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Looks like what libraries would (or do?) use. Would be worth seeing if
anyone on the list who's working on their archive or library of games
has an existing system and methodology. I'm not for reinventing the
wheel for something that is so simple, and really needs no discussion
if someone has something worth using (or an idea worth standardising
properly).<br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
<br>
On 28/12/2009 16:54, Devin Monnens wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:9d1cf2d50912280854v22043343n42cff18f76f1a770@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Actually, I know Ritsumeikan has their own catalogue
system, but I don't remember how they did it. VGMDB simply adds new
catalogue numbers whenever a new album is discovered (for ease of the
database). It might be interesting to hear what other libraries are
using.<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Devin
Monnens <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:dmonnens@gmail.com">dmonnens@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">A
catalogue system was something I had been thinking about myself. These
numbers would be something that all libraries would recognize and so
they could list their catalogue in an online database that could easily
be cross-referenced. Certainly, you could use a citation list with all
the information I listed, but it would be easier to reduce it down to a
few numbers. These should be pretty easy to recognize too. We could use
any of the common abbreviations for system (AT = Atari (or AT2 for
Atari2600, AT5 for 5200, AT7 for 7800), GC =Gamecube, W98 = Windows 98,
etc). Publishers and developers would have numbers or abbreviations as
well (I'd stand for abbreviations though as they are easier to
understand). You could probably number games based on year of
publication in case a new version was found (that way, you're not
adding new entries alphabetically). So you might say:
<div><br>
</div>
<div>System.Number.Version.Developer.Publisher.Year<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>AT2.001.v1.US.Ata.Ata.1977</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>From this, you could tell that this is an Atari 2600 game published in 1977, version 1 (it's a first print), it's
the US
region and the developer and publisher are both Atari, Inc. This narrows it down. If you can't guess the sample game, it's Combat :)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>NES.001.v1.JP.NCL.NCL.1985.9</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>First see how much of this you can recognize. This might be
the entry for the Japanese Super Mario Bros. Note that we can also add
another number at the end indicating the month (or even the day too). </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>DOS.143.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Ok, here is a PC game. We can tell it runs on DOS and that the
version (or rather, patch) number is 1.21. It was published in the US
and Bli stands for Blizzard :P A Feb 1995 release date narrows this
down to...*drumroll* Warcraft.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>However, we might want to list the patch separately. You could
probably list .pa for 'patch' or the medium (fl for 'floppy', CD, etc).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>DOS.142.v1.US.Bli.Bli.1994.fl [Original Floppy]</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2.pa" target="_blank">DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2.pa</a>
[Patch]</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1996.CD" target="_blank">DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1996.CD</a>
[CD version]</div>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>This way, games get listed together based on whenever they are
added to the catalogue.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>You can then
have extra fields in the extended catalogue entry that indicate any special hardware
or software you need to run the game (maybe also if the entry actually
runs or has succumbed to bit rot?).<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>An online catalogue would make it necessary to indicate if the
library has box, manual, game, and inserts lines as
well (in case someone was looking for one of those).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Is this system closer to what you were thinking of? Is this
level of complexity too much? (you could probably just have say <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://DOS.142.v1.21.US.1996.CD"
target="_blank">DOS.142.v1.21.US.1996.CD</a> and skip developer and
publisher altogether). I think maybe this privileges release date, too
so that the name of the game is associated with its release dates. You
could divide these into genre with say 1.XX as 1 (action), 2 (rpg), and
then the second number is the entry number.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><font color="#888888">-Devin<br>
</font>
<div>
<div>
<div class="h5"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 8:11 AM, Andrew
Armstrong <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:andrew@aarmstrong.org" target="_blank">andrew@aarmstrong.org</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
With that being the case, standard archive and library systems can
easily do "(Game) Name(s)" "Date" "Publisher" "Developer" "System" (or
game type) and possibly "Credits", and maybe (a broad) "Genre" or
"Category" one, as well as if it supports it a "Cover picture".<br>
<br>
What more do you think a library system catalogues? Looking at the
University I'm working at, that's what they do for DVD's, books, etc.
etc. I don't think archives would do much more, as a baseline for
finding things in their collections. Perhaps someone working on one can
tell us. The only odd thing would be the comparison to book's
categorisations. Oddly, the University of Nottingham uses an American
system, which is odd mainly because it has massive sections for
"American History" but, say, UK history gets dumped into tiny
categories in "World History" I think, which I found a tad silly, but
hey ho!<br>
<br>
If we need to standardise those fields, well, are there any I've missed
out? We can put up some suggested fields as to allow people to, for
example, provide SQL database copies of what they have with those
fields with standard field names so that, perhaps, they can be shared
(or just searched) for historian's sakes if that was part of your
intent.<br>
<br>
Do you want to write it up somewhat, with more what your intent is?<br>
<br>
Anyway, it's more fun talking about bigger databases, I'm glad it went
off topic a bit :)
<div><br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
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</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="im">-- <br>
Devin Monnens<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.deserthat.com"
target="_blank">www.deserthat.com</a><br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="im">The sleep of Reason produces monsters.<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
Devin Monnens<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.deserthat.com">www.deserthat.com</a><br>
<br>
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.<br>
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