[game_preservation] iPhone Game Preservation

[Andrew Armstrong]

Rachel "Sheepy" Donahue wrote:

> Because what good is having a backup copy of a game, if you can't play 

> it?

I don't think we're even near this stage yet. All the archives do have 
some form of working consoles, but not nearly everything is covered :) 
Maybe emulation stuff is more important if this is the main question, hehe.


> For now the community continues to remain our savior

For certain, popular things, yep. If this list is representative of the 
preservatoinists, archivists or museum runners (and it isn't, but I'm 
trying to get people on it as and when I can), talk about a "handful". 
The community is a good saviour, I just wish some of their sites were 
easier to use (or less political, such as Wikipedia).

Invaluable information however. ROM dumps also prove the software is 
obtainable off hardware, even if that is the legally dubiousness you 
mean :) The authenticity of this is problematic - hardware wise 
especially, and is for me the main sticking point. Playing the original 
Super Mario Bros on anything but a NES controller is a bit "wrong", as 
it is trying to play Duck Hunt without the light gun! :)

I also agree with Devin, and also someone else who say that a lot, Jason 
Scott, that at the moment preserving everything (just having the 
physical device, the software copy or whatever) is the first step 
(however much that physically amounts to is another thing) - although 
yeah, selection is important for some bits (you can't store 1000 of each 
console!). There is no way to know what is important, since even the 
closest comparison - film - has only in the last decade really pushed 
their own preservation (film registry, archives, and of course now the 
knowledge that all that early lost film was important!).

> And then, as I think came up with the Nintendo Seal of Authority line 

> of thinking (which I just skimmed!), we have the whole world of apps 

> that only work on jailbroken iPhones -- some of which are quite 

> revolutionary!

Interesting clash there with the legal boundaries, although I'd admit as 
much for any platform - especially more recently, even the locked down 
ones have some software, cracking, whatever that is interesting and 
revolutionary, or just have good games made for free, heh.

I think the main interesting point to discuss regarding digital things 
is always the move of data - the fact that consoles (especially now) are 
tied incredibly to two single points of failure (a specific, locked down 
console, and a single data disk or hard drive with data on). Unlike 
film, which has no issues once permission is granted to get from film to 
digital, or books which can be scanned, the digital data for games is a 
bit more locked down - especially behind legal, if not always physical 
barriers, and has much more limited life spans compared to a book 
(potentially hundreds of years) and film (decades or longer, depending 
on the film type) since there is bit rot in the hardware, which also 
degrades just by use. Luckily the white paper brings this up, might need 
more then that though to convince some I'd guess.

Fascinating though the mobile space, and as an extension what is 
"acceptable to preserve" or what we even want to. Luckily not at that 
stage just yet :)

Andrew