[game_preservation] Project Discussion: Digital Game Canon

[Andrew Armstrong]

This is a bump of the below discussion. The Digital Game Canon project 
needs input, and I was glad Stuart brought it up before.

Thoughts on the need for this, if anyone is interested in helping, or 
just ideas about what a good future system would help.

As Henry said, similar projects in film include the AFI ( 
http://www.afi.com/ ) and also the National Film Preservation Board ( 
http://www.loc.gov/film/ ) who run the National Film Registry ( 
http://www.loc.gov/film/filmnfr.html ), as part of the Library of 
Congress A/V Conversation ( http://www.loc.gov/avconservation/ )

There is no comparable project from the games industry or related 
organisations. Most organisations barely keep their own history 
preserved, to be honest. Even finding academic projects related to 
researching which games are important to preserve has come up, 
basically, entirely empty (there is some material on game preservation 
in general, but not much of that really). General preservation is great, 
but are those top games well preserved yet? I bet no one on this list 
knows the answer. :)

I'd love for this to be the basis of some American (or hopefully 
worldwide!) project which actually could fund the preservation of 
certain games (and related media) as the National Film Preservation 
Board does. This is certainly also one of the main projects which has 
some good stuff to read for everyone - gamers, developers, academics, 
and even non-gamers to a degree (just like someone who watched few films 
would look at the Film Registry). It'd require some real lawmaking, 
funding, or other stuff though, but I'd be happy if it started as a 
collaboration of interested archives who can store the games 
independently! :) I hope they would be interested in acquiring titles 
specifically if listed, and would be forerunners involved in the project 
I presume.

As for how it could be run now, I'm happy with experts. It'd be good to 
get another GDC session, or have something put online (audio, or filmed) 
related to the explanations behind the games. In the future, to have 
more input, we could have an active committee who runs the project with 
input from the public (lists of games they think need preserving - 
similar to the NFPB - http://www.loc.gov/film/vote.html ) as well as 
internal SIG suggestions. A set of guidelines (necessary age, the 
selection of a single title or a "range" allowed, and significance 
guidelines)  would be a good idea, made public so it has more credit.

Suggestions from Devin include publishing the list in Computer Game 
Studies, or Gamastura (or both) as well as our site, which sound like a 
good idea if we can provide context and reasoning behind the decision 
(rather then just "a list" which is actually incredibly boring, see: 
most blog content ;) ). It'd be nice to advertise it further afield, but 
for starters - it really just needs to be got going again! The wiki 
needs finishing for the previous entries, or a new small website built 
to hold the information (I have the domains, and might be able to cook 
up something for this). Getting researched articles and lists of 
resources related to each chosen game is also important - when Wikipedia 
is the *best* description of a given historical game's content, you know 
something is wrong.

These are only my ideas - the project is currently run by Henry, who's a 
lot more knowledgeable about game history in general, and why he decided 
to do this in the first place :)

Please put forward ideas, it'd be good to get this going again in some way.

Andrew

Andrew Armstrong wrote:

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

> the SIG.

>

> *Digital Game Canon*

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

> Status: /On Hold/

> Currently lead by: Henry Lowood.

> Short description: /Started for a GDC 2007 session. This project 

> recognizes the importance of digital game culture. The Canon provides 

> a starting-point for the difficult task of preserving its history. 

> This project will need to be restarted in some capacity in the future./

>

> Concerns raised previously:

> - Basis for choosing 10 games a year.

> - How to get it restarted without a GDC session

> - Who are the people choosing the games, and the criteria they choose them

>

> >From Henry, running the project: "Well, the criteria were discussed 

> within the group, but not openly because there was no open forum.  

> Recall that it was a GDC event, then it became a website after that.  

> If we continue the project with a mode of presentation more focused on 

> dissemination over the web and documentation, that would give us an 

> opportunity to explain the criteria

>

> That said, the heart and soul of the enterprise is to create a list a 

> la what the American Film Institute has done for U.S. cinema.   The 

> AFI's work has been a basis for preservation activities, as well."

>

>

> You can look back to some of the older emails on some of the points 

> raised, but I'd prefer if they were raised again by those who are 

> concerned so we can get discussing them again a bit more on topic. I 

> do have in mind a new website to build in my spare time (which might 

> take a while) to host information and metadata on the different games 

> we add, which is doable since we'll have a small list, and soon will 

> have more collections for different videogame material on the IA.

>

> Bring whatever you can to the discussion, although Henry leads the 

> project so it's in his ballpark where it goes from here.

>

> Andrew

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