From jmcdonou at uiuc.edu Tue Jul 1 13:06:04 2008 From: jmcdonou at uiuc.edu (Jerome McDonough) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 12:06:04 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage In-Reply-To: References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org> <486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org> <4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org> <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org> <486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com> <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu> <486969AA.30608@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> A little late, but my two bits on a couple of issues. In terms of hardware architecture for data archives, there is no one- size-fits-all solution, or we wouldn't need storage architects. There are data archives that still keep a fair amount of material on off-line tape, and in low use environments serving a local community, that can be fine. Increasing use generally favors disk over tape, and needs for frequent or large-scale migration typically favor disk over tape (since in large-scale migrations, your major concern is throughput -- you don't want a new migration to start just as your old one is ending, because it took so long to process all the data). Additional considerations that figure in are the need for geographic dispersion of backup copies (you Californians have your earthquakes, we midwesterners have our tornados), and (probably most important) maintenance costs for storage including equipment replacement, energy, and staffing. In terms of file systems, many of us in the digital library/ preservation community have been tracking ZFS for some time. Built- in error detection and correction and open source win big points from the preservation perspective, and for data archives handling large data files (uncompressed high quality digital video, for example), doing away with partition size limits is also a win. "Dark archives" are usually operating under rules which forbid *public* release of information, but which do allow the archive itself to take necessary actions to insure the data's continuing viability and accessibility in the future. So, the archive can test software to see if it's working, yes, but if the content is dark due to copyright restrictions, they can't let their users examine it, only staff. As a side note, most archives accepting 'dark' material will want a signed donation agreement with the copyright holder pinning down the exact terms and conditions covering the accessibility of the material (a copyright holder may be willing to negotiate restricted access before the term of copyright is up under a variety of conditions), so dark materials can actually involve far more up-front labor on the part of the archive to accession than other material without the access restrictions. In the real world, where archives have limited funds, this does mean that there is a balancing act between accepting dark material which you may think has high long term value and unrestricted material which may have less, but involves less work to acquire. Our naval analogy here is rather fun, and I'm in complete agreement with Henry that instead of thinking along the lines of a battleship vs. 10 PT boats, the question is how do we orchestrate all of the elements of a 'carrier group' to effectively preserve games. The game community has already done a great deal of work, without significant institutional support, to gather materials documenting games and their history and to develop tools like emulators to keep games accessible; small, nimble PT boats can do a lot. The question for Library of Congress and other major institutions with an interest in archiving games is what type of infrastructure can we put in place that will build upon and support those efforts, and how do we go about doing that? To press the analogy to the breaking point, if the Library of Congress builds an aircraft carrier, we don't want to see it swamp and sink all of the PT boats when it's launched. On the 'what are we preserving and how are we preserving it' issue, *why* are we preserving it is perhaps even more fundamental. The approaches one might take to preserving something as complex as a game could vary significantly depending on how the 'why' question is answered. On Jun 30, 2008, at 6:44 PM, Captain Commando wrote: > Big battleships also provoke the 'Death Star Syndrome', though this > isn't applicable to this analogy :) Well, except for the logic that > it costs a LOT less to build several smaller ships that combined > together can do the same as, if not more, damage than one big > battleship (also check the hard drive prices above - the largest > drive is more expensive). So for the cost of your Yamato, you can > have ten cruisers that can be just as if not more effective (the > only downside is you can't promote your politico-military power > around ten small ships!). In addition, battleships use smaller > vessels like cruisers and destroyers as a protection screen (same > with carriers, btw). These smaller ships provide support for what > would otherwise be holes in the defense system - one big battleship > cannot do it all :) (and let's not forget how important having a > good crew is!) > > Regarding OSX... Actually, I'm running NTSF drives on my computer > and I'm reading and writing to them. I installed a piece of > software that recognizes them as network drives (either that, or > the latest updates now support it). > > In terms of compatibility though, NTSF is quite high, though it's > proprietary. As a result, it might be best to go with a more > sustainable open-source model (it would be cheaper for one thing!), > but there's no telling how the situation is going to be ten years > from now, though I bet there will still be Linux support. > > This also brings up a question regarding the black vault > archives... Are you aloud to test the software to make sure it's > actually working? I mean, it sure would suck if, 80 years down the > road, they pen up the vaults and none of the games actually work! > > -- > 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 Jerome McDonough, Asst. Professor Graduate School of Library & Information Science University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 501 E. Daniel Street, Room 202 Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 244-5916 jmcdonou at uiuc.edu From evilcowclone at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 14:54:48 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 12:54:48 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage In-Reply-To: <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org> <4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org> <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org> <486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com> <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu> <486969AA.30608@aarmstrong.org> <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, Jeremy, for all your insightful points. On the question of 'why' isn't this supposed to be the primary issue addressed in the 2008 Whitepaper? There are many reasons that don't necessarily relate to 'what' to preserve, but are important to the formation of the archive nonetheless. Just at a quick glance, it looks like context is going to be incredibly important, and a lot of times this can encompass not only the context of how it was played (and perhaps viewed 10 years after it was first made) but how it was created. Also, regarding digital tape, you think this is good to use in conjunction with hard drives? And should multiple tapes be used? -DM -- 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 Fri Jul 4 18:33:19 2008 From: stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com (Stuart Feldhamer) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 18:33:19 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] Limbo of the Lost In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <486ea539.0807c00a.28ec.ffff9298@mx.google.com> I know this response is a bit late, but I just wanted to point that by the time that you wrote this email, where you wrote "if only because this thing's going to get pulled from the market within a couple weeks", the game had already been pulled from every retail outlet. I actually could have gotten my hands on a copy but I messed up. Whatever copies are still out there are being hoarded and/or sold at outrageously high prices. I would have bought the game in any case as I collect all adventure games, but there are people out there who clearly bought it just because they thought it would be a future collectible. Time will tell I suppose. Stuart From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Captain Commando Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 9:31 PM To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG; David Thomas; Rafael Fajardo; Judd Ruggill Subject: [game_preservation] Limbo of the Lost Hi all, I figured I'd bring this one out to see if anyone has been following up on it recently. It's a horrible game that has plagiarized practically everything called 'Limbo of the Lost': http://kotaku.com/5019034/limbo-of-the-lost-devs-protest-innocence Apparently, they ripped entire levels and models out of Oblivion and stuck them all into the game. Now the reason why this is interesting is because you can see a cult developing around this as we speak: there is already a wiki chronicling all of the things this game ripped off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost#Controversy http://lotl.wikia.com/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost_Wiki I think there's definitely something interesting culturally about this game, how it's a commercial release which has cobbled together the plagiarized bits of so many other games. I figured I would bring it up for discussion as I think there's a connection here with preservation (if only because this thing's going to get pulled from the market within a couple weeks :P). -DM -- The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jmcdonou at uiuc.edu Sat Jul 5 15:28:39 2008 From: jmcdonou at uiuc.edu (Jerome McDonough) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 14:28:39 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage In-Reply-To: References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org> <4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org> <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org> <486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com> <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu> <486969AA.30608@aarmstrong.org> <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> Message-ID: <38F4A974-388B-4602-97F2-8B50AB620DC2@uiuc.edu> On Jul 1, 2008, at 1:54 PM, Captain Commando wrote: > Thanks, Jeremy, for all your insightful points. On the question of > 'why' isn't this supposed to be the primary issue addressed in the > 2008 Whitepaper? Yes, but I'm thinking of a little smaller set of 'whys,' rather than a big 'Why', and I think this gets to some of the issues your'e thinking about with respect to context. If I'm preserving a game to inform scholars in the future about the programming techniques used by the late 20th century gaming industry, it implies a fair different emphasis on what I'd collect and attempt to preserve than if I'm trying to inform scholars about the emergent community practices of MMORPGs. Both of these would situations would also differ somewhat from what I might try to collect and preserve if all I want to do is ensure on-going access to working copies of the games. It's one of the truisms of the preservation world that preservation without access is pointless, but we need to have discussions of the various reasons people will want to access this content in the future (or at least some reasonable guesses on our part) to help plan out collecting activities. > Also, regarding digital tape, you think this is good to use in > conjunction with hard drives? And should multiple tapes be used? > Well, for smaller computing environments, tape's good for backup; cheap, easy to replicate, easy to ship copies off site. But for larger data stores focused on preservation, I think the driving factors are going to be speed of access (I don't want to have to migrate a petabyte of data that's on tape) and the ability to detect when something's wrong (the computer can tell me when a drive has gone belly up and needs a replacement, but it can't tell me anything about a tape on the shelf). The big data centers these days aren't bothering with a lot of tape, you'll notice. Jerome McDonough, Asst. Professor Graduate School of Library & Information Science University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 501 E. Daniel Street, Room 202 Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 244-5916 jmcdonou at uiuc.edu From evilcowclone at gmail.com Sat Jul 5 16:15:43 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 14:15:43 