[game_preservation] Project Discussion: Collectors Information

[Rachel "Sheepy" Donahue]

This seems like a fairly good time to jump in and tell everyone about a  
survey I plan to do among the user community and gaming industry over the  
next couple of months (for the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, and an  
archives course I'm taking). I'm still revising the questions to make them  
friendlier to non-archivists, so any input is welcome! I'd also be very,  
very appreciative if anyone has any ideas on how to get the survey (once  
it is in final form and approved to go out by my university's review  
board) to the people who actually work for game companies.

Questions for Industry


    1. Does your company have an established archives/records management  
program?
           * Yes
           * No
           * If yes, any details you would like to share? (Free text)
    2. Does the archives/records management program include :
           * Software design materials (pre-release versions, sketchbooks,  
etc)
           * Business records (Payroll, meeting minutes, etc)
           * Both
           * Design but not business
           * Business but not design
    3. If not, have you considered establishing one?
           * Yes
           * No
           * If yes, any details you would like to share? (Free text)
    4. Have you had any formal archival training?
           * Yes
           * No
           * If yes, what form did that education take? (Free text)
    5. Are you a member of any professional organizations?
           * Yes
           * No
           * If yes, which ones? (Free text)
    6. How long have you worked for the company?
           * 0-6 month
           * 1-3 years
           * 4-6 years
           * 7-10 years
           * More than 10 years
    7. How large is your staff?
           * I am the staff
           * 1-10
           * 10-20
           * More than 20
    8. Does your company use records schedules for the design portion of  
the business?
           * Yes
           * No
           * If yes, any details you would like to share? (Free text)
    9. Do your programmers use an automated version control system?
           * Yes
           * No
           * Which one? (Free text)
   10. What are your main records series/groupings? (free text)
   11. What materials are included in the set of records pertaining to a  
particular game?
           * Design documents of all kinds
           * Development-related correspondence
           * Artwork, such as conceptual art, sketches and storyboards
           * Prototype versions of games
           * Game development source code, assets, tools, and the resulting  
binary executables
           * Machinima and other recordings of gameplay
           * Development-related maps (shadow maps, influence maps, texture  
maps, etc.)
           * Scheduling/planning documents
           * Devoloper/Publisher budgets, forecasting, market research, and  
other business-related documentation
           * Other documentation related to the developer/publisher  
relationship
           * Company newsletters and circulars
           * Advertising and marketing materials, especially pieces used  
for unique, one-time purposes
           * Press kits and demos
           * Legal documentation
           * Books on game design, development, and game theory
           * Source materials (i.e., writings, film, art, etc. that  
inspired a game)
           * Powerpoint presentations for conferences and meetings
           * Game magazines, including clippings files
           * Records from groups, organizations, and individuals who are  
associated with the videogame industry, but are not involved in game  
development
   12.

   13. Who is allowed to access the archives?
           * All staff
           * All staff and the public
           * People with approved requests
           * If (3), please describe the approval process
   14. How do you determine what is permanent and what is temporary? Are  
games that don't make it to market included in the archives? (free text)
   15. Are all versions of a game scheduled as permanent, or only the final  
product?
           * All versions
           * Major revisions
           * Final product
   16. Has or would your company ever consider(ed) transferring records to  
a university or other institution to make them available to the public?
           * Yes
           * No
           * Where/other details (Free text)
   17. What software preservation tactics do you take with archived copies  
of software? (check all that apply)
           * Simple bit-stream level preservation in the original format
           * Processed upon ingest into preservation format: (Free text for  
format description)
           * Transformed on demand (E.g. if the game is needed for a  
"classic hits" release)
           * Other: (Free text)
   18. Do you practice emulation, migration, or a combination of the two?
           * Emulation
           * Migration
           * Both
           * Details: (Free text)
   19. Are files kept on external magnetic or optical media, or in  
networked storage? What type of media/storage set up?
           * Saved on networked hard disk
           * Saved on solitary hard disk
           * Saved on external magnetic media
           * Saved on optical media
           * Other or a combination, please describe:
   20. What do you use to describe game-related records? (E.g. EAD, an  
in-house thesaurus, etc) (Free text)
   21. What level and type of metadata do you create and maintain? What  
portion of it is generated manually vs automatically? (this could probably  
be broken down into a few more questions...)
   22. Would you be willing to answer some follow-up questions and/or would  
your company be interested in working with an academic project exploring  
the preservation of video  games?
           * Yes
           * No

If yes, please provide contact information or email Rachel Donahue,  
donahrm at umd.edu


