Game Preservation: Article/Link Archives

June 01, 2009

[Exhibit] Videogame Nation at the Urbis Gallery

I've been last month to the opening of the Videogame Nation exihbit at the Urbis in Manchester, England. I entirely forgot to post the links here, where I intended to - so here it is! The exhibit is the only UK Videogame exhibit which includes anything on the history of videogames - and at that does a very reasonable job at portraying the different UK developers and large variety of games, from the start of videogames to the present day. I do wish it was actually an even bigger exhibit so more could be put into it :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2009

[Article Link] Saved Games: Preserving the New TV

Crispy Gamer's Troy S. Goodfellow has written an article interviewing and reviewing various projects and people involved in archiving videogames in an article titled Saved Games: Preserving the New TV.

It even mentions our whitepaper, neat!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2009

Meet Nolan Bushnell, the man who created the videogames industry

A rather long title to a Guardian interview with Nolan Bushnell by Steve Boxer. Quite a few topics covered, from the old to the new.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

Speak, Atari - How the 2600 forged the home video game future

Michael Agger details the Atari 2600 and how it forged home the home videogame console era and legacy.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)

The History of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater: Ollies, Grabs, and Grinds

Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton have another chapter that wasn't put in their book book "Vintage Games", but instead now appears at Gamasutra, this time The History of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

Learning to let go

Interesting post by Jim Leonard who goes into detail the plight that private collectors and historians go though Learning to let go of old material relating a useful story about his recent work to get some Option Boards quickly documented then sold and donated. Some good points on why it was necessary, the justifications for it and where the items went and how it felt.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

The Center for the History of Electronic Games

Great news from Jon-Paul Dyson from the Strong Museum of Play, they have now opened The Center for the History of Electronic Games at the museum. They boast 15,000 accumulated items - 10,000 games and a lot of other related material, and the development of "a major, long-term, interactive exhibit tentatively titled The Revolutionary World of Electronic Play" - sounds great!

They're currently also cataloguing the collection so the information is available to researchers online (which is great) - and are accepting more donations of course!

This really broadens the dedicated places for videogame preservation - the west has Stanford and the Computer History Museum, the middle of the country has the UT Videogame Archive and now there is The Center for the History of Electronic Games in the East, located New York.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:52 AM | Comments (0)

Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes

Kevin Driscoll and Joshua Diaz have a great article in the Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 2 (2009) called Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes, which is as it says - along with examples. A very interesting read about an area of videogames which should get more mainstream attention :)

Via. Game Text Auto.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:47 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2009

Byte Back Reports

I've posted up a report from Byte Back, and interesting event! I also note the site has a ton of uploaded material and reports. I'll be sure to start doing this on the new IGDA site once it gets finished, and so some proper journalism on events like this :)

In any case, we can always use more reports and links to reports of retro or history events - so please tell us if you want to write any or provide links to any!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)

March 05, 2009

The Stunning Art & Design of the Atari 2600

Hehe, some funny stuff looking back at the boxart of Atari 2600 games compared to those of today. I tend to agree todays box art is a bit uninspiring (although I think truly the 90's were the best era for that art)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

March 03, 2009

On Atari Cartridges In Deep Caves

Todd Ciolek conducts another GameSetWatch interview, this time with O’Shea president Bill Houlehan. O'Shea interestingly sell mint Atari games since they stockpiled them in the early 1990's.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:27 AM | Comments (0)

A History of... Qwak?

GameSetWatch has an interview by Todd Ciolek about Qwak with the developer Jamie Woodhouse. A very long lasting game I must say.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:23 AM | Comments (0)

The Pac-Man Dossier

Interesting really really in depth look at Pac-Man in an article by Jamey Pittman at Gamasutra called The Pac-Man Dossier.

You can also check to out on the actual site on one page.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:08 AM | Comments (0)

Looking Back at Ensemble Studios

Gamaustra has a few stories on Ensemble Studios, which was closed by Microsoft. Firstly, A Postmortem Of Ensemble Studios is about how the company closed, and a look around their studio a final time in Ensemble Studios: The Last Tour. I wish there were more of these done!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:04 AM | Comments (0)

The History of the Pinball Construction Set

A section of Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice's book "Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time" is published at Gamasutra, about the game Pinball Construction Set.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:44 AM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2009

The National Videogame Archive Updates and My Report

Great to see the new National Videogame Archive get an updated site, with some good news and articles on it.

