[game_preservation] White Paper: Case Study Research!

[Devin Monnens]

Agreed. There are many things that are ready to tumble in or have already
(some are stuck on ledges of the chasm as 'lost' games, but a skilled
climber can find them). I made a short list of the ones ready to tumble in
one of the appendices of my paper -
http://www.deserthat.com/Preservation.pdf
I also noticed it actually starts with the wrong title page, but the content
is all there :-)



> With the current very incomplete state of archives at the moment, I'd say

> efforts are better put towards preserving more obtainable items, especially

> "lost" items which have been released but are of a limited amount or hard to

> find.

>

> Andrew

>

> Stuart Feldhamer wrote:

>

>  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<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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>



-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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