Questions for Community

    1. What classic game systems interest you?
    2. Do you own the original consoles for the systems that interest you?
    3. Do you emulate the systems that interest you? (E.g. ZSNES, Stella,  
AppleWin)
    4. Do you play classic games on modern systems? (E.g. Virtual Console,  
Namco Museum releases, etc).
    5. If you answered yes to question 5, how does the game-play experience  
compare to the original console?
    6. What gaming websites do you regularly visit?
           * MobyGames
           * Home of the Underdogs
           * GameFAQS.com
           * GameSpot
           * IGN
           * Other (Please list):
    7. What gaming websites do you contribute to? (E.g. Providing game  
data, writing articles, etc.)
           * MobyGames
           * Home of the Underdogs
           * GameFAQS.com
           * GameSpot
           * IGN
           * Other (Please list):
    8. Have you ever participated in preservation activities (activities  
that will ensure the games are playable into the future) for games?
           * Written/contributed to an emulator
           * Ported a game
           * Released a previously unreleased game
           * Imaged disks
           * Restored/refurbished hardware
    9. Have you ever remixed a game or added your own content? (E.G.  
building custom levels, replacing sprites, editing a game to make  
something new like the Mystery House Taken Over project)
   10. What aspects of a game do you think are most important to preserve?  
(Check all that apply, enter additional aspects in the free text field.)
           * Graphic content
           * Color fidelity (E.g. if something was originally played as  
white text/sprites on a black field, is it ok to present it as black  
text/sprites on a white field?)
           * Text content
           * Sound
           * Timing (Think old adventure games, here -- is system lag part  
of the experience?)
           * Method of user input (keyboard, controller, etc)
           * Other (free text)


Thanks!

  Rachel Donahue
  Graduate Assistant
  Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
  University of Maryland, College Park
  College Park, MD

On Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:10:01 -0500, Andrew Armstrong  
<andrew at aarmstrong.org> wrote:


> First project bump. I want to see if any new members have any ideas or

> thoughts on this topic, please read below to see my original post.

>

> I am going to do field research into this when I visit Back-Bytes, a

> retro gaming event in March. While I'm forming my own questions, and

> will be asking several people about the hobby, and about how it is

> relevant to historians etc., *I'd welcome any input for questions or

> areas that I should ask about*, I am not a collector and have really

> next to nothing but "common knowledge" of what they do :)

>

> Hopefully this will, at the very least, gain some links to communities,

> forums, websites, magazines and relevant media or coverage of it all.

>

> I'll also be reporting on the event for the SIG with photos and notes ;)

> there should be some interesting stuff from Ocean and Jon Hare, among

> others, and I'll actually be trying some of the games systems I've never

> touched before I bet, as well as hopefully grabbing one of the computer

> museums I've got noted on our contributions page for a chat too. I'll

> try and get this up before GDC, with possible varying degrees of  

> success. :)

>

> Andrew

>

> Andrew Armstrong wrote:

>> This is coming on from our previous discussion over spring cleaning

>> the SIG.

>>

>> *Collectors Information*

>> http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Collectors

>> Status: /On Hold/

>> Currently lead by: /No one. /

>> Short description: /A set of resource pages on the area of videogame

>> collectors. When complete, will hold information on the reasons behind

>> it, the communities that are based on it, and who gets involved in the

>> work. This will be aimed at people interested in the area for whatever

>> reason (such as tracking information not held in public archives or

>> online) rather then for collectors themselves./

>>

>> Concerns raised previously:

>> - What information should it be

>> - Who should be contacted to get the information

>> - Who is the information aimed at

>>

>> This needs someone to run it. Someone who basically can collect the

>> information and update the wiki with it. There are plenty of reasons I

>> can't do it very well, the main one being is I am not a collector and

>> barely venture into the area much. I am willing to do some of the

>> legwork but a collector who knows where to find information, who to

>> contact and interview, what information would be relevant to an

>> archivist, historian or developer, and so on is required.

>>

>> If you want to take lead on this, it shouldn't be much work - I'm

>> looking for more depth then Wikipedia, but less then a book on the

>> subject. Some "rough guide to videogame collectors and their hobby"

>> would suffice.

>>

>> I know some information was already raised, and if I am left with

>> doing this I'll follow some of it up and possibly get someone not on

>> the SIG list to do this project partially (at least providing the

>> information to me).

>>

>> Andrew

>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>

>> _______________________________________________

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>> game_preservation at igda.org

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>>




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