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage In-Reply-To: <38F4A974-388B-4602-97F2-8B50AB620DC2@uiuc.edu> References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org> <486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com> <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu> <486969AA.30608@aarmstrong.org> <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> <38F4A974-388B-4602-97F2-8B50AB620DC2@uiuc.edu> Message-ID: > Yes, but I'm thinking of a little smaller set of 'whys,' rather than a big > 'Why', and I think this gets to some of the issues your'e thinking about > with respect to context. If I'm preserving a game to inform scholars in the > future about the programming techniques used by the late 20th century gaming > industry, it implies a fair different emphasis on what I'd collect and > attempt to preserve than if I'm trying to inform scholars about the emergent > community practices of MMORPGs. Both of these would situations would also > differ somewhat from what I might try to collect and preserve if all I want > to do is ensure on-going access to working copies of the games. > > It's one of the truisms of the preservation world that preservation without > access is pointless, but we need to have discussions of the various reasons > people will want to access this content in the future (or at least some > reasonable guesses on our part) to help plan out collecting activities. Ok. I suppose then we should be thinking about who will be interested in this 80 years from now rather than who will be interested in it now. We have a tendency to only be interested in what games are out now and think of each new game as a positive step forward where the games of today are always better than those of the past. As a result, most gamers seem to have little interest in older games, unless it's through nostalgia. Myself, I am interested in preserving games primarily so they can be accessed - so they can be played. For the player perspective, this requires telling me a little bit on what the game is about, what 'genre' of game it is, what it plays on, how to get it to run. As well as documentation on tips for playing the games. Part of this also requires information on what are the 'top games' in each category or the 'most significant games' or 'games of interest.' So the games that were deemed most fun to play, but also the ones that produced something interesting for the medium, even if they were spectacular failures. So the question for the player is, 'what do I want to play,' 'how do I play it,' and 'how do I find out what I might be interested in playing?' I am also interested in another perspective, a contextual or critical-analytical perspective: who made the game, when was it made, what were the circumstances around its creation, and what else did these people work on? Historically, this can also help tell us a lot about how games have evolved over time and why they were made the way they were. A lot of this information is recorded in Mobygames. There are also the questions of how the game was made, and this requires names of developers, understanding of how games were made for the platform, analyzable code, descriptions of what work was like. I assume there are many other people who would be interested in games, and so there are other questions you would have to think about - and then 'how do I preserve the games to provide the information I need?.' And again, with the exception perhaps of barebones 'can you play it?' I don't know if all this information has to be 100% for every single entry - though obviously for the most important titles, it should be as complete as possible. Mobygames was only possible through the work of hundreds of people, same as the compilation of Gamefaqs strategy guides (though these aren't always reliable), and even these are incomplete. I also want to add that finding out what you want to archive and how to archive it is just as important as organizing the archive - how are you going to identify each artifact and how can the entire archive system be standardized so that two different archives can share the same information? But for larger data stores focused on preservation, I think the driving > factors are going to be speed of access (I don't want to have to migrate a > petabyte of data that's on tape) and the ability to detect when something's > wrong (the computer can tell me when a drive has gone belly up and needs a > replacement, but it can't tell me anything about a tape on the shelf). > This is also important for personal collections! I've gotten a small taste of what it would be like to copy large numbers of files from disc backup to hard drive by going through a whole spindle. I've done this early to perform data migration from CD to DVD, but if you're doing multiple DVDs, this takes much longer - not to mention the troubles of organizing things. I have been using a free program called ycopy, which unlike the Windows bulk copying tool will copy every file over that it can and make a note of the files it was unable to copy due to corruption and not shut down if it fails to copy one file in the middle fo the process. The sleep of Reason produces monsters. "Until next time..." Captain Commando -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jul 5 17:08:55 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:08:55 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage In-Reply-To: <38F4A974-388B-4602-97F2-8B50AB620DC2@uiuc.edu> References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org> <4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org> <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org> <486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com> <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu> <486969AA.30608@aarmstrong.org> <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> <38F4A974-388B-4602-97F2-8B50AB620DC2@uiuc.edu> Message-ID: <486FE2E7.8040001@oldskool.org> Jerome McDonough wrote: > > The big data centers these days aren't bothering with a lot of tape, > you'll notice. I'm sorry, but I work for a big datacenter (petabytes) and we certainly still deal with tape. It's LTO-4, so it's big, but it's still tape. This is because you can't ship entire racks of SAN offsite for disaster recovery, but a daily shipment of tapes is no problem. I think you're correct in noting that the *small* shops don't do tape any more. That's because removable hard drives, or syncing to an offsite facility, is much cheaper. But it's not necessarily the fastest or most convenient. -- 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 evilcowclone at gmail.com Sat Jul 5 17:35:16 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 15:35:16 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage In-Reply-To: <486FE2E7.8040001@oldskool.org> References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com> <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu> <486969AA.30608@aarmstrong.org> <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> <38F4A974-388B-4602-97F2-8B50AB620DC2@uiuc.edu> <486FE2E7.8040001@oldskool.org> Message-ID: How much are tape drives and media? I honestly can't find much information on them except drive cost (about $1000). Based on hardware and media cost, which do you think is better for small, medium, and large organizations? -DM On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Jim Leonard wrote: > Jerome McDonough wrote: > >> >> The big data centers these days aren't bothering with a lot of tape, >> you'll notice. >> > > I'm sorry, but I work for a big datacenter (petabytes) and we certainly > still deal with tape. It's LTO-4, so it's big, but it's still tape. This is > because you can't ship entire racks of SAN offsite for disaster recovery, > but a daily shipment of tapes is no problem. > > I think you're correct in noting that the *small* shops don't do tape any > more. That's because removable hard drives, or syncing to an offsite > facility, is much cheaper. But it's not necessarily the fastest or most > convenient. > -- > 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/ > _______________________________________________ > 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 trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jul 5 20:35:41 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:35:41 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage In-Reply-To: References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org> <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com> <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu> <486969AA.30608@aarmstrong.org> <13F4A427-B389-4B1A-879A-5D2848864F08@uiuc.edu> <38F4A974-388B-4602-97F2-8B50AB620DC2@uiuc.edu> <486FE2E7.8040001@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4870135D.4070904@oldskool.org> Captain Commando wrote: > How much are tape drives and media? I honestly can't find much > information on them except drive cost (about $1000). Based on hardware > and media cost, which do you think is better for small, medium, and > large organizations? Size of the organization doesn't really matter; the needs of the organization is what matters, and cost can occasionally temper the needs. Cost of LTO tapes and drives isn't cheap, but if they're the best solution, you use them. For our datacenter, we must keep at least one copy offsite for auditing and disaster-recovery purposes. That means terabytes of data must be physically shipped offsite every day. Tapes are the only reasonable way to do this, since they easily survive a bumpy truck ride to the facility (whereas you can't say the same for hard drives). In about 1.5 decades, SSD (solid-state drives, or drives made completely from flash memory) will be so cheap that we won't use platter-based hard drives any more. At that point, we probably won't use tape either. -- 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 Thu Jul 10 15:22:07 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:22:07 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] =?windows-1252?q?Stanford_Workshop=3A_=93Pres?= =?windows-1252?q?erving_Knowledge_in_Virtual_Worlds=94?= Message-ID: <4876615F.8070300@aarmstrong.org> Anyone who this is aimed at might be interested in this workshop which Henry is putting on at Stanford (I'm surprised he hasn't posted it here already in fact!). I made a post on it, the text explains it pretty well (I hope): Our own Henry Lowood at How They Got Game has advertised a new August 2008 workshop titled "Preserving Knowledge in Virtual Worlds" . This will among other things hopefully answer: "How will businesses, government organizations, and academic institutions *preserve and manage* knowledge emerging from work in these spaces?" - read the post for much, /much/ more detail, and I hope to hear news from the event when it is finished! It's aimed at a pretty board range of people. If anyone is going and is willing to, a report of some kind on how it went and about what went on would be awesome! In any case, people should know it's going on. Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Sat Jul 12 10:29:18 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:29:18 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] AtariHQ Nintendo books Message-ID: This might be old information, but AtariHQ has a list of some old Nintendo strategy guides. Some of these are really strange, such as the entry from Compute!'s guide to Nintendo Games, whcih talks about the Nintendo Cereal System. http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/books/ -- 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 Jul 15 14:20:53 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:20:53 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] AtariHQ Nintendo books In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <487CEA85.3000307@aarmstrong.org> Only just got around to looking at this. Pretty neat, although I must comment, green on black...yeah, makes my eyes bleed after a while ;) - still a nice look at some classic cheat books. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > This might be old information, but AtariHQ has a list of some old > Nintendo strategy guides. Some of these are really strange, such as > the entry from Compute!'s guide to Nintendo Games, whcih talks about > the Nintendo Cereal System. > > http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/books/ > > -- > 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 Tue Jul 22 13:58:00 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:58:00 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] American Library Association's $1m budget to support games Message-ID: Gamespot reports on how the American Library Association has gotten $1m in funding to develop a library of game software. Is anyone with the SIG involved in this? This seems like something we should be working closely with. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6193196.