Related to this, I got along to the GameCity meeting which involved a long discussion on the NVA. Check my report and pictures here (Until we get the new IGDA site I can't post images you might recall :) ).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:01 AM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2009

Retroaction - Retro Gaming Mag

Found via. Chris at The Artful Gamer (who expresses his own amazement at this), comes news that Retroaction, a Retro Gaming Mag has had it's initial release.

I'll be checking it out shortly, I just want to try and catch up on some of the items I have lying around in my RSS feed - I'll be trying to post a good number this week, so expect old news, new news, new olds, and old olds from around the web. It'll be at least a copy of the links which is important for the SIG. Given the site changeover at the IGDA, I'll be putting them all into our resources or projects listings, and archiving the posts online.

(and by the way, yes, we could use another blog editor ;) ).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2009

Ask the Game Trust: The First Game You Bought

Crispy Gamer has an article detailing some of their staff's first games brought, and if they reminisce positively or negatively about it :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2009

Home of the Underdogs Website Hosting Ceased

Home of the Underdogs (the-underdogs.info) has now ceased to be. Financial problems with the hosting has led it to die as noted on our mailing list - although the site wasn't active generally, as noted in this RIP HotU post, there was still a forum community, and a wealth of metadata about the games on the site.

A big loss - if anyone has contact with the site coordinators, as part of our ongoing mandate to preserve videogame history (and culture!) I'd not mind getting some interviews and information.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:46 AM | Comments (1)

The Trough of No Value

Jason links to a damn neat article called The Trough of No Value, describing the phenomena of peaks and troughs of historical value of items, in this case photographs - but this is easily applied to all kinds of historical areas.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2009

European Project KEEP - Keeping emulation environments portable

Great news from Europe, we have a new multi-million Euro project based on emulation of systems, called Keeping emulation environments portable (KEEP), which the Computer Game Museum is partnered in, and Andreas Lange gave us the news via. our list. This isn't to say the other organisations shouldn't be applauded too, with places from the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Czech Republic all on board.

Looks too be good, and I hope we get updates of their progress, since they have 3 years on it ahead of them.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:12 PM | Comments (1)

On Daikatana

Alec Meer deals out his experiences with the 2000 game Daikatana in John Romero Makes Me His Bitch.

Related to this is the Let's Play of the game, in co-op - so double the fun, in the relatively new Let's Play collection on the Internet Archive.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)

January 30, 2009

Nolan Bushnell to receive BAFTA Fellowship

Neat to see industry figures from the past getting recognition today.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

Space Invaders Development

Via. GamOvr, we have an awesome image of Space Invaders development (Translation), from this article (Translated). Really wish I could read Japanese, looks interesting :D (The article was from March 2008, but I haven't ever posted it).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:24 AM | Comments (1)

January 27, 2009

The Pac-Man Dungeons

A mashup of Pac-Man into text adventure form, The Pac-Man Dungeons. Pretty funny to play, also as noted by Alice, funny maps.

Via. Wonderland.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

Videogame History Events: Back-Byte 2009

Back-Byte 2009 is taking place on the 7-8th March 2009 at Bidds Live Music Club in Stoke-on-Trent.

Also, do you know what events are going on in 2009? While we don't have a calendar currently, I will put the events on our new IGDA site once it is open, and post them to this news feed!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)

The ultimate Atari collection!

Via. GamOvr, this set of pictures offers an insight into an "ultimate collector". Just...impressive stuff.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

Websites 'must be saved for history'

The Guardian reports on the (very obvious to us!) fact that websites 'must be saved for history' after Lynne Brindley the head of the British Library has thoughts on the subject, and there is an aim to archive 8M .uk domain names.

A noble goal indeed, although the Internet Archive attempting some of that already. It would be nice to see the British Library recognise videogames as important as websites, books, newspapers, TV shows and films which they all help to archive at some point in the future.

