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Neat thoughts, there's a lot of areas for this section to go actually
and one is the entire loss of games, especially unreleased ones. I bet
a lot of developers must take in their stride cancellations - there's a
high percent which are cancelled at various stages, the worst being
close to going gold. Anyone know any more examples of them?<br>
<br>
Hmm, I'm thinking it might be better to make a fictional account up for
the case study. I'm not sure what'll work best myself, but lost games
are certainly one major thing.<br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
<br>
Stuart Feldhamer wrote:
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">To
me the greatest loss is when a game itself becomes lost.
There have been several cases in the past where a title was thought not
to
exist or not to have been released despite the presence of ads for the
title,
until a copy was eventually found. I believe the infamous Ultima:
Escape from
Mt. Drash fits into that category. Well what if the game had never been
found
and verified? Only a few copies are known to exist. What if there are
titles
that we think don’t exist but really do and have been lost?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Even
if we are 99.9% sure that a game hasn’t been officially
released, does that mean it shouldn’t be preserved? There are some
games that
although they were never released (to the best of our collective
knowledge),
may have been complete or very close to complete and were just killed
at the
end for financial reasons. One example that came up in discussion not
that long
ago was Ultima 8: The Lost Vale expansion, for which a box prototype
turned up.
The code may turn up at some point - it may even be among the mass of
materials that the Wing Commander fans got from EA from the old Origin
collection.
But EA didn’t really care too much about preserving that stuff, and so
for now, the code is lost. Another game that was killed close to the
finish line and which I personally mourned was Star Trek: The Secret of
Vulcan
Fury. DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy) even recorded voice acting for that
one
before he died and it presumably has been thrown in the garbage.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">I’m
not sure how this group feels about unreleased games,
but I would think that developers in particular would want to preserve
them. I
was reading something on Gamasutra the other day where a developer was
saying
that he’s been in the industry for 10 years (or something like that)
and
only had 2 released titles, because the other 3 were cancelled after
the team
had put in a lot of work. Should that work be preserved, if it was at
the point
where the game was playable and viable? Does the decision of a
marketing exec
ultimately define whether or not we want to preserve a title? I realize
there
are intellectual property laws in play here, but ultimately we have
these “guerilla
preservationists” who will do what is needed despite the law, such as
finding an old Atari 2600 game prototype on cartridge and then dumping
it onto
the net so it can be preserved.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Anyway,
it’s late and I think I rambled a bit, but I hope
I got some coherent thought across. Happy Thanksgiving. : )<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Stuart<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; color: windowtext;">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; color: windowtext;">
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:game_preservation-bounces@igda.org">game_preservation-bounces@igda.org</a>
[<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:game_preservation-bounces@igda.org">mailto:game_preservation-bounces@igda.org</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Andrew
Armstrong<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, November 21, 2008 7:48 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> IGDA Game Preservation SIG<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [game_preservation] White Paper: Case Study Research!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hey all you people with knowledge about
videogame history.
There's one part of the white paper we could do with major SIG work on
as a
whole - we've decided the majority of the paper content, which you can
check
out here (comment on it if you like):<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_Paper/Before_It%27s_Too_Late:_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper">http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_Paper/Before_It%27s_Too_Late:_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper</a><br>
<br>
The main part that we need information on is the Case Study: "What If
We
Do Nothing?"<br>
<br>
This requires either a savvy fictional account of the future where we
don't
preserve much of anything, or some good examples of what we have
already lost
(a nice twist, we reveal this has already happened...<i>dun dun dun!</i>).<br>
<br>
There are a few examples <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_paper_brainstorm/Compelling_Examples#Examples_of_Historical_Works_lost_in_Videogames">brought
up</a> before, but nothing much detailed for a real-life example. This
means we
might have to come up with a fictional account anyway, or a hybrid.<br>
<br>
So: ideas welcome! What's the worst story you can think of, or the
worst actual
thing that's been lost so far!<br>
<br>
It's aimed at developers remember - not
historians/preservationists/archivists
themselves (we already know how important it all is) - so a relevant
example
for developers (crediting of their works? people unable to play their
games
soon in the future? simply them dropping off the face of the earth in
historical terms?) would be great.<br>
<br>
Thanks if anyone can help on this!<br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
<br>
PS: we still want logo ideas from an earlier thread, surely someone
must have
some good ideas for them too ;) there's enough of you listening to
these emails
I hope!<o:p></o:p></p>
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