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;6 -- 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 Jul 22 14:03:11 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:03:11 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] American Library Association's $1m budget to support games In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <488620DF.3080505@aarmstrong.org> I can't find anything on my notes or the current list of resources. I'll try and email the organisation for a response. However, does it really mention a library of game software? Looks to me more a more simple premise of teaching librarians about games...or something. Its a bit unclear. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Gamespot reports on how the American Library Association has gotten > $1m in funding to develop a library of game software. Is anyone with > the SIG involved in this? This seems like something we should be > working closely with. > > http://www.gamespot.com/news/6193196.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;6 > > > -- > 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 lowood at stanford.edu Tue Jul 22 14:03:45 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:03:45 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] American Library Association's $1m budget to support games In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080722105853.03727e98@stanford.edu> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Jul 22 14:07:15 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:07:15 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] American Library Association's $1m budget to support games In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080722105853.03727e98@stanford.edu> References: <6.2.5.6.2.20080722105853.03727e98@stanford.edu> Message-ID: <488621D3.5060902@aarmstrong.org> I won't bother emailing them then. The story wasn't too clear but this is. Thanks Henry, Andrew Henry Lowood wrote: > ALA is more about programs than collections, and this initiative is > oriented more towards gaming and gaming cultures and their impact on > libraries. Relevant topics are information literacy, use of game > collections and multiplayer gaming as draws into traditional > libraries, what librarians need to know about games, etc. Not so much > preservation, which would be more a Library of Congress issue, and > that of course is what got the NDIIPP project started. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Tue Jul 22 15:52:32 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:52:32 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club Message-ID: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> As posted on the Writers SIG mailing list, some people here might be interested in this club to play old games, just started this month. Details: http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2008/07/vintage-game-cl.html I'll possibly sign up, not decided yet. Funds are limited at the moment :) Andrew From evilcowclone at gmail.com Tue Jul 22 16:00:48 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:00:48 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: Well, there goes all the cheap copies on Amazon... Though it's not like I had they money for it anyway. -DM On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > As posted on the Writers SIG mailing list, some people here might be > interested in this club to play old games, just started this month. Details: > > http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2008/07/vintage-game-cl.html > > I'll possibly sign up, not decided yet. Funds are limited at the moment :) > > 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 Tue Jul 22 18:20:09 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:20:09 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] General computing museums/projects Message-ID: <48865D19.7030104@aarmstrong.org> Hey all, I am going to partially revamp the Projects/Links/whatevers page, here: http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Projects One way is to have a new page which only contains general computing history museums/physical archives/etc. These are of course important for the sole fact most of the things they are preserving play games. Another is to add similar groups to our own - advocacy or practical groups that aim to preserve computers or videogames (I intend to see what the CCS is up to, which I only found out about today, for instance. Man, if only our initials were not G-P-S, haha, which is a tad common to use as shorthand!). I need to know them all though! I've found a few UK ones (randomly found some good links as well as the CSS link, I am obviously terrible at finding things going on in my own country), and there are already a few on the page already. If anyone knows any physical computer history archives, web links are a good idea with a short description too, I'd love to know. I'll search Google myself, but there are bound to be ones in non-English speaking countries and other places. This will also help this project since I will also contact the respective places looking for all those who actively can accept and properly store hardware, software and document material from game developers. Thanks all, Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowood at stanford.edu Tue Jul 22 19:02:15 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:02:15 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] General computing museums/projects In-Reply-To: <48865D19.7030104@aarmstrong.org> References: <48865D19.7030104@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080722160017.036a0e98@stanford.edu> Hi Andrew, the Computer History Museum's PDP-1/Spacewar! projects should have a mention on this page. Should I just add that on the page or would you prefer to coordinate? Also, CHM should be mentioned on the second page. Henry At 03:20 PM 7/22/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >Hey all, > >I am going to partially revamp the Projects/Links/whatevers page, >here: >http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Projects > >One way is to have a new page which only contains general computing >history museums/physical archives/etc. These are of course important >for the sole fact most of the things they are preserving play games. >Another is to add similar groups to our own - advocacy or practical >groups that aim to preserve computers or videogames (I intend to see >what the CCS is up to, >which I only found out about today, for instance. Man, if only our >initials were not G-P-S, haha, which is a tad common to use as shorthand!). > >I need to know them all though! I've found a few UK ones (randomly >found some good links as well as the CSS link, I am obviously >terrible at finding things going on in my own country), and there >are already a few on the page already. > >If anyone knows any physical computer history archives, web links >are a good idea with a short description too, I'd love to know. I'll >search Google myself, but there are bound to be ones in non-English >speaking countries and other places. > >This will also help >this >project since I will also contact the respective places looking for >all those who actively can accept and properly store hardware, >software and document material from game developers. > >Thanks all, > >Andrew >_______________________________________________ >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 Jul 22 19:10:37 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:10:37 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] General computing museums/projects In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080722160017.036a0e98@stanford.edu> References: <48865D19.7030104@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080722160017.036a0e98@stanford.edu> Message-ID: <488668ED.5050505@aarmstrong.org> Anyone can edit the projects page if they want :-D The CHM is on the first page already I think, I'll be sure to add it to the second one of course. Specific projects are always worth a mention, there are several on there already, although it'd probably be an even better idea if I make a new page for each project so it can have it's full details noted. Andrew Henry Lowood wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > the Computer History Museum's PDP-1/Spacewar! projects should have a > mention on this page. Should I just add that on the page or would you > prefer to coordinate? Also, CHM should be mentioned on the second page. > > Henry > > At 03:20 PM 7/22/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >> Hey all, >> >> I am going to partially revamp the Projects/Links/whatevers page, >> here: http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Projects >> >> One way is to have a new page which only contains general computing >> history museums/physical archives/etc. These are of course important >> for the sole fact most of the things they are preserving play games. >> Another is to add similar groups to our own - advocacy or practical >> groups that aim to preserve computers or videogames (I intend to see >> what the CCS is up to, >> which I only found out about today, for instance. Man, if only our >> initials were not G-P-S, haha, which is a tad common to use as >> shorthand!). >> >> I need to know them all though! I've found a few UK ones (randomly >> found some good links as well as the CSS link, I am obviously >> terrible at finding things going on in my own country), and there are >> already a few on the page already. >> >> If anyone knows any physical computer history archives, web links are >> a good idea with a short description too, I'd love to know. I'll >> search Google myself, but there are bound to be ones in non-English >> speaking countries and other places. >> >> This will also help this project >> since >> I will also contact the respective places looking for all those who >> actively can accept and properly store hardware, software and >> document material from game developers. >> >> Thanks all, >> >> Andrew >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Tue Jul 22 19:33:47 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:33:47 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] General computing museums/projects In-Reply-To: <488668ED.5050505@aarmstrong.org> References: <48865D19.7030104@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080722160017.036a0e98@stanford.edu> <488668ED.5050505@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080722163100.064bf540@stanford.edu> Andrew, Right, it's there, but I was unclear. I meant we should add a sentence about the PDP-1/Spacewar! restoration. Conveniently, CHM has provided us with a page for a link: http://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/ The Spacewar! page is under the "applications" tab -- linking directly to it is another possibility. Henry At 04:10 PM 7/22/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >Anyone can edit the projects page if they want :-D > >The CHM is on the first page already I think, I'll be sure to add it >to the second one of course. Specific projects are always worth a >mention, there are several on there already, although it'd probably >be an even better idea if I make a new page for each project so it >can have it's full details noted. > >Andrew > >Henry Lowood wrote: >>Hi Andrew, >> >>the Computer History Museum's PDP-1/Spacewar! projects should have >>a mention on this page. Should I just add that on the page or >>would you prefer to coordinate? Also, CHM should be mentioned on >>the second page. >> >>Henry >> >>At 03:20 PM 7/22/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >>>Hey all, >>> >>>I am going to partially revamp the Projects/Links/whatevers page, >>>here: >>>http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Projects >>> >>>One way is to have a new page which only contains general >>>computing history museums/physical archives/etc. These are of >>>course important for the sole fact most of the things they are >>>preserving play games. Another is to add similar groups to our own >>>- advocacy or practical groups that aim to preserve computers or >>>videogames (I intend to see what the >>>CCS is up to, which I >>>only found out about today, for instance. Man, if only our >>>initials were not G-P-S, haha, which is a tad common to use as shorthand!). >>> >>>I need to know them all though! I've found a few UK ones (randomly >>>found some good links as well as the CSS link, I am obviously >>>terrible at finding things going on in my own country), and there >>>are already a few on the page already. >>> >>>If anyone knows any physical computer history archives, web links >>>are a good idea with a short description too, I'd love to know. >>>I'll search Google myself, but there are bound to be ones in >>>non-English speaking countries and other places. >>> >>>This will also help >>>this >>>project since I will also contact the respective places looking >>>for all those who actively can accept and properly store hardware, >>>software and document material from game developers. >>> >>>Thanks