walk over there and knock. :) -- -Mike Melanson Andrew Armstrong wrote: > Well, as they say, crap! > > Hmm, might be worth contacting them, this is obviously the US branch and > all. Anyone want to take a crack at it? It's the weekend so they'd > likely not answer till Monday, but I'm too busy this weekend (or at > least, away from my PC) to do so. > > I presume they don't just bin them and employees take them home, but > still...that's...sad. I'll email them on Monday if no one else has by > then. Thanks for the tipoff, I didn't check all the photos, hehe. > > Andrew > > Captain Commando wrote: >> RE: Sega - >> >> I'm not sure I like the looks of that post-it down there that says 'keep': >> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaamerica/2742924930/in/set-72157606602243465/ >> >> This assumes they are throwing stuff out as well. >> >> On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Andrew Armstrong >> > wrote: >> >> Brilliant! Thanks a lot Chris, outstanding work. I hope he just >> says "IGDA" if he ever mentions the SIG again though, hehehe :) >> >> Looks like a lucky break, but who knows what we can hope to >> achieve in the future. I reported on Sega's archive pictures today >> , >> so there are obviously other publishers with much wider >> collections (and not just of the physical games, as Wing >> Commander's case shows!). Just needs some benevolence, and less >> lawyers. >> >> I hope Joe joins up, and thanks again Chris, >> >> Andrew >> >> Chris Lepine wrote: >>> Per your suggestion Andrew, I contacted Joe Garrity of the Origin >>> Museum and passed along a few of my thoughts. Here is his response: >>> >>> /// >>> I'll be happy to tell the IDGA guys the story, but I'm not sure >>> how much good it'll do. Our good fortune was not much more than >>> sending an email, and a boatload of luck. We just happened to >>> catch Paul Barnett at a generous moment in his tenure. He found >>> what we did interesting, and appreciated our passion. Our >>> 'technique' probably won't help the GP guys, but they are welcome >>> to use our success as 'proof-of-concept' to other publishers. >>> Due to our lucky circumstances, I think that other publishers >>> might be more interested in cooperating if they think, "Hmmm--if >>> EA thinks this was a good idea..." (just as long as the other >>> publishers are led to believe that it was EA's idea in the first >>> place--and as long as I'm involved somehow!) ;) >>> >>> Like I said, we haven't developed a magic formula, or anythig. >>> We simply asked, and the planets were in alignment. But >>> acquiring the data was the easy part--distribution will be more >>> of an issue. The way I see it, we got the data on the good >>> graces of Paul Barnett. I'm sure that he told the EA suits in >>> LA, but their legal department may only catch wind of it later. >>> "you gave the fans WHAT?!" >>> We were told that no code should be released, and that everything >>> else shouldd go thru them first. But Paul gave us a wink, and >>> said he wants to see this stufff out--This leaves us at an >>> empass. I want to put some of the more juicy stuff out on the >>> net, but I also want to respect EA's IP as well--it's their stuff >>> after all. There's also potential legal entanglements. I'd hate >>> to give the Museum a bad reputation among EA execs--everything >>> we've worked for would be shot to pieces. Dee the dilemma? >>> I think the best strategy is to advertise--and then wait. I've >>> seen EA do some incredibly nice things for the fans if they are >>> treated with respect. I've also seen them crush individuals who >>> have good intentions, but get a little snotty/cocky. I always >>> hated those petitions that make demands of the publisher, based >>> solely on some kid's envy--"It's an old game and you've already >>> made your money--why don't you just give us the scource code?!" >>> /// >>> >>> I'll let Joe know about the mailing list - there's a good chance >>> he might even want to join up here. I'll be speaking to him next >>> week, so hopefully I'll get some more details then. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> - Chris >>> --- >>> The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video Games >>> http://www.artfulgamer.com >>> >>>> >>>> Sure, all those suggestions are very good - you don't want to >>>> take the >>>> initiative and do any of them? :) (For the archive repository, >>>> if the >>>> data is all digital at the very least I am sure the Internet >>>> Archive can >>>> have the majority of it in one form or another). >>>> >>>> I am still in the process (offline) of thinking how to revamp >>>> the wiki >>>> information, and these projects should be listed there along >>>> with other >>>> good fansites/source of info. I can't disseminate information on >>>> the >>>> wiki, it's just a poor location for it since everything is >>>> manual, but I >>>> hope to get some form of DB-run site (perhaps the DGC one) which >>>> can >>>> work to do the metadata and linking/searching to media side, >>>> especially >>>> Archive.org things which are hopeless to search through :) >>>> >>>> Andrew >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> _______________________________________________ game_preservation >>> mailing list game_preservation at igda.org >>> >>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation >> >> _______________________________________________ >> game_preservation mailing list >> game_preservation at igda.org >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation >> >> >> >> >> -- >> The sleep of Reason produces monsters. >> >> "Until next time..." >> Captain Commando >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> game_preservation mailing list >> game_preservation at igda.org >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation From evilcowclone at gmail.com Fri Aug 15 23:38:22 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:38:22 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation In-Reply-To: <48A63634.6060408@multimedia.cx> References: <05D70338-50CA-4D5C-993C-6986062E9D79@artfulgamer.com> <48A5B352.3060500@aarmstrong.org> <48A605E5.8010207@aarmstrong.org> <48A63634.6060408@multimedia.cx> Message-ID: Yeah! Ask them if they keep an inventory. :) I doubt that kind of metadata would be considered 'secret' if it's just a game list. Though there might be issues if they have certain types of hardware and betas never announced to the public... -DM On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 8:06 PM, Mike Melanson wrote: > Perchance, is it the Sega office in San Francisco? Because that's just > across the street from my office. Maybe I could walk over there and > knock. :) > > -- > -Mike Melanson > > Andrew Armstrong wrote: > > Well, as they say, crap! > > > > Hmm, might be worth contacting them, this is obviously the US branch and > > all. Anyone want to take a crack at it? It's the weekend so they'd > > likely not answer till Monday, but I'm too busy this weekend (or at > > least, away from my PC) to do so. > > > > I presume they don't just bin them and employees take them home, but > > still...that's...sad. I'll email them on Monday if no one else has by > > then. Thanks for the tipoff, I didn't check all the photos, hehe. > > > > Andrew > > > > Captain Commando wrote: > >> RE: Sega - > >> > >> I'm not sure I like the looks of that post-it down there that says > 'keep': > >> > >> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaamerica/2742924930/in/set-72157606602243465/ > >> > >> This assumes they are throwing stuff out as well. > >> > >> On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Andrew Armstrong > >> > wrote: > >> > >> Brilliant! Thanks a lot Chris, outstanding work. I hope he just > >> says "IGDA" if he ever mentions the SIG again though, hehehe :) > >> > >> Looks like a lucky break, but who knows what we can hope to > >> achieve in the future. I reported on Sega's archive pictures today > >> < > http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2008/08/the_sega_game_a.html>, > >> so there are obviously other publishers with much wider > >> collections (and not just of the physical games, as Wing > >> Commander's case shows!). Just needs some benevolence, and less > >> lawyers. > >> > >> I hope Joe joins up, and thanks again Chris, > >> > >> Andrew > >> > >> Chris Lepine wrote: > >>> Per your suggestion Andrew, I contacted Joe Garrity of the Origin > >>> Museum and passed along a few of my thoughts. Here is his response: > >>> > >>> /// > >>> I'll be happy to tell the IDGA guys the story, but I'm not sure > >>> how much good it'll do. Our good fortune was not much more than > >>> sending an email, and a boatload of luck. We just happened to > >>> catch Paul Barnett at a generous moment in his tenure. He found > >>> what we did interesting, and appreciated our passion. Our > >>> 'technique' probably won't help the GP guys, but they are welcome > >>> to use our success as 'proof-of-concept' to other publishers. > >>> Due to our lucky circumstances, I think that other publishers > >>> might be more interested in cooperating if they think, "Hmmm--if > >>> EA thinks this was a good idea..." (just as long as the other > >>> publishers are led to believe that it was EA's idea in the first > >>> place--and as long as I'm involved somehow!) ;) > >>> > >>> Like I said, we haven't developed a magic formula, or anythig. > >>> We simply asked, and the planets were in alignment. But > >>> acquiring the data was the easy part--distribution will be more > >>> of an issue. The way I see it, we got the data on the good > >>> graces of Paul Barnett. I'm sure that he told the EA suits in > >>> LA, but their legal department may only catch wind of it later. > >>> "you gave the fans WHAT?!" > >>> We were told that no code should be released, and that everything > >>> else shouldd go thru them first. But Paul gave us a wink, and > >>> said he wants to see this stufff out--This leaves us at an > >>> empass. I want to put some of the more juicy stuff out on the > >>> net, but I also want to respect EA's IP as well--it's their stuff > >>> after all. There's also potential legal entanglements. I'd hate > >>> to give the Museum a bad reputation among EA execs--everything > >>> we've worked for would be shot to pieces. Dee the dilemma? > >>> I think the best strategy is to advertise--and then wait. I've > >>> seen EA do some incredibly nice things for the fans if they are > >>> treated with respect. I've also seen them crush individuals who > >>> have good intentions, but get a little snotty/cocky. I always > >>> hated those petitions that make demands of the publisher, based > >>> solely on some kid's envy--"It's an old game and you've already > >>> made your money--why don't you just give us the scource code?!" > >>> /// > >>> > >>> I'll