[game_preservation] White Paper: Case Study Research!

[Andrew Armstrong]

Neat thoughts, there's a lot of areas for this section to go actually 
and one is the entire loss of games, especially unreleased ones. I bet a 
lot of developers must take in their stride cancellations - there's a 
high percent which are cancelled at various stages, the worst being 
close to going gold. Anyone know any more examples of them?

Hmm, I'm thinking it might be better to make a fictional account up for 
the case study. I'm not sure what'll work best myself, but lost games 
are certainly one major thing.

Andrew

Stuart Feldhamer wrote:

>

> To me the greatest loss is when a game itself becomes lost. There have 

> been several cases in the past where a title was thought not to exist 

> or not to have been released despite the presence of ads for the 

> title, until a copy was eventually found. I believe the infamous 

> Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash fits into that category. Well what if 

> the game had never been found and verified? Only a few copies are 

> known to exist. What if there are titles that we think don't exist but 

> really do and have been lost?

>

>  

>

> Even if we are 99.9% sure that a game hasn't been officially released, 

> does that mean it shouldn't be preserved? There are some games that 

> although they were never released (to the best of our collective 

> knowledge), may have been complete or very close to complete and were 

> just killed at the end for financial reasons. One example that came up 

> in discussion not that long ago was Ultima 8: The Lost Vale expansion, 

> for which a box prototype turned up. The code may turn up at some 

> point  - it may even be among the mass of materials that the Wing 

> Commander fans got from EA from the old Origin collection. But EA 

> didn't really care too much about preserving that stuff, and so for 

> now, the code is lost.  Another game that was killed close to the 

> finish line and which I personally mourned was Star Trek: The Secret 

> of Vulcan Fury. DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy) even recorded voice acting 

> for that one before he died and it presumably has been thrown in the 

> garbage.

>

>  

>

> I'm not sure how this group feels about unreleased games, but I would 

> think that developers in particular would want to preserve them. I was 

> reading something on Gamasutra the other day where a developer was 

> saying that he's been in the industry for 10 years (or something like 

> that) and only had 2 released titles, because the other 3 were 

> cancelled after the team had put in a lot of work. Should that work be 

> preserved, if it was at the point where the game was playable and 

> viable? Does the decision of a marketing exec ultimately define 

> whether or not we want to preserve a title? I realize there are 

> intellectual property laws in play here, but ultimately we have these 

> "guerilla preservationists" who will do what is needed despite the 

> law, such as finding an old Atari 2600 game prototype on cartridge and 

> then dumping it onto the net so it can be preserved.

>

>  

>

> Anyway, it's late and I think I rambled a bit, but I hope I got some 

> coherent thought across. Happy Thanksgiving. : )

>

>  

>

> Stuart

>

>  

>

> *From:* game_preservation-bounces at igda.org 

> [mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] *On Behalf Of *Andrew 

> Armstrong

> *Sent:* Friday, November 21, 2008 7:48 PM

> *To:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG

> *Subject:* [game_preservation] White Paper: Case Study Research!

>

>  

>

> Hey all you people with knowledge about videogame history. There's one 

> part of the white paper we could do with major SIG work on as a whole 

> - we've decided the majority of the paper content, which you can check 

> out here (comment on it if you like):

>

> http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_Paper/Before_It%27s_Too_Late:_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper

>

> The main part that we need information on is the Case Study: "What If 

> We Do Nothing?"

>

> This requires either a savvy fictional account of the future where we 

> don't preserve much of anything, or some good examples of what we have 

> already lost (a nice twist, we reveal this has already happened.../dun 

> dun dun!/).

>

> There are a few examples brought up 

> <http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_paper_brainstorm/Compelling_Examples#Examples_of_Historical_Works_lost_in_Videogames> 

> before, but nothing much detailed for a real-life example. This means 

> we might have to come up with a fictional account anyway, or a hybrid.

>

> So: ideas welcome! What's the worst story you can think of, or the 

> worst actual thing that's been lost so far!

>

> It's aimed at developers remember - not 

> historians/preservationists/archivists themselves (we already know how 

> important it all is) - so a relevant example for developers (crediting 

> of their works? people unable to play their games soon in the future? 

> simply them dropping off the face of the earth in historical terms?) 

> would be great.

>

> Thanks if anyone can help on this!

>

> Andrew

>

> PS: we still want logo ideas from an earlier thread, surely someone 

> must have some good ideas for them too ;) there's enough of you 

> listening to these emails I hope!

>

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