all, >>> >>>Andrew >>>_______________________________________________ >>>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 >> >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>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, 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 stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 03:10:35 2008 From: stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com (Stuart Feldhamer) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:10:35 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> If your only obstacle is that funds are limited, you should definitely do it. GF is a classic and how much could it cost? $20? Stuart > -----Original Message----- > From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_preservation- > bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Armstrong > Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 3:53 PM > To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG > Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club > > As posted on the Writers SIG mailing list, some people here might be > interested in this club to play old games, just started this month. > Details: > > http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2008/07/vintage-game- > cl.html > > I'll possibly sign up, not decided yet. Funds are limited at the moment > :) > > Andrew > _______________________________________________ > game_preservation mailing list > game_preservation at igda.org > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation From Melanie.L.Swalwell at alumni.uts.edu.au Wed Jul 23 06:37:53 2008 From: Melanie.L.Swalwell at alumni.uts.edu.au (Melanie Swalwell) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:37:53 +1000 Subject: [game_preservation] General computing museums/projects Message-ID: Hi Andrew, Not a computing museum per se, but an offshoot of the work my colleagues and I at VUW have been doing has been a special collection set up in the Library: so it could be included in the wiki pages. The contact person is Nicola Frean. Not sure there's a webpage yet, but here's a blurb with links. Description: This collection was begun by NZTronix, a multidisciplinary team of VUW researchers working to gather information on, and preserve examples of, locally written software. The Early New Zealand Software Database is one part of this http://www.nztronix.org.nz/main.php. The team also maintain a weblog at http://www.nztronix.org.nz/ and a contact address at nzsoftwarearchive at gmail.com. The archives collection is now maintained and continued by the Victoria University of Wellington Library, in association with an interdisciplinary group of academic staff. The collected archives include: physical material (e.g. boxes for games etc.), historic programming and software, booklets, correspondence, and ephemera such as advertising. The collection is particularly strong on Sega software. No computer hardware is held. The archives from the NZTronix project include information on: Emulators, Site Statistics; Software; Acid Software Games etc, and NZ User Groups in the 1980s. Melanie -- UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email. From evilcowclone at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 09:14:40 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:14:40 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> Message-ID: Oh, I thought it was out of print and outrageously expensive used like so many other classics. $40 new and in stock. But that's still a bit much for me at the moment (particularly when I need to buy a new power supply to get my PC running :) On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:10 AM, Stuart Feldhamer < stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com> wrote: > If your only obstacle is that funds are limited, you should definitely do > it. GF is a classic and how much could it cost? $20? > > Stuart > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_preservation- > > bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Armstrong > > Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 3:53 PM > > To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG > > Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club > > > > As posted on the Writers SIG mailing list, some people here might be > > interested in this club to play old games, just started this month. > > Details: > > > > http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2008/07/vintage-game- > > cl.html > > > > I'll possibly sign up, not decided yet. Funds are limited at the moment > > :) > > > > 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Wed Jul 23 10:24:47 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:24:47 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <48873F2F.5040002@aarmstrong.org> My funds are so limited I'm having to wait to pay a bill my housemate paid some months ago, less I put it on my credit card. :) That and I've got the Develop conference next week, where I'm volunteering (unpaid :) ) and will be paying for my accommodation out of pocket. I'll get around to it - but they are already well into GF in any case, so I'd be behind even if I got it now (since I'm away for a week obviously!) - I'll probably get the next game, and who knows, it might be one I own but haven't played yet (Fallout I never got far in, and Syndicate Wars, I don't even know if it runs on XP, heh). The game is ~?12 second hand from the few places I checked btw. Not in the cheap range when I picked up Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for around ?7 a week ago (my last game purchase for a while I think). Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Oh, I thought it was out of print and outrageously expensive used like > so many other classics. $40 new and in stock. But that's still a bit > much for me at the moment (particularly when I need to buy a new power > supply to get my PC running :) > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:10 AM, Stuart Feldhamer > > wrote: > > If your only obstacle is that funds are limited, you should > definitely do > it. GF is a classic and how much could it cost? $20? > > Stuart > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Wed Jul 23 10:31:23 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:31:23 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Vimeo Bans Game Play Footage Message-ID: <488740BB.3020509@aarmstrong.org> Hmm, I don't use the site much, but this is rather sad news. Sad in a pathetic way mainly. http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/07/23/video-hosting-site-bans-game-play-footage-not-quotcreative-expressionquot The opinions stated from Spinfocalypse pretty much ring true. I think this has just the rounds of "it's taking too much space and not enough people are viewing it" rather then any serious copyright concerns. I'd love to know how many videos get taken down - the only ones recently I've even heard of is EA and the Creature Creator which is dubious at best, although no one will bother contesting a DMCA notice for it. So, it seems like a business decision thinly veiled as "copyright concerns" so people don't bring up the fact Vimeo are obviously stating: "We are pretty crap at hosting video. Really. We can't even host these kinds of video, because they are too /long/". Dear me... I'll be outreaching the IA initiatives regarding in-game footage once I finish some other uploading work on the to do list. I am pretty sure the IA has received no such notices either. This further shows such online sharing sites are certainly not worth a second thought when it comes to "longevity", and it'd be important enough to warrant some work now to get some major stuff setup on the IA, hopefully by the people who make it themselves. Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowood at stanford.edu Wed Jul 23 12:46:01 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:46:01 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] General computing museums/projects In-Reply-To: <488668ED.5050505@aarmstrong.org> References: <48865D19.7030104@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080722160017.036a0e98@stanford.edu> <488668ED.5050505@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080723094542.036a1948@stanford.edu> Andrew, Oh sure, already done. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't being subversive ... Henry At 04:10 PM 7/22/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >Anyone can edit the projects page if they want :-D > >The CHM is on the first page already I think, I'll be sure to add it >to the second one of course. Specific projects are always worth a >mention, there are several on there already, although it'd probably >be an even better idea if I make a new page for each project so it >can have it's full details noted. > >Andrew > >Henry Lowood wrote: >>Hi Andrew, >> >>the Computer History Museum's PDP-1/Spacewar! projects should have >>a mention on this page. Should I just add that on the page or >>would you prefer to coordinate? Also, CHM should be mentioned on >>the second page. >> >>Henry >> >>At 03:20 PM 7/22/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >>>Hey all, >>> >>>I am going to partially revamp the Projects/Links/whatevers page, >>>here: >>>http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Projects >>> >>>One way is to have a new page which only contains general >>>computing history museums/physical archives/etc. These are of >>>course important for the sole fact most of the things they are >>>preserving play games. Another is to add similar groups to our own >>>- advocacy or practical groups that aim to preserve computers or >>>videogames (I intend to see what the >>>CCS is up to, which I >>>only found out about today, for instance. Man, if only our >>>initials were not G-P-S, haha, which is a tad common to use as shorthand!). >>> >>>I need to know them all though! I've found a few UK ones (randomly >>>found some good links as well as the CSS link, I am obviously >>>terrible at finding things going on in my own country), and there >>>are already a few on the page already. >>> >>>If anyone knows any physical computer history archives, web links >>>are a good idea with a short description too, I'd love to know. >>>I'll search Google myself, but there are bound to be ones in >>>non-English speaking countries and other places. >>> >>>This will also help >>>this >>>project since I will also contact the respective places looking >>>for all those who actively can accept and properly store hardware, >>>software and document material from game developers. >>> >>>Thanks all, >>> >>>Andrew >>>_______________________________________________ >>>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 >> >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>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, 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 lextalionis at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 13:00:16 2008 From: lextalionis at gmail.com (Greg Boyd) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:00:16 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] Music Game Expert - Need a consultant (the lineage of Guitar Hero) Message-ID: I am actually looking for a consultant with knowledge about music games, especially the predecessors of Guitar Hero. As a secondary quality, if the person is pretty sophisticated about IP, that would be great. Ideally, this would be a senior technical person in the game industry or perhaps someone on the business side. You can respond here or my work email below. Thank you, Greg _________________ *S. Gregory Boyd* *Davis & Gilbert LLP* 1740 Broadway New York, NY 10019 212-468-4942 (direct) 212-621-0916 (fax) www.dglaw.com gboyd at dglaw.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Wed Jul 23 14:14:27 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:14:27 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Music Game Expert - Need a consultant (the lineage of Guitar Hero) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48877503.4060408@aarmstrong.org> I'm no specalist, but recently one of the blogs I read posted on predecessors, and mind you, he only skimmed the top. I guess you'll know all this, but for anyone else who's interest is piqued might want to give it a read. http://www.unfetteredblather.com/guitar-zero/ The USA has had a lot more releases in the peripherals market however, and likely there are a ton I've never even seen predating Guitar Hero, nevermind the Japanese arcades and home market, who always had some wacky stuff and had a huge interest in Karaoke besides - if it is just those games, they go way back. Another sideline was I remember the Preservation SIG round table at GDC had someone specially bring up the fact they have a lot of Guitar Hero prototypes around, which will probably get lost or broken if they can't be preserved (I really need to get the museum and archives contacts done I guess!). Any specific reason you need an expert? (or I guess, it might be private :) ) You'll be, to be honest, unlikely to find one who isn't actually employed in a company who currently produces such games, but someone here might know enough about general music games or perhaps rhythm games in general. Sorry I can't be of more help! Andrew Greg Boyd wrote: > I am actually looking for a consultant with knowledge about music > games, especially the predecessors of Guitar Hero. As a secondary > quality, if the person is pretty sophisticated about IP, that would be > great. Ideally, this would be a senior technical person in the game > industry or perhaps someone on the business side. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Wed Jul 23 14:29:06 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:29:06 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" Message-ID: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> Relatively interesting look at the reasons for and against open sourcing "dead" MMO games, via. slashdot , here: http://stroppsworld.com/2008/07/22/open-sourcing-the-mmo-game/ Fair points most of us know, and it's a patent fact that most companies won't even want to dark archive their code or assets when a MMO or any other game dies, but nice to see a discussion on it. Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lextalionis at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 14:38:08 2008 From: lextalionis at gmail.com (Greg Boyd) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:38:08 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] Music Game Expert - Need a consultant (the lineage of Guitar Hero) In-Reply-To: <48877503.4060408@aarmstrong.org> References: <48877503.4060408@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: I have to hire various consultants all the time for client projects. Unfortunately, I cannot really say more. Where this person works is not really an issue for me right now. We can work out the conflicts later. Greg On 7/23/08, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > > I'm no specalist, but recently one of the blogs I read posted on > predecessors, and mind you, he only skimmed the top. I guess you'll know all > this, but for anyone else who's interest is piqued might want to give it a > read. > > http://www.unfetteredblather.com/guitar-zero/ > > The USA has had a lot more releases in the peripherals market however, and > likely there are a ton I've never even seen predating Guitar Hero, nevermind > the Japanese arcades and home market, who always had some wacky stuff and > had a huge interest in Karaoke besides - if it is just those games, they go > way back. > > Another sideline was I remember the Preservation SIG round table at GDC had > someone specially bring up the fact they have a lot of Guitar Hero > prototypes around, which will probably get lost or broken if they can't be > preserved (I really need to get the museum and archives contacts done I > guess!). > > Any specific reason you need an expert? (or I guess, it might be private :) > ) You'll be, to be honest, unlikely to find one who isn't actually employed > in a company who currently produces such games, but someone here might know > enough about general music games or perhaps rhythm games in general. Sorry I > can't be of more help! > > Andrew > > Greg Boyd wrote: > > I am actually looking for a consultant with knowledge about music games, > especially the predecessors of Guitar Hero. As a secondary quality, if > the person is pretty sophisticated about IP, that would be great. Ideally, > this would be a senior technical person in the game industry or perhaps > someone on the business side. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Jul 23 17:38:59 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:38:59 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" In-Reply-To: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> References: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: Technically, an archived online world would only be what it was like in the last stage of its existence (though you could technically load an original build if you had the code). You would need many people to play the game in order for it to be close to what it was originally. Preserving an online would would then be the equivalent of preserving 1888 France minus the people. I think the most interesting thing about preserving MMO's is preserving a record of what happened during its life, a record of what the game was about and how it was played, and the things that were in the game. If you have the code, that's great, but that's basically just like saving the last two minutes of an hour-long performance art piece. On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > Relatively interesting look at the reasons for and against open sourcing > "dead" MMO games, via. slashdot, > here: > > http://stroppsworld.com/2008/07/22/open-sourcing-the-mmo-game/ > > Fair points most of us know, and it's a patent fact that most companies > won't even want to dark archive their code or assets when a MMO or any other > game dies, but nice to see a discussion on it. > > 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 lowood at stanford.edu Wed Jul 23 18:01:56 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:01:56 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" In-Reply-To: References: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080723145032.02c356c8@stanford.edu> Devin, as it happens, we have someone from our Stanford team doing video capture in EA-Land as it is about to close. As you rightly point out, that's a different model -- documentation of what happened in the world, rather than an experience of running the software -- from what you would get from software preservation alone. And that's why we created the Archiving Virtual Worlds video collection -- now noted on our SIG page. The France 1888 analogy is more like re-enactment than archiving, although the two are related. So, yes, I agree with you. Wouldn't another model be the well-understood one of "replay." I have spoken to a couple of VW designers who thought it was technically possible, though mind-bogglingly complex: If one could produce every version of a world's software, synced to every version of it database, you could replay some things -- however, there is a lot that the database does not record (e.g., chat, though some games do offer that) that you can only get from capture. Another point -- even with the software, wouldn't you need hacks to get it to run, since the authentication servers would no longer be operational? I.e., no database of accounts, no server at all. Henry At 02:38 PM 7/23/2008, Captain Commando wrote: >Technically, an archived online world would only be what it was like >in the last stage of its existence (though you could technically >load an original build if you had the code). You would need many >people to play the game in order for it to be close to what it was >originally. Preserving an online would would then be the equivalent >of preserving 1888 France minus the people. > >I think the most interesting thing about preserving MMO's is >preserving a record of what happened during its life, a record of >what the game was about and how it was played, and the things that >were in the game. If you have the code, that's great, but that's >basically just like saving the last two minutes of an hour-long >performance art piece. > >On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Andrew Armstrong ><andrew at aarmstrong.org> wrote: >Relatively interesting look at the reasons for and against open >sourcing "dead" MMO games, >via. slashdot, here: > >http://stroppsworld.com/2008/07/22/open-sourcing-the-mmo-game/ > >Fair points most of us know, and it's a patent fact that most >companies won't even want to dark archive their code or assets when >a MMO or any other game dies, but nice to see a discussion on it. > >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 >_______________________________________________ >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 Wed Jul 23 18:05:10 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:05:10 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" In-Reply-To: References: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <4887AB16.5030908@aarmstrong.org> Yes, the medium of video and audio probably better preserves the /state/ of MMO's, but there is a lot of information that can be gleaned from the actual assets. If World of Warcraft were to close tomorrow, I doubt any wiki or database is 100% complete and accurate, so you could go into it and get the same feeling or see the same things as a player would. If the games were even just dark archived or whatever, it'd allow historians at least to see what exactly the game constituted of, even if it lacks the players. This goes for any multiplayer game - look, we preserve /pong/ for the same reasons - without a second play it is nothing but it still matters! :-) The problem also is since MMO's are obviously tied to a server model that does not allow a historian to actually even play the game without connecting to a server, once these go down, they disappear forever and are made completely unplayable. While some multiplayer games do this too (EA Sport ones come to mind, although they might include LAN and IP variants of multiplayer) most allow LAN or other play which requires no connection to a "master" server, allowing it to be viewed years further on. In any case, even if there is no one to play it, the model they employ makes it the worst kind to archive, which is obviously why the virtual world project is so important of course :-) Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Technically, an archived online world would only be what it was like > in the last stage of its existence (though you could technically load > an original build if you had the code). You would need many people to > play the game in order for it to be close to what it was originally. > Preserving an online would would then be the equivalent of preserving > 1888 France minus the people. > > I think the most interesting thing about preserving MMO's is > preserving a record of what happened during its life, a record of what > the game was about and how it was played, and the things that were in > the game. If you have the code, that's great, but that's basically > just like saving the last two minutes of an hour-long performance art > piece. > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Andrew Armstrong > > wrote: > > Relatively interesting look at the reasons for and against open > sourcing "dead" MMO games, via. slashdot > , here: > > http://stroppsworld.com/2008/07/22/open-sourcing-the-mmo-game/ > > Fair points most of us know, and it's a patent fact that most > companies won't even want to dark archive their code or assets > when a MMO or any other game dies, but nice to see a discussion on it. > > 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 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Jul 23 18:12:34 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:12:34 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" In-Reply-To: <4887AB16.5030908@aarmstrong.org> References: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> <4887AB16.5030908@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: Yeah, I can see how that works. There is always a lack of data - while I have a feeling SOE has a complete list of assets SOMEWHERE for EQ, I know it's not very well organized as we had problems getting the information when I was working on a TCG based on the game. A fan site may then be the best, but still incomplete, archive of all that material (and thankfully all that should be discoverable through the IA). Regarding getting the server to run, you could probably just set up a fake server and run the whole thing off of there. This would require getting inside the black box of the game, though, and I doubt there would be many companies willing to take that risk, even if the program is good and dead (what's to stop them from worrying about whether or not somebody will steal everything and set up a rogue server?). I know that these things can be faked, considering how Warp Pipe managed to get the Gamecube running over LAN for things like Mario Kart. I should think working with a virtual world would be somewhat more complex, but still analogous. On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > Yes, the medium of video and audio probably better preserves the *state*of MMO's, but there is a lot of information that can be gleaned from the > actual assets. If World of Warcraft were to close tomorrow, I doubt any wiki > or database is 100% complete and accurate, so you could go into it and get > the same feeling or see the same things as a player would. > > If the games were even just dark archived or whatever, it'd allow > historians at least to see what exactly the game constituted of, even if it > lacks the players. This goes for any multiplayer game - look, we preserve > *pong* for the same