Found via. Slashdot, which has it's own commentary.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:05 AM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2009

Smash Pack programmer wanted Echelon to release ROM Loader

An interesting historically related post about emulation, cracking and the Dreamcast, with some information titled "Smash Pack programmer wanted Echelon to release ROM Loader" where one darc explains a known text file on the root of the GD-ROM from the programmer of the game, explaining some of the ROM functions, knowing crackers Echelon would crack it. As noted in the thread, the game came out after production of the Dreamcast was halted, so the programmer likely knew it was doomed. An interesting nugget regardless.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)

Games that smell

Over at gameSniped, Nicola writes about Games that smell. I honestly never knew some games included scratch and sniff cards, or that the original Gran Turismo had the scent of rubber and petrol on it's CD.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

Donkey Kong's misrepresentation on home consoles

A humorous look at Donkey Kong on home consoles by Nadia Oxford at 1Up's retro blog.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

The Game Developer Archives: 'Monsters From the Id: The Making of Doom'

A historical article from Game Developer issue January 1994, called 'Monsters From the Id: The Making of Doom'. Nice reading!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)

Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll - the game that never was

Gred Howson at the Guardian reports on a Sensible Software game that never was. Eurogamer has an article by Jon Hare who explains the game "Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll". Nice bit of history!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:06 AM | Comments (0)

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System Released

A new history book on the block...quoting from here the info:

"Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, mentioned here previously, is now available from online and bricks-and-mortar booksellsers, including Amazon and Powells. The book is a detailed and accessible study of this influential videogame console from both computational and cultural perspectives, and is the first in the MIT Press platform studies series.
The book examines the relationship between the unusual hardware design of the Atari VCS (a.k.a. Atari 2600), the games that were created for it, and how those games influenced later titles and genres. Ian and I discuss the Atari VCS itself and six telling cartridges for the system: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars’ Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. We delve into the technical specifics of the system, tracking developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. We hope you will find a lot to enjoy and learn from in the book!"

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2009

Fukio "MTJ" Mitsuji Passes Away

The designer of Bubble Bobble has passed away on December 11th 2008.

If anyone is willing to write a biography or eulogy please contact memorials -at- igda -dot- org.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2009

Ancient Artifacts of the Origin Museum, Part II

Another bit of Origin history, recounted by Chris at his Artful Gamer site - a cabinet made up of items from the world of Britannia (with some information about what it's all about). Neat stuff :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)

The History Of Pong: Avoid Missing Game to Start Industry

Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice presents the first chapter from their upcoming book on some of the most influential games in history with the first chapter on Pong.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

January 08, 2009

EGM Shut down, 1UP Sold

Ziff Davis has sold 1UP, shut down EGM. This is partially historical since EGM has been running since 1989, where Benj Edwards has a piece on it. 1UP has fired many staff members and got taken over by UGO, reportedly 1UP will be the same, but this was taken apart. We'll see what the fallout of this is, but no doubt Ziff Davis will disappear from videogames media and 1UP will continue in some fashion for at least a while.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)

The RePlay Files: A Trip To The 1986 JAMMA Arcade Game Show, Part 1

GameSetWatch is hosting some part of the old RePlay trade magazine, called The RePlay Files: A Trip To The 1986 JAMMA Arcade Game Show, Part 1. Very interesting stuff from the year I was born (eeek!). I'll post the next part when it appears.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:23 AM | Comments (0)

Archiveteam

Jason Scott, from his previous points on AOL Hometime going down, has setup Team Archive, with Team Archive is GO, currently in wiki form. This hopefully will be a good resource for preservationists needing to find historical data on now-closed websites, and I hope it goes well for them :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

January 06, 2009

Losing the Threshold MUD Wikipedia Entry

Richard Bartle examines the Threshold MUD Wikipedia article, recently put up for deletion. Raph picks up on this and also has some lively comment discussion.

Now for a little personal addition of my own:

Of course, there are a long list of problems with the videogame sections of Wikipedia, among them the Biographies (and a very simple lack of them at least), the notability and citation sources requirements, and the internal political issues in the groups editing the site. Not an easy problem to solve, for general historical research certainly it seems as if Wikipedia is falling slowly down if it does delete entries like this.

I'll see if I can get the Digital Game Canon site up for 2009, and see if Mobygames aims to add more detailed text fields/content, or if the Digital Game Canon website can support it in some way, for all those games which simply don't have a massive dedicated Wakia wiki, or a site of their own.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:14 AM | Comments (0)

January 01, 2009

[Monthly SIG Roundup] January 2009

January comes to us, with a new year and a slow down in project work just to the Christmas period, we have however got news of my efforts doing a SIG icon, and the white paper is still being worked on.

