[game_preservation] White Paper: Case Study Research!

[Stuart Feldhamer]

I agree, it is a question of scope. That's why I was curious to hear others'
thoughts on this. Should be not be preserving unreleased games? If a game
was unreleased, do  we want to "officially" pretend that it doesn't exist?

 

Stuart

 

From: game_preservation-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:game_preservation-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Devin Monnens
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 9:59 AM
To: IGDA Game Preservation SIG
Subject: Re: [game_preservation] White Paper: Case Study Research!

 

Unreleased games sounds like a question of scope as well. This isn't
something we normally think of when we think 'videogame preservation' and
unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult to ensure preservation of these (I
remember an IGN interview that stated Rare has a VERY uncensored version of
Conker in their vault that NOBODY will ever see). This all came back to a
database of known released and unreleased games (though some companies don't
want ANYBODY knowing about this stuff).

 

Unreleased games also find their way to the underground collecting market
(there was a big article in the Escapist on this). Resident Evil 1.5 is one
good example, but I haven't heard any reports of leaked copies of
Castlevania Resurrection... One of the most famous cases of unreleased games
later found was 'EarthBound 0' which was mentioned at one of the GDC
roundtables. I don't think anyone's found a fabled beta cartridge of
EarthBound for the 64DD though. And then another good example was Military
Battlezone, which was thought lost and perhaps not to even exist (?) until
some guy found in his barn. That was chronicled in From Sun Tzu to XBox I
believe.

 

Maybe we want to illustrate that the case for 'lost games' isn't to a point
where many things are actually being lost wholesale, but is one where we're
dangling over the edge like How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Only a few
things have fallen into the abyss like the red ornament, but it's on such
unstable ground that a whole lot more could fall in. We could equate the
Grinch to many characters in the drama, and given the overbearing weight of
bit rot, DRMA, etc, it may very well take the strength of ten Grinches (plus
two) to keep the rest from falling in.

-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando

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