[game_preservation] iPhone Game Preservation

[Jerome McDonough]

On Jul 29, 2009, at 3:18 AM, Andrew Armstrong wrote:


> Not cheap, but they do have a process! Which can only get cheaper  

> to do (and considering the budgets of films compared to games, I am  

> glad they're investing some money to start this). The actual size  

> is going to be ridiculous, I know that much just from digitising  

> 1080p material, to gigabytes per tape :)


And it's only going to get worse.  I saw a draft of a JPEG 2000  
application profile for digital cinema frame data that included a  
frame resolution of about 9600 x 15500.  Think a 6x6 array of Apple  
30" cinema displays, going at 24 frames per second.


> Unlike games, where the best practice to archive something is,  

> under the DMCA, to "Get a few copies of the original media and hope  

> they don't go wrong", which isn't as expensive but certainly needs  

> work :) Without any legal backup, the fact it's totally illegal to  

> break copy protections and make a copy of media is a huge barrier.

>


Well, not totally illegal at this point in time for everyone. :)   
Libraries enjoy an ability to defeat a technological protection  
measure for the purposes of creating a preservation copy of a game  
though the end of this calendar year as one of the limited duration  
exemptions issued by the Copyright Office.  That's one of the reasons  
the Preserving Virtual World project can actually do some of its  
research at the moment.  But, that exemption will end at the  
conclusion of 2009, and then, yes, we're back to the grab a copy and  
hope for the best approach, unless we can get the DMCA amended or  
another exemption.


> Films also have the future advantage of going all-digital, which  

> will cut the preservation costs there down significantly.

>


Sadly, I doubt it.  Storage costs go down in digital, but maintenance  
costs go up, since you have to worry about regular migration of  
assets to new hardware (and new formats) in a way you don't in the  
analog realm.  Cold storage for film stock is costly to set up, but  
once you dump a film in there, you can walk away and come back in 20  
years with a reasonable expectation that you still have a viewable  
film.  Put a digital film on a drive, walk away for 20 years and come  
back and the odds you have something viewable are nowhere near as  
good.  Eventually, with better systems for automating some of the  
preservation checks/migration processes digital preservation costs  
may come down, but really I don't see that happening on a large scale  
for 15 years or so.


> I think future proofing this somehow is necessary (like how film  

> actually has, even if it is expensive), and in the US, for all  

> intents and purposes, there is either the need to get the makers  

> involved directly or a change in the law, both seem a bit far off :(

>



I think you're absolutely right on getting the  makers involved.  I'm  
feeling a bit more positive about that than I was even a few years  
ago.  The actions of Blizzard and Microsoft towards the machinima  
community in issuing their respective ground rules for machinima,  
which made it clear that they don't have any interest in going after  
machinimists for copyright infringement, give me some hope that the  
game companies are perfectly amenable to helping with long-term  
preservation as long as it's not too onerous on them in terms of  
additional labor they have to engage in, and it doesn't have an  
adverse effect on their bottom line, both of which are probably  
achievable.  Getting their attention is probably the hardest part of  
the process.


Asst. Prof. Jerome McDonough
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
501 E. Daniel Street, MC-493
Champaign, IL 61820-6211
(217) 244-5916
jmcdonou at uiuc.edu



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