Preservation SIG Updates

Work is still ongoing on the white paper "Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper", we'll see it hopefully finished this month.

On the internet archive front, others have updated the C64 playthroughs collection (with games like Wizard, Zorro and Slamball), the videogame replays has a new one for Megaman 6, and I've uploaded the Red Alert 3 intro and Mirrors Edge Still Alive videos, and for previews, ones for Black Mesa Source, Max Payne 2, and a lot for Mirrors Edge - admittedly I meant to get more done this month.

We're also investigating new collections of non-video items for the Internet Archive. I'll report on this if we get anywhere on it.

December Preservation SIG Work

Among our memorials work (still in progress) and white paper, we also have to decide on the SIG Icon - I've put up a design for the icon on the mailing list, where comments are welcome. I've also put forward the suggestion for a project based on making a list of recently merged or closed companies, so we can get the word out to those companies and people to preserve material (or offer any help we can) as a last resort for securing their history.

Mailing List Discussions

If you've not joined our mailing list, please do so. We've never tried using our forums it seems :) we stick to old-fangled email. In December we have had discussions on What Happens To Code From Failed Projects?,

Also make sure to put forward opinions on our SIG icon. This is the latest design, and earlier discussions have some alternative ideas.

Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

Have I missed anything this month? Then email it in to preservation_news @ igda.org !

Final Thoughts

I'll be getting the SIG's logo (+favicon, banner) finalised, although it can be changed at a later date of course, and experimenting with themes. So watch out, I might post on that too at some point! :)

Andrew Armstrong

IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2008

IGN Retro: Revising History: The Crash of '83

Travis Fahs has a go at breaking down the myths of the The Crash of '83 at IGN, which is a nice look at reasons behind it, why it would likely have never taken down anyone but Atari, and myths about over-saturation of the market, the competition from computers and the real reasons behind the crash (and some epilogue to the ordeal).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

Legend of Zelda Retrospective Vids

IGN Retro has up some nostalgia-inducing videos of past Zelda games on their site.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

VirtualBox Gets OpenGL Acceleration Support

Mark Vergeer at Armchair Arcade points out that VirtualBox 2.1.0 has preliminary OpenGL 3d support. Great news for emulation!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

Adventure Game Interfaces

Via. Matt Barton's Armchair Arcade entry, he's pointed out a great article on Adventure Game Interfaces, where Mark Newheiser goes through them very comprehensively.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

Your Sinclair Final Issue

From Kevin Grifford's Game Mag Weaseling, comes a look at the final issue of Your Sinclair, available at World of Spectrum. No doubt a good read if you ever owned the system :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2008

The Making of... Dune II

"Edge Staff" (sigh) has a good article up on Dune II, one of the first RTS games and certainly due to it's popularity and changes in interface and controls, one of the influences for most later RTS games.

(Via. Slashdot)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:21 AM | Comments (0)

Sega Master System 101: A Beginner’s Guide

Chrono at Racketboy has a beginners guide written about the Sega Master System, informative about the variety of variations, peripherals and the classic games for the system.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:20 AM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2008

Fifteen Years Of Doom, Ten years of the Dreamcast

Doom was released 15 years ago on the 10th of December, 1993. In the short span we have for the history of games, this is now an official classic.

Also recently the Dreamcast became 10 years old, according to Wikipedia the console was released in Japan on November 27th, 1998. Simon Parkin has written an article about the event with lots of games from the system listed, and fondly remembered by many.

Hopefully in the future the Preservation SIG will be able to note down historical events and do articles for them. We'll see what calendar functionality the new site will have :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2008

December 06, 2008

Blu-Ray Discs Possibly Starting To Bit Rot?

It's just a thread right now, but I don't ever recall a similar DVD issue. PS3 games are all put on Blu-Ray disks, and if a run of those go, unlike films, will a videogame company even bother (or want to) recall the game and replace it if the process making them (or the disks in general) are flawed?

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2008

Chris Kohler's Retro Systems For Sale

Chris Kohler is selling his old retro systems for Childs Play, which is a pretty good gesture - and if you're interested in the systems, well, it'll do some good :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

My Month With Christmas Lemmings--Updated Daily!

Phil Reed is posting an ongoing record of playing through the Christmas Lemmings game, all through December. Sadly, no videos, but some interesting comments on the rather unknown version of Lemmings and very festive :) Just look at those little Santa hats! Awww!