let Joe know about the mailing list - there's a good chance > >>> he might even want to join up here. I'll be speaking to him next > >>> week, so hopefully I'll get some more details then. > >>> > >>> Cheers, > >>> - Chris > >>> --- > >>> The Artful Gamer: In Search of the Lyrical and Poetic in Video > Games > >>> http://www.artfulgamer.com > >>> > >>>> > >>>> Sure, all those suggestions are very good - you don't want to > >>>> take the > >>>> initiative and do any of them? :) (For the archive repository, > >>>> if the > >>>> data is all digital at the very least I am sure the Internet > >>>> Archive can > >>>> have the majority of it in one form or another). > >>>> > >>>> I am still in the process (offline) of thinking how to revamp > >>>> the wiki > >>>> information, and these projects should be listed there along > >>>> with other > >>>> good fansites/source of info. I can't disseminate information on > >>>> the > >>>> wiki, it's just a poor location for it since everything is > >>>> manual, but I > >>>> hope to get some form of DB-run site (perhaps the DGC one) which > >>>> can > >>>> work to do the metadata and linking/searching to media side, > >>>> especially > >>>> Archive.org things which are hopeless to search through :) > >>>> > >>>> Andrew > >>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >>> _______________________________________________ game_preservation > >>> mailing list game_preservation at igda.org > >>> > >>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> game_preservation mailing list > >> game_preservation at igda.org > >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> The sleep of Reason produces monsters. > >> > >> "Until next time..." > >> Captain Commando > >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> game_preservation mailing list > >> game_preservation at igda.org > >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > game_preservation mailing list > > game_preservation at igda.org > > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Sun Aug 24 22:02:41 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:02:41 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli Message-ID: Joe Santulli is the guy who runs Digital Press, one of the best classic game catalogs out there (as well as a big store in New Jersey). He's got a collection of 30k titles along with the encyclopedic knowledge behind them. I'm thinking now that he's been interviewed that he would be great contact/interview material for the SIG and would be a key player as a network for the indie collectors out there. I think we can ask him some questions about what he thinks about the state of game collecting and how that relates to preservation - maybe even what he'd have to say about the White Paper. Actually, I kinda want to e-mail him as well as I want to know when the next Digit Press catalogue is coming out! http://tech.msn.com/guides/collectthis.aspx?GT1=40000 http://www.digitpress.com/ -DM -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Mon Aug 25 13:38:30 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:38:30 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> I'll put a link on the blog, although I couldn't get the video to work in Opera or Firefox (??? stupid msn site restricted to IE stuff I guess) Our "Collectors" page still needs finishing, so yeah, information would be great. An interview would be nice, perhaps since you want to talk to him anyway (and the question about Digit Press catalogues would be part of an interview) do you want to shoot him a email? If not, I'll try and do so later this week. And if anyone can tell me how to work the internets and get the video (a direct link to the file might be nice) will get a cookie :) Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Joe Santulli is the guy who runs Digital Press, one of the best > classic game catalogs out there (as well as a big store in New > Jersey). He's got a collection of 30k titles along with the > encyclopedic knowledge behind them. I'm thinking now that he's been > interviewed that he would be great contact/interview material for the > SIG and would be a key player as a network for the indie collectors > out there. I think we can ask him some questions about what he thinks > about the state of game collecting and how that relates to > preservation - maybe even what he'd have to say about the White Paper. > Actually, I kinda want to e-mail him as well as I want to know when > the next Digit Press catalogue is coming out! > > http://tech.msn.com/guides/collectthis.aspx?GT1=40000 > http://www.digitpress.com/ > > -DM > > -- > The sleep of Reason produces monsters. > > "Until next time..." > Captain Commando > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Mon Aug 25 17:09:35 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:09:35 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli In-Reply-To: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> References: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: Ok, I was looking to see if anyone had interviewed him or was 'in the know' already. The guy who wrote Phoenix is on the contacts list on that page as well. Regarding the video, I got it running on Firefox 3. It's possible the adblocker is giving you problems. You should be able to allow video from the site by hitting the 'forbidden scripts' icon in the lower right (well, if you've