reasons - without a second play it is nothing but it > still matters! :-) > > The problem also is since MMO's are obviously tied to a server model that > does not allow a historian to actually even play the game without connecting > to a server, once these go down, they disappear forever and are made > completely unplayable. While some multiplayer games do this too (EA Sport > ones come to mind, although they might include LAN and IP variants of > multiplayer) most allow LAN or other play which requires no connection to a > "master" server, allowing it to be viewed years further on. > > In any case, even if there is no one to play it, the model they employ > makes it the worst kind to archive, which is obviously why the virtual world > project is so important of course :-) > > Andrew > > Captain Commando wrote: > > Technically, an archived online world would only be what it was like in the > last stage of its existence (though you could technically load an original > build if you had the code). You would need many people to play the game in > order for it to be close to what it was originally. Preserving an online > would would then be the equivalent of preserving 1888 France minus the > people. > > I think the most interesting thing about preserving MMO's is preserving a > record of what happened during its life, a record of what the game was about > and how it was played, and the things that were in the game. If you have the > code, that's great, but that's basically just like saving the last two > minutes of an hour-long performance art piece. > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Andrew Armstrong > wrote: > >> Relatively interesting look at the reasons for and against open sourcing >> "dead" MMO games, via. slashdot, >> here: >> >> http://stroppsworld.com/2008/07/22/open-sourcing-the-mmo-game/ >> >> Fair points most of us know, and it's a patent fact that most companies >> won't even want to dark archive their code or assets when a MMO or any other >> game dies, but nice to see a discussion on it. >> >> 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 > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Jul 23 18:18:05 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:18:05 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" In-Reply-To: References: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> <4887AB16.5030908@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <4887AE1D.1040408@aarmstrong.org> People have setup fake servers without the source code before. Or they've got a leaked old version and still got it to work, who knows? Some servers got shut down (EQ ones?) by someone I recall. For a competent coder it'd probably not take too much effort to sort it into a workable state, and the developers would also, obviously, have copies of the game or code which can access the world sans players, sans server, for debugging and testing (or at least, a version which requires no big authentication server, etc.) The technical problems are therefore nil. I'd say it is more a philosophical one - if they want to release it totally open (as the article I posted suggests) there are reasons why Id do that for their games and others don't - as the article says. But the other option like I mentioned is to dark archive or private archive it, so select archivists and historians can access the game but the source code is kept under wraps. Hell, even just the game server files and no source code, most companies would balk at. The effort, the time and the money involved, even before the possible need to keep it for IP rights or if they want to reuse it in the future or fear people will use it for bad things, are what put them off. But then again I've not talked to anyone at these companies about this! Henry is obviously doing that front, it'll be nice to see what comes out of the virtual worlds project, especially if some better way of getting the assets archived is achieved. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Regarding getting the server to run, you could probably just set up a > fake server and run the whole thing off of there. This would require > getting inside the black box of the game, though, and I doubt there > would be many companies willing to take that risk, even if the program > is good and dead (what's to stop them from worrying about whether or > not somebody will steal everything and set up a rogue server?). I know > that these things can be faked, considering how Warp Pipe managed to > get the Gamecube running over LAN for things like Mario Kart. I should > think working with a virtual world would be somewhat more complex, but > still analogous. From lowood at stanford.edu Wed Jul 23 18:43:05 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:43:05 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" In-Reply-To: <4887AE1D.1040408@aarmstrong.org> References: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> <4887AB16.5030908@aarmstrong.org> <4887AE1D.1040408@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080723153436.0373db40@stanford.edu> Well, there are at least two books out that cover the hacking of WoW servers. Indeed, there are many private WoW servers -- you can find YouTube movies with all sorts of stunts, mods, and movies made in them. Yes, it can be done, but my understanding is that requires some reverse engineering of server code, which would be hard to do if there were no server. But I guess if the hacks were archived ... Blizzard has shut down servers via legal means -- both for Diablo (battle.net) and WoW. However, I feel about a hacked server pretty much like I do about a cracked game -- what is the archival value other than for the hacked version? Yes, you can convey valuable information about how a game was played, but the evidentiary value is nil, since anything could have been changed. Henry At 03:18 PM 7/23/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote: >People have setup fake servers without the source code before. Or >they've got a leaked old version and still got it to work, who >knows? Some servers got shut down (EQ ones?) by someone I recall. > >For a competent coder it'd probably not take too much effort to sort >it into a workable state, and the developers would also, obviously, >have copies of the game or code which can access the world sans >players, sans server, for debugging and testing (or at least, a >version which requires no big authentication server, etc.) > >The technical problems are therefore nil. I'd say it is more a >philosophical one - if they want to release it totally open (as the >article I posted suggests) there are reasons why Id do that for >their games and others don't - as the article says. But the other >option like I mentioned is to dark archive or private archive it, so >select archivists and historians can access the game but the source >code is kept under wraps. > >Hell, even just the game server files and no source code, most >companies would balk at. The effort, the time and the money >involved, even before the possible need to keep it for IP rights or >if they want to reuse it in the future or fear people will use it >for bad things, are what put them off. > >But then again I've not talked to anyone at these companies about >this! Henry is obviously doing that front, it'll be nice to see what >comes out of the virtual worlds project, especially if some better >way of getting the assets archived is achieved. > >Andrew > >Captain Commando wrote: >>Regarding getting the server to run, you could probably just set up >>a fake server and run the whole thing off of there. This would >>require getting inside the black box of the game, though, and I >>doubt there would be many companies willing to take that risk, even >>if the program is good and dead (what's to stop them from worrying >>about whether or not somebody will steal everything and set up a >>rogue server?). I know that these things can be faked, considering >>how Warp Pipe managed to get the Gamecube running over LAN for >>things like Mario Kart. I should think working with a virtual world >>would be somewhat more complex, but still analogous. >_______________________________________________ >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 Wed Jul 23 18:45:17 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:45:17 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Open Sourcing MMO's that have "died" In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080723153436.0373db40@stanford.edu> References: <48877872.1040907@aarmstrong.org> <4887AB16.5030908@aarmstrong.org> <4887AE1D.1040408@aarmstrong.org> <6.2.5.6.2.20080723153436.0373db40@stanford.edu> Message-ID: <4887B47D.8060505@aarmstrong.org> Well, even though this is off topic discussing this point, I'd say it's a damn sight better then nothing, since once an MMO shuts down, the game is literally unplayable. :) The hacking aspect only is my statement that the technical hurdles or problems setting up a server from the games assets, if legally acquired for an archive or if open sourced, are minimal, evidence enough from the hacked ones floating around. Andrew Henry Lowood wrote: > However, I feel about a hacked server pretty much like I do about a > cracked game -- what is the /archival /value other than for the hacked > version? Yes, you can convey valuable information about how a game > was played, but the evidentiary value is nil, since anything could > have been changed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mike at multimedia.cx Wed Jul 23 21:53:40 2008 From: mike at multimedia.cx (Mike Melanson) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:53:40 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] Vimeo Bans Game Play Footage In-Reply-To: <488740BB.3020509@aarmstrong.org> References: <488740BB.3020509@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <4887E0A4.3080003@multimedia.cx> Andrew Armstrong wrote: > Hmm, I don't use the site much, but this is rather sad news. Sad in a > pathetic way mainly. > > http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/07/23/video-hosting-site-bans-game-play-footage-not-quotcreative-expressionquot > > The opinions stated from Spinfocalypse pretty much ring true. I think > this has just the rounds of "it's taking too much space and not enough > people are viewing it" rather then any serious copyright concerns. I'd > love to know how many videos get taken down - the only ones recently > I've even heard of is EA and the Creature Creator which is dubious at > best, although no one will bother contesting a DMCA notice for it. So, > it seems like a business decision thinly veiled as "copyright concerns" > so people don't bring up the fact Vimeo are obviously stating: "We are > pretty crap at hosting video. Really. We can't even host these kinds of > video, because they are too /long/". Dear me... Hey, it's their site and they can make whatever rule they want. Period. There definitely are technical issues with serving Flash videos that are too long, especially with the way that most sites do it. For my part, I'm still trying to come up with a better coding method for video game footage. -- -Mike Melanson From stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com Wed Jul 23 23:15:23 2008 From: stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com (Stuart Feldhamer) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:15:23 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: <48873F2F.5040002@aarmstrong.org> References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> <48873F2F.5040002@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <4887f3d7.3e61220a.386e.366d@mx.google.com> You know, it?s both sad and lame that a game like Grim Fandango is out of print. Can you imagine Citizen Kane going out of print? I guess this is why we need people actively working on game preservation I have been hoping and dreaming for years that one day the publishers will wake up and start leveraging their back catalogs more, at least for some of the really classic games. Alas it doesn?t seem as if the games industry will be learning this particular lesson from movies or books any time soon. Where is the long tail? I know about all the experiments in digital distribution but it?s really not quite the same. Stuart From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Armstrong Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:25 AM To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG Subject: Re: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club My funds are so limited I'm having to wait to pay a bill my housemate paid some months ago, less I put it on my credit card. :) That and I've got the Develop conference next week, where I'm volunteering (unpaid :) ) and will be paying for my accommodation out of pocket. I'll get around to it - but they are already well into GF in any case, so I'd be behind even if I got it now (since I'm away for a week obviously!) - I'll probably get the next game, and who knows, it might be one I own but haven't played