Found via. ClassicGaming.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

GameSetVideo Treasures - The Art Of The Game Mockumentary

Another GameSetVideo Treasures column is up titled - The Art Of The Game Mockumentary, written by me and Simon from the IA, so check it out :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:41 AM | Comments (0)

December 02, 2008

Old Paradigms and a Podcast

Eric Kaltman posts more from the HTGG archives in the form of Chris Crawford simulation games for the Atari. Rather a lot of them, I must say! Eric also features in a podcast too, which I've not checked out, but he says "Revel in my odd speech patterns and lack of knowledge!", which I'll take his word on.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)

Three pioneers: a historic picture and The Original Habitat Promotional Video

Raph Koster has a picture up of 3 virtual world luminaries - Dr. Richard Bartle, Randy Farmer and Pavel Curtis. He also features in one of the shots too ;) - in addition, he's linked to the original Habitat promotional video (Habitat being co-created by Randy Farmer). Interesting video for sure!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2008

Atari Nerd Interviews The First Mainstream Game Journalist - Michael Schrage Of Rolling Stone

Via GameSetWatch, Steve Fulton interviews Michael Schrage about the start of professional games journalism, in the form of working on the first issue of Electronic Games magazine. Fascinating stuff (with a few oddities of answers obviously due to the fragmented interview technique, but it's still great reading).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)

Zork PDP-11 Manual PDF

At Taking Inventory, Jason has posted up the PDF for the Zork PDP-11 Manual, which is entirely awesome - a big shout out to the anonymous contributor!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

The Essential Taito

via. GameSetWatch, 1Up's Jeremy Parish writes about the contents of The Essential Taito, with some facts and information about lots of items from the Taito history.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)

Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts signings

Chronicle Books in San Francisco is hosting a book launch for Rob Smith's book Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts, which is neat. Details of the event and venue are:

Thursday, December 4th
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Chronicle Books
680 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2008

The Last Express: Revisiting An Unsung Classic

Chris Remo at Gamasutra interviews two of the creators of the 1997 game The Last Express, Mark Netter and Mark Moran, in an interesting interview. I've got the game myself (still incomplete) but as a point and click adventure it is quite unique and very well made. Check out the trailer if you've no idea how it looks and plays, the intro if you're wondering how it starts and the Making Of for more camera-based information on the game's makings.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

Time Magazine's 1993 Look at Games

User Atari 5200 at the Digital Press forums has posted up some scans from a 1993 edition of Time magazine which looks at videogames. It comes with the obvious knocks against violence in games (Mortal Combat being the prime target of the era) when it appears as a medium aimed at children (despite stating it is growing, or by that time really had already been for many a year a medium for everyone). Some information about the 3DO too, wow, Trip Hawkings looks so cool...anyway, might be not the best reporting but is interesting to see how the mainstream magazines saw the medium at the time.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:16 AM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2008

Taking Inventory - Get Lamp blog

Jason Scott has an awesome blog starting (which I should have posted days ago!) called "Taking Inventory" which details his progress on the documentary Get Lamp. Expect a lot of cool things from the blog, at the moment detailing Infocom materials and why the documentary is taking so long.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

Zork Infocom PDP-11First Edition Manual

Via GameSetWatch comes a link to GameSniped about a First Edition Zork manual, for the original PDP-11 version. Sold for US $2,348.31 too, wow.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2008

Saving Worlds: Preserving the digital and virtual.

An article called Saving Worlds: Preserving the digital and virtual describes the Virtual Worlds project run by various Universities, as explained by our own Henry at How They Got Game.

Watch out for a super photo of our lead which isn't an avatar :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2008

Virtual Worlds TImeline

Dipty has a Virtual Worlds timeline someone made, found via. Raph's site.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2008

'Might Have Been' - Time Gal

Todd Ciolek has a column at GameSetWatch looking at 'Might Have Been' games, this time the 1985/1993 Time Gal. Background on why it didn't succeed, and the actual genre of "Quicktime event" laserdisk games from the era which is pretty interesting.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

UK National Video Game Archive's Newman On Preserving The Past

Gamasutra / GameSetWatch has an interview up with Dr. James Newman on the National Videogame Archive. Very interesting reading, I hope the project will