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<font face="Georgia">Stuart,<br>
<br>
Yes, in the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, the NDIIPP work
sponsored by the US Library of Congress. We are pretty far along with
DOOM, and have made some progress with Star Raiders, SimCity, and
Spacewar! On deck are Super Mario Bros 3 and perhaps Tetris. About
Tetris, I have spoken with our own Frank Cifaldi about doing that as a
community effort if he can help with that, and we are hoping to take
him up on that as soon as DOOM is completed as a kind of template for
the work to be done. <br>
<br>
The work done so far has taken place at the University of Illinois and
Stanford. For the Stanford part, you can eavesdrop at the How They Got
Game project site:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://howtheygotgame.stanford.edu">http://howtheygotgame.stanford.edu</a><br>
Go to the wiki, then Preserving Virtual Worlds. Representative cases
shows you some of the work. For now, pretty much DOOM, the rest is not
on-line yet.<br>
<br>
Henry<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><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);">Nothing
to add to the below that hasn’t already been said, other
than to say that I would be happy to participate in this project if
needed.<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);">Actually,
I do have a question. Other than the actual selection,
is anything special currently being done to preserve the 10 titles that
have
been added to the Canon so far?<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, February 06, 2009 2:22 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> IGDA Game Preservation SIG<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [game_preservation] Project Discussion: Digital
Game Canon<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a bump of the below discussion. The
Digital Game
Canon project needs input, and I was glad Stuart brought it up before.<br>
<br>
Thoughts on the need for this, if anyone is interested in helping, or
just
ideas about what a good future system would help.<br>
<br>
As Henry said, similar projects in film include the AFI ( <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.afi.com/">http://www.afi.com/</a>
) and also the National Film
Preservation Board ( <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.loc.gov/film/">http://www.loc.gov/film/</a>
) who run the National Film Registry ( <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.loc.gov/film/filmnfr.html">http://www.loc.gov/film/filmnfr.html</a>
), as part of the Library of Congress A/V Conversation ( <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.loc.gov/avconservation/">http://www.loc.gov/avconservation/</a>
)<br>
<br>
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. :)<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 - <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.loc.gov/film/vote.html">http://www.loc.gov/film/vote.html</a>
) 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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 :)<br>
<br>
Please put forward ideas, it'd be good to get this going again in some
way.<br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
<br>
Andrew Armstrong wrote: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is coming on from our previous discussion
over spring
cleaning the SIG.<br>
<br>
<b>Digital Game Canon</b><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Digital_Game_Canon">http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/Digital_Game_Canon</a><br>
Status: <i>On Hold</i><br>
Currently lead by: Henry Lowood. <br>
Short description: <i>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.</i><br>
<br>
Concerns raised previously:<br>
- Basis for choosing 10 games a year.<br>
- How to get it restarted without a GDC session<br>
- Who are the people choosing the games, and the criteria they choose
them<br>
<br>
>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<br>
<br>
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."<br>
<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Bring whatever you can to the discussion, although Henry leads the
project so
it's in his ballpark where it goes from here.<br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
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<pre>_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>game_preservation mailing list<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:game_preservation@igda.org">game_preservation@igda.org</a><o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation">http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation</a><o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre> <o:p></o:p></pre>
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_______________________________________________
game_preservation mailing list
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Henry Lowood
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library
557 Escondido Mall, Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004 USA
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood">http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lowood@stanford.edu">lowood@stanford.edu</a>; 650-723-4602
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