yet (Fallout I never got far in, and Syndicate Wars, I don't even know if it runs on XP, heh). The game is ~?12 second hand from the few places I checked btw. Not in the cheap range when I picked up Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for around ?7 a week ago (my last game purchase for a while I think). Andrew Captain Commando wrote: Oh, I thought it was out of print and outrageously expensive used like so many other classics. $40 new and in stock. But that's still a bit much for me at the moment (particularly when I need to buy a new power supply to get my PC running :) On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:10 AM, Stuart Feldhamer wrote: If your only obstacle is that funds are limited, you should definitely do it. GF is a classic and how much could it cost? $20? Stuart -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evilcowclone at gmail.com Thu Jul 24 00:26:37 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:26:37 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: <4887f3d7.3e61220a.386e.366d@mx.google.com> References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> <48873F2F.5040002@aarmstrong.org> <4887f3d7.3e61220a.386e.366d@mx.google.com> Message-ID: Oh, you misunderstand. I had THOUGHT it was out of print, but it isn't (or at least it isn't any longer). There are other classic games though like Planescape: Torment and EarthBound (along with various other Lucasarts classics btw) that are out of print and ridiculously difficult to obtain. Hopefully though they will be bringing EB to the Virtual Console by the end of the year... -DM On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 9:15 PM, Stuart Feldhamer < stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com> wrote: > You know, it's both sad and lame that a game like Grim Fandango is out of > print. Can you imagine Citizen Kane going out of print? > > > > I guess this is why we need people actively working on game preservation? > > > > I have been hoping and dreaming for years that one day the publishers will > wake up and start leveraging their back catalogs more, at least for some of > the really classic games. Alas it doesn't seem as if the games industry will > be learning this particular lesson from movies or books any time soon. > > > > Where is the long tail? I know about all the experiments in digital > distribution but it's really not quite the same. > > > > Stuart > > > > *From:* game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto: > game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] *On Behalf Of *Andrew Armstrong > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:25 AM > *To:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG > *Subject:* Re: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club > > > > My funds are so limited I'm having to wait to pay a bill my housemate paid > some months ago, less I put it on my credit card. :) That and I've got the > Develop conference next week, where I'm volunteering (unpaid :) ) and will > be paying for my accommodation out of pocket. > > I'll get around to it - but they are already well into GF in any case, so > I'd be behind even if I got it now (since I'm away for a week obviously!) - > I'll probably get the next game, and who knows, it might be one I own but > haven't played yet (Fallout I never got far in, and Syndicate Wars, I don't > even know if it runs on XP, heh). > > The game is ~?12 second hand from the few places I checked btw. Not in the > cheap range when I picked up Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for around ?7 a > week ago (my last game purchase for a while I think). > > Andrew > > Captain Commando wrote: > > Oh, I thought it was out of print and outrageously expensive used like so > many other classics. $40 new and in stock. But that's still a bit much for > me at the moment (particularly when I need to buy a new power supply to get > my PC running :) > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 1:10 AM, Stuart Feldhamer < > stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com> wrote: > > If your only obstacle is that funds are limited, you should definitely do > it. GF is a classic and how much could it cost? $20? > > 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 Thu Jul 24 06:52:24 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:52:24 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Vimeo Bans Game Play Footage In-Reply-To: <4887E0A4.3080003@multimedia.cx> References: <488740BB.3020509@aarmstrong.org> <4887E0A4.3080003@multimedia.cx> Message-ID: <48885EE8.5070604@aarmstrong.org> Mike Melanson wrote: > Hey, it's their site and they can make whatever rule they want. Period. Oh, absolutely. But I like to editorialise my comments here, I mean, it is a tad ridiculous they ban this but not other long media. After all, it's silly not too call out the action as pathetic, since it clearly is. You mention it might be flash, but it's probably just the length and amount of downloads for the videos. Obviously TV show clips and whatever get much higher views:length ratio, so they save on bandwidth and disk space! Good for them. Not good for us, or good for people in general really. Cest la vie! it just will become less popular with gamers I guess. It is worth noting here though, since if one site does it, what's to stop all the others? (apart from GameTrailers and GameVideos I guess! :) ). Andrew From andrew at aarmstrong.org Thu Jul 24 06:54:57 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:54:57 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> <48873F2F.5040002@aarmstrong.org> <4887f3d7.3e61220a.386e.366d@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <48885F81.3060308@aarmstrong.org> To answer both of you, as far as I found it wasn't "in print" (no available copies at various sites) in the UK. I don't recall it on GAME or Gamestation shop shelves, but I'll check today when I go to town, and will look out for other cheap classics, money permitting. Wish there was a good site that told me what was in and out of print in the UK, would make it a lot easier! Planescape is another on my list of "To gets" :D Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > Oh, you misunderstand. I had THOUGHT it was out of print, but it isn't > (or at least it isn't any longer). There are other classic games > though like Planescape: Torment and EarthBound (along with various > other Lucasarts classics btw) that are out of print and ridiculously > difficult to obtain. Hopefully though they will be bringing EB to the > Virtual Console by the end of the year... > > -DM From evilcowclone at gmail.com Thu Jul 24 09:02:19 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:02:19 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: <48885F81.3060308@aarmstrong.org> References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> <48873F2F.5040002@aarmstrong.org> <4887f3d7.3e61220a.386e.366d@mx.google.com> <48885F81.3060308@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: I was talking Amazon. They had 'new' copies. http://www.amazon.com/Lucas-Arts-10918-Grim-Fandango/dp/B00000DMAD/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1216818535&sr=8-1 This appears to be the rerelease and is sold through an Amazon reseller. The jewel case versions will set you back at least $50 used, and I believe those may be the original print (so a collector would probably be more interested in those). If you'll notice, some fo the other games like Full Throttle aren't even in stock. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 4:54 AM, Andrew Armstrong wrote: > To answer both of you, as far as I found it wasn't "in print" (no available > copies at various sites) in the UK. I don't recall it on GAME or Gamestation > shop shelves, but I'll check today when I go to town, and will look out for > other cheap classics, money permitting. Wish there was a good site that told > me what was in and out of print in the UK, would make it a lot easier! > > Planescape is another on my list of "To gets" :D > > Andrew > > Captain Commando wrote: > >> Oh, you misunderstand. I had THOUGHT it was out of print, but it isn't (or >> at least it isn't any longer). There are other classic games though like >> Planescape: Torment and EarthBound (along with various other Lucasarts >> classics btw) that are out of print and ridiculously difficult to obtain. >> Hopefully though they will be bringing EB to the Virtual Console by the end >> of the year... >> >> -DM >> > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Jul 24 16:32:56 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:32:56 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Vintage Game Club In-Reply-To: References: <48863A80.8080000@aarmstrong.org> <4886d96d.0610c00a.33b7.3beb@mx.google.com> <48873F2F.5040002@aarmstrong.org> <4887f3d7.3e61220a.386e.366d@mx.google.com> <48885F81.3060308@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <4888E6F8.1020600@aarmstrong.org> Seems I was also partially wrong. I found, after searching through a dozen game stores (Nottingham and Meadowhall), two copies of the "LucasArts Classic" branded version resided in Zavvi for the much /much/ more affordable price of ?5. Seems to be a 2006 re-release, but I've never seen the LucasArts Classic brand before, so must have passed me by! Hooray! Now off to play it I guess :) put a bit of time into it before Brighton. Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > I was talking Amazon. They had 'new' copies. > > http://www.amazon.com/Lucas-Arts-10918-Grim-Fandango/dp/B00000DMAD/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1216818535&sr=8-1 > > > This appears to be the rerelease and is sold through an Amazon > reseller. The jewel case versions will set you back at least $50 used, > and I believe those may be the original print (so a collector would > probably be more interested in those). If you'll notice, some fo the > other games like Full Throttle aren't even in stock. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Thu Jul 24 19:22:29 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:22:29 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Contributing Materials Information - help! Message-ID: <48890EB5.1030908@aarmstrong.org> Okay, so, as with the museums update (which I am sorting offline and have noted all the information so far, thanks all!) there is this page I need to update too: http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Contributions "You can find here a short directory of archives and museums who are willing to accept developer materials, game source code and physical materials (such as consoles, game copies, marketing materials and documents)." Now, the question is, what information should these organisations provide to be put up on this page? My first thoughts: - Full physical street address - Contact name, title/job - Phone number - Email address Optionally, would also have: - What types of material can be accepted (might be specific types - such as "no software" or a specific era, or a specific console...who knows) Can anyone think of anything else? This is all I've got on it so far, but there is surely some meta data which would be useful to a would-be contributor. Contributors can, of course, not just be developers - I am sure a few collectors or interested parties might be able to contribute and accidentally find the page too. Therefore: off the bat, would this informtation be enough if you had something and wanted to find somewhere to contribute it to? Hopefully once this is more up to date and complete, we'll be able to advocate developers putting materials into archives :-) Show them this link, and get the word out at least more reliably then "well, you could probably...um...maybe...ring someone?...perhaps...". I'll also get together a list of rough guidelines (pending our whitepapers!) on how to store material for future preservation (eg; at companies who say "no way" at the moment :) ), or how to send it in to these organisations in the best way possible. Opinions on this are equally welcome. Reason for the "help!" part is I'm going to visit the National Museum of Computing on Saturday where I might volunteer, and this is something I will bring up - the same with a few other UK places which might be able to accept material. I'll try and visit them in person, and otherwise email out-of-UK places, and I would love to send them a form to fill in for this to keep it standardised. Thanks all! Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com Sun Jul 27 10:30:33 2008 From: stuart.feldhamer at gmail.com (Stuart Feldhamer) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:30:33 -0400 Subject: [game_preservation] Contributing Materials Information - help! In-Reply-To: <48890EB5.1030908@aarmstrong.org> References: <48890EB5.1030908@aarmstrong.org> Message-ID: <488c868c.0609c00a.0488.2551@mx.google.com> You should put up some guidelines as to what types of organizations are qualified to accept materials. Otherwise, hey, I'll definitely accept contributions, as I'm sure would many of my colleagues on the software collector's mailing list. Stuart From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Armstrong Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 7:22 PM To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG Subject: [game_preservation] Contributing Materials Information - help! Okay, so, as with the museums update (which I am sorting offline and have noted all the information so far, thanks all!) there is this page I need to update too: http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Contributions "You can find here a short directory of archives and museums who are willing to accept developer materials, game source code and physical materials (such as consoles, game copies, marketing materials and documents)." Now, the question is, what information should these organisations provide to be put up on this page? My first thoughts: - Full physical street address - Contact name, title/job - Phone number - Email address Optionally, would also have: - What types of material can be accepted (might be specific types - such as "no software" or a specific era, or a specific console...who knows) Can anyone think of anything else? This is all I've got on it so far, but there is surely some meta data which would be useful to a would-be contributor. Contributors can, of course, not just be developers - I am sure a few collectors or interested parties might be able to contribute and accidentally find the page too. Therefore: off the bat, would this informtation be enough if you had something and wanted to find somewhere to contribute it to? Hopefully once this is more up to date and complete, we'll be able to advocate developers putting materials into archives :-) Show them this link, and get the word out at least more reliably then "well, you could probably...um...maybe...ring someone?...perhaps...". I'll also get together a list of rough guidelines (pending our whitepapers!) on how to store material for future preservation (eg; at companies who say "no way" at the moment :) ), or how to send it in to these organisations in the best way possible. Opinions on this are equally welcome. Reason for the "help!" part is I'm going to visit the National Museum of Computing on Saturday where I might volunteer, and this is something I will bring up - the same with a few other UK places which might be able to accept material. I'll try and visit them in person, and otherwise email out-of-UK places, and I would love to send them a form to fill in for this to keep it standardised. Thanks all! Andrew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at aarmstrong.org Sun Jul 27 11:28:23 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:28:23 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] Contributing Materials Information - help! In-Reply-To: <488c868c.0609c00a.0488.2551@mx.google.com> References: <48890EB5.1030908@aarmstrong.org> <488c868c.0609c00a.0488.2551@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <488C9417.8030705@aarmstrong.org> This is probably only going to be archives which can allow academic access to materials, and which have a certain level of independence from financial problems - ie; they won't sell any of it off if they are pressed for cash, and won't sell it all if the owner dies for instance. Collectors I don't think would be appropriate, although I am sure they'd like to have more stuff :-) This list is a reference tool however. In some cases, if no museum/archive can take the things, and the person really can't keep them, obviously third parties would be a somewhat necessary step! I don't think the list will host individuals however, at least not from what was originally discussed at GDC. An update on my original post: I went to the National Museum of Computing and will report on it later (very cool place), and the organiser there said he could get the UK details sorted since there is basically him and 2 other places, the other two likely not accepting much. I'll get this done then sort the other ones I think, in a week or so, since I can discuss it in person with him. There won't be much leeway sadly, and I think source code might be better handled if the IA was properly equipped and a project or collection there started, since the cost of running proper servers and backups is not something this museum will be doing right now. America etc. will be different of course :) Andrew Stuart Feldhamer wrote: > > You should put up some guidelines as to what types of organizations > are qualified to accept materials. Otherwise, hey, I'll definitely > accept contributions, as I'm sure would many of my colleagues on the > software collector's mailing list... > > > > Stuart > > > > *From:* game_preservation-bounces at igda.org > [mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] *On Behalf Of *Andrew > Armstrong > *Sent:* Thursday, July 24, 2008 7:22 PM > *To:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG > *Subject:* [game_preservation] Contributing Materials Information - help! > > > > Okay, so, as with the museums update (which I am sorting offline and > have noted all the information so far, thanks all!) there is this page > I need to update too: > > http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Contributions > > "You can find here a short directory of archives and museums who are > willing to accept developer materials, game source code and physical > materials (such as consoles, game copies, marketing materials and > documents)." > > Now, the question is, what information should these organisations > provide to be put up on this page? My first thoughts: > - Full physical street address > - Contact name, title/job > - Phone number > - Email address > > Optionally, would also have: > - What types of material can be accepted (might be specific types - > such as "no software" or a specific era, or a specific console...who > knows) > > Can anyone think of anything else? This is all I've got on it so far, > but there is surely some meta data which would be useful to a would-be > contributor. Contributors can, of course, not just be developers - I > am sure a few collectors or interested parties might be able to > contribute and accidentally find the page too. Therefore: off the bat, > would this informtation be enough if you had something and wanted to > find somewhere to contribute it to? > > Hopefully once this is more up to date and complete, we'll be able to > advocate developers putting materials into archives :-) Show them this > link, and get the word out at least more reliably then "well, you > could probably...um...maybe...ring someone?...perhaps...". > > I'll also get together a list of rough guidelines (pending our > whitepapers!) on how to store material for future preservation (eg; at > companies who say "no way" at the moment :) ), or how to send it in to > these organisations in the best way possible. Opinions on this are > equally welcome. > > Reason for the "help!" part is I'm going to visit the National Museum > of Computing on Saturday where I might > volunteer, and this is something I will bring up - the same with a few > other UK places which might be able to accept material. I'll try and > visit them in person, and otherwise email out-of-UK places, and I > would love to send them a form to fill in for this to keep it > standardised. > > Thanks all! > > 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 Sun Jul 27 12:12:14 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:12:14 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] History of Apple in Manga Message-ID: http://sugaya.otaden.jp/e2594.html The history of Apple...Manga style! -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 Sun Jul 27 16:28:12 2008 From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:28:12 +0100 Subject: [game_preservation] History of Apple in Manga In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <488CDA5C.5030900@aarmstrong.org> Looks rather silly, wonder what it says in English :) Andrew Captain Commando wrote: > http://sugaya.otaden.jp/e2594.html > > The history of Apple...Manga style! > > -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 lowood at stanford.edu Mon Jul 28 13:07:16 2008 From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:07:16 -0700 Subject: [game_preservation] FYI: IGDA Leadership Forum Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080728100622.03753ce8@stanford.edu> This just in from IGDA Central -- ============================================================== 1: IGDA Leadership Forum Program Posted, Open for Registration ============================================================== The IGDA, in coordination with the Production SIG, is hosting the second annual IGDA Leadership Forum (November 13-14, San Francisco). This event will focus on advancing the state of the art in game production and management. The IGDA Leadership Forum is intended for all those who serve in a leadership role in the game development industry and are seeking to become better leaders, create successful games, and learn from other working professionals in the game industry. The first IGDA Leadership Forum was a smashing success with top rated sessions and 300+ delegates from over 15 countries. The 2008 IGDA Leadership Forum has EXPANDED its session offering to encompass a broad range of leadership topics, including personal leadership, project leadership and management leadership. The sessions will run in parallel tracks and will consist of a mix of lectures, panels, and interactive workshop sessions. Baseball all-star Curt Schilling (38 Studios) and Mark Cerny (Cerny Games) will open each day with a keynote. Other production/leadership gurus speaking include Mike Capps (Epic Games), David Edery (Xbox Live Arcade), Mat Hart (Ninja Theory), Richard Hilleman (EA), Clinton Keith, David Mann (Foundation 9), Trent Oster (BioWare Corp.), Michael Saladino (Pandemic Studios), Tim Train (Big Huge Games) - among many others. Full program and speaker details are at: http://www.igda.org/leadership/?page_id=3 For registration details (early bird pricing ends September 1st): http://www.igda.org/leadership/?page_id=4 (FYI, last year's conference sold out. There are only 500 seats or so to fill, and we expect them to go fast...) 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 zvowell at austin.utexas.edu Tue Jul 29 10:56:11 2008 From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:56:11 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments 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." Has this been something that the SIG has considered and discussed? If not, I thought it might be of interest-- I for one hadn't previously considered it as something to pursue, only because it hadn't occurred to me. But it seems like something that would be extremely valuable to historians and other researchers. 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. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas about this, I'd love to hear them. Also, I thought this might be a type of videogame-related archival material to add to the ongoing white paper discussions. Best, -- Zach Vowell Archivist, UT Videogame Archive Center for American History 512.495.4405 http://www.utvideogamearchive.org From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jul 29 11:55:45 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:55:45 -0500 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <488F3D81.1030802@oldskool.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." Such environments are extremely specific to the dev house and project. A good example can be found in the Making of The 7th Guest video that was a pack-in that came with the game; they used 3ds plus custom compression tools written by Devine. While you can always get a 486 and load it with 1993-era 3DS, those compression tools are most likely lost. -- 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 evilcowclone at gmail.com Tue Jul 29 22:44:14 2008 From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:44:14 -0600 Subject: [game_preservation] Recreating game development environments In-Reply-To: <488F3D81.1030802@oldskool.org> References: <488F3D81.1030802@oldskool.org> Message-ID: I'd also like to draw attention to the Mega Man 9 development, which I hear they're using code and tools from the NES days. On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Jim Leonard wrote: > 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." >> > > Such environments are extremely specific to the dev house and project. A > good example can be found in the Making of The 7th Guest video that was a > pack-in that came with the game; they used 3ds plus custom compression tools > written by Devine. While you can always get a 486 and load it with 1993-era > 3DS, those compression tools are most likely lost. > -- > 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/ > > _______________________________________________ > 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: