[game_preservation] Project Discussion: Collectors Information

[Devin Monnens]

Rachael,

You've got a good list here for these. Can't think of too much to add,
though the community survey could use some fixes:

Question 5 refers to itself.
6 and 7 could use 1up, as that's a very popular site.
8 could use an 'other' category

-Devin

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:35 AM, Rachel Sheepy Donahue <donahrm at gmail.com>wrote:


> 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

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

>>>

>>> _______________________________________________

>>> game_preservation mailing list

>>> game_preservation at igda.org

>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>>>

>>>

>

>

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