got NoScript!) -DM On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > I'll put a link on the blog, although I couldn't get the video to work in > Opera or Firefox (??? stupid msn site restricted to IE stuff I guess) > > Our "Collectors" page still needs finishing, so yeah, information would be > great. An interview would be nice, perhaps since you want to talk to him > anyway (and the question about Digit Press catalogues would be part of an > interview) do you want to shoot him a email? If not, I'll try and do so > later this week. > > And if anyone can tell me how to work the internets and get the video (a > direct link to the file might be nice) will get a cookie :) > > Andrew > > Captain Commando wrote: > > Joe Santulli is the guy who runs Digital Press, one of the best classic > game catalogs out there (as well as a big store in New Jersey). He's got a > collection of 30k titles along with the encyclopedic knowledge behind them. > I'm thinking now that he's been interviewed that he would be great > contact/interview material for the SIG and would be a key player as a > network for the indie collectors out there. I think we can ask him some > questions about what he thinks about the state of game collecting and how > that relates to preservation - maybe even what he'd have to say about the > White Paper. Actually, I kinda want to e-mail him as well as I want to know > when the next Digit Press catalogue is coming out! > > http://tech.msn.com/guides/collectthis.aspx?GT1=40000 > http://www.digitpress.com/ > > -DM > > -- > The sleep of Reason produces monsters. > > "Until next time..." > Captain Commando > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing listgame_preservation at igda.orghttp://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com Mon Aug 25 23:18:50 2008 From: stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com (Stuart Feldhamer) Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:18:50 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli In-Reply-To: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> References: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <48b3761f.1a01360a.7c93.ffffe7bb@mx.google.com> That video is pretty cool (although those Keno brothers, whoever they are, seem like losers). I am impressed with that guy's collection to say the least. However, I want to point out that there are several members of the software collectors' mailing list (most of whom if not all primarily collect games) on the list for this SIG. So if you're looking for information on collecting, look within. : ) Stuart From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Armstrong Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 1:39 PM To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG Subject: Re: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli I'll put a link on the blog, although I couldn't get the video to work in Opera or Firefox (??? stupid msn site restricted to IE stuff I guess) Our "Collectors" page still needs finishing, so yeah, information would be great. An interview would be nice, perhaps since you want to talk to him anyway (and the question about Digit Press catalogues would be part of an interview) do you want to shoot him a email? If not, I'll try and do so later this week. And if anyone can tell me how to work the internets and get the video (a direct link to the file might be nice) will get a cookie :) Andrew Captain Commando wrote: Joe Santulli is the guy who runs Digital Press, one of the best classic game catalogs out there (as well as a big store in New Jersey). He's got a collection of 30k titles along with the encyclopedic knowledge behind them. I'm thinking now that he's been interviewed that he would be great contact/interview material for the SIG and would be a key player as a network for the indie collectors out there. I think we can ask him some questions about what he thinks about the state of game collecting and how that relates to preservation - maybe even what he'd have to say about the White Paper. Actually, I kinda want to e-mail him as well as I want to know when the next Digit Press catalogue is coming out! http://tech.msn.com/guides/collectthis.aspx?GT1=40000 http://www.digitpress.com/ -DM -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando _____ _______________________________________________ game_preservation mailing list game_preservation at igda.org http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 26 07:25:57 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:25:57 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli In-Reply-To: <48b3761f.1a01360a.7c93.ffffe7bb@mx.google.com> References: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> <48b3761f.1a01360a.7c93.ffffe7bb@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <48B3E845.60201@aarmstrong.org> I'll need to get a list of questions together now, won't I? Typical ^_^ The problem is, I'm not adept at knowing what the finer points of collecting is to start with (I'm not a collector in the slightest), and the websites on the web I've browsed a bit usually say the /how/ and /what/ to collect, but not the /why/, which would be much more interesting to record. I'll get around to it, but I should start poking people about the whitepaper instead :) - I'll try and get something together soon to post around, at the very least a good list of websites is always nice. Good idea, thanks for reminding me we should be looking within! First for me will be a little whitepaper work however, but I'll get it added to the monthly roundup to remind myself for September. Andrew Stuart Feldhamer wrote: > > That video is pretty cool (although those Keno brothers, whoever they > are, seem like losers). > > > > I am impressed with that guy's collection to say the least. However, I > want to point out that there are several members of the software > collectors' mailing list (most of whom if not all primarily collect > games) on the list for this SIG. So if you're looking for information > on collecting, look within. : ) > > > > Stuart > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Tue Aug 26 10:07:20 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:07:20 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli In-Reply-To: <48B3E845.60201@aarmstrong.org> References: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> <48b3761f.1a01360a.7c93.ffffe7bb@mx.google.com> <48B3E845.60201@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: Hey Andrew, I have done a little dabbling into what might go into a white paper myself on the side at work. I'm not sure exactly how we're going to go about organizing this thing myself. I've got some good examples and I think some good arguments and some that are just deadpan plain serious (who's to say 'because they're fun and we like to share what we enjoy with other people' isn't a valid reason?). I'm going to see if I can't contact Joe about this. Some of the things I'd like to ask is about what he thinks about preservation and what we might learn from looking at collectors - if warehouses and shoeboxes full of old cartridges is really even a viable model. Just how durable is this stuff in that condition? I suppose the 'why' of collecting would have to be in there as well, but I think it's just something that snowballs from something you like, coupled with opportunity for building the collection with minimal expenditure (that's sort of how mine developed out of a simple love of the game). Everybody's got a hobby, and if you think about it if you sink a few dozen dollars here and a few there each month and are serious about checking garage sales, flea markets, and goodwill's regularly, then you'd begin to have a pretty serious collection. It's really no different than sinking a couple hundred dollars each month on souping up your car or spending a few hours reading books. I guess 'hobby' is just whatever occupies the mind! -Devin On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > I'll need to get a list of questions together now, won't I? Typical ^_^ > > The problem is, I'm not adept at knowing what the finer points of > collecting is to start with (I'm not a collector in the slightest), and the > websites on the web I've browsed a bit usually say the *how* and *what* to > collect, but not the *why*, which would be much more interesting to > record. I'll get around to it, but I should start poking people about the > whitepaper instead :) - I'll try and get something together soon to post > around, at the very least a good list of websites is always nice. > > Good idea, thanks for reminding me we should be looking within! First for > me will be a little whitepaper work however, but I'll get it added to the > monthly roundup to remind myself for September. > > Andrew > > Stuart Feldhamer wrote: > > That video is pretty cool (although those Keno brothers, whoever they > are, seem like losers). > > > > I am impressed with that guy's collection to say the least. However, I want > to point out that there are several members of the software collectors' > mailing list (most of whom if not all primarily collect games) on the list > for this SIG. So if you're looking for information on collecting, look > within. : ) > > > > Stuart > > > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation > > -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Aug 26 10:14:46 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:14:46 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli In-Reply-To: References: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> <48b3761f.1a01360a.7c93.ffffe7bb@mx.google.com> <48B3E845.60201@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <48B40FD6.4000105@aarmstrong.org> On the "Why", the reason why I ask is that it is more interesting - I think everyone can guess the "How" and the "What" - there are sites dedicated to that. But from a personal angle, the "How" and "What" mean nothing - the people just seem to be hoarding up specific things, right? There must be a reason - and for some, it might be playing the games they find, or keeping them on display, or whatever, don't ask me! I am sure no two people are the same, certainly because no one ever collects the same things! That isn't so easily found on the web I think you'd admit :) That, and you might as well never ask a game developer "Why" they want to do game development - after all, it's just what they enjoy right? No real special reason behind it ;) yet really, it is one of the best questions to ask them, since no one will have exactly the same answer as someone else. Yeah, information on the how and what would be great though, and thoughts on the preservation of videogames - if he knows a lot, I'm sure he has some ideas on it. All whitepaper ideas are good, post them here