[game_preservation] White Paper: Case Study Research!

[Andrew Armstrong]

Wow, quite a list, although I'm not sure how many total Amiga games 
exist that's a fair few which are MIA.

Andrew

István Fábián wrote:

> For the Amiga platform:

> http://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_rarity=5

>  

> Cheers,

> Istvan

>

>     ----- Original Message -----

>     *From:* Andrew Armstrong <mailto:andrew at aarmstrong.org>

>     *To:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>

>     *Sent:* Friday, November 28, 2008 1:26 PM

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

>

>     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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