[game_preservation] Spring Cleaning the SIG+2009 ideas (Please respond!)

[Devin Monnens]

RE: Digital Cannon

Yeah, it would have to be a select group of 'experts' or we should say
curators who determine this (the others are the artist (here, Warren
Spector) and the audience (which kind of gets taken care of in things like
IGN's 'top 100 list'). There's different ways of how something gets
determined as being 'art' or 'canon', but the most authoritative usually
ends up being a small group of 'experts' who get together and say 'this is
what is important is and this is why' (in the case of the Literary Canon, it
was the PMYs - Pale, Male, and Yale - I think the nature of the games
industry kind of puts us in the same boat, so I think we would do well to
have more diversity on the panel than what essentially amounts to 'just
another bunch of white guys' to put it bluntly - and not meant to be
negative, though slightly humorous nonetheless, and I also think of
diversity as ultimately important to the future of the canon).

Having a canon does produce some inherent problems that the art and critical
world has already addressed, but it seems to be a necessary step nonetheless
- we have to start with SOMETHING that we can say is important to hold down
for history, and even if Shakespeare isn't THAT important, we still have to
say that it's worth studying and worth preserving. A critique of the canon
as such can come only AFTER we've made one - it would unnecessarily derail
the entire project if we worried about that now.


RE: Oral Histories

I think I talked a little about one particular need for one in pinball.
However, I think it might be possible for me to start at least one small
project sometime in the future here in Colorado. What is now the official
Colorado chapter of the IGDA is apparently the longest continually-running
group of game developers in the world (I've only been around about 5 years,
so I can only go by what they tell me!). Recording histories of game
development in Colorado and of what used to be the CGDA and simply the
culture of the industry here I think could be pretty important and I might
even be able to rustle up some grant money (and certainly volunteers at the
monthly meetings!).

Now I'm not going to say that this is something I'm going to hop out and do
today, but it certainly is something that I can propose to the chapter, and
I'm sure they'd be happy to do it. I will have to do more research into what
should actually be covered in these kinds of oral histories, but I am
certain that because it would promote not only the local IGDA chapter but
also Colorado history and industry, it could be nothing but positive if done
well and done enthusiastically.

Give me some tips on how to do it, what to cover, and who knows - maybe I
can start sometime this summer even. Just don't count on any actual
schedules! I think start small, but start somewhere.
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