and I can put them on the wiki - same goes for anyone else. Make a new topic thread though :) Andrew From stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com Tue Aug 26 11:39:36 2008 From: stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com (Stuart Feldhamer) Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:39:36 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli In-Reply-To: References: <48B2EE16.3040003@aarmstrong.org> <48b3761f.1a01360a.7c93.ffffe7bb@mx.google.com> <48B3E845.60201@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <48b423be.1d078e0a.2bd8.7820@mx.google.com> My comments: It is relatively easy (if you have the money) to buy everything you see and have a warehouse full of assorted games and related artifacts. It's also not that interesting to most people. So for example, right now I don't collect NES games. I could go to a bunch of flea markets and stores and buy every NES title I can find, and maybe have 500 of them in a week. Is that a collection? Yes, in some sense of the word, but it's a pretty poor one. In my mind it's more akin to a pile of junk. Most collectors that I have encountered focus on a particular niche and try to collect everything related to that niche. The fun and excitement in collecting comes from searching for and then ultimately finding that rare item that adds to or completes some particular area of their collection. That's also what gets the press and general interest btw. And speaking of Joe Santulli and his video, did you notice that he pointed out the 3 rarest and most expensive items, and then said that those were the 3 that were the most meaningful to him personally? I doubt it was because they were the most expensive, but rather because he had to go to some considerable trouble to acquire them. (BTW, most collectors that I know (myself included) treasure their rare titles but also titles that hold sentimental value for them for other reasons. For example, my copy of Seastalker folio edition for IBM that my father bought for me when it first came out, and I managed to hang onto it through several moves, etc. before I even started collecting officially.) I have other comments about physical preservation of games and shrinkwrap vs. non-shrinkwrap but I will save those for another time. Stuart From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Captain Commando Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 10:07 AM To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG Subject: Re: [game_preservation] MSN interviews Joe Santulli Hey Andrew, I have done a little dabbling into what might go into a white paper myself on the side at work. I'm not sure exactly how we're going to go about organizing this thing myself. I've got some good examples and I think some good arguments and some that are just deadpan plain serious (who's to say 'because they're fun and we like to share what we enjoy with other people' isn't a valid reason?). I'm going to see if I can't contact Joe about this. Some of the things I'd like to ask is about what he thinks about preservation and what we might learn from looking at collectors - if warehouses and shoeboxes full of old cartridges is really even a viable model. Just how durable is this stuff in that condition? I suppose the 'why' of collecting would have to be in there as well, but I think it's just something that snowballs from something you like, coupled with opportunity for building the collection with minimal expenditure (that's sort of how mine developed out of a simple love of the game). Everybody's got a hobby, and if you think about it if you sink a few dozen dollars here and a few there each month and are serious about checking garage sales, flea markets, and goodwill's regularly, then you'd begin to have a pretty serious collection. It's really no different than sinking a couple hundred dollars each month on souping up your car or spending a few hours reading books. I guess 'hobby' is just whatever occupies the mind! -Devin On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: I'll need to get a list of questions together now, won't I? Typical ^_^ The problem is, I'm not adept at knowing what the finer points of collecting is to start with (I'm not a collector in the slightest), and the websites on the web I've browsed a bit usually say the how and what to collect, but not the why, which would be much more interesting to record. I'll get around to it, but I should start poking people about the whitepaper instead :) - I'll try and get something together soon to post around, at the very least a good list of websites is always nice. Good idea, thanks for reminding me we should be looking within! First for me will be a little whitepaper work however, but I'll get it added to the monthly roundup to remind myself for September. Andrew Stuart Feldhamer wrote: That video is pretty cool (although those Keno brothers, whoever they are, seem like losers). I am impressed with that guy's collection to say the least. However, I want to point out that there are several members of the software collectors' mailing list (most of whom if not all primarily collect games) on the list for this SIG. So if you're looking for information on collecting, look within. : ) Stuart _______________________________________________ game_preservation mailing list game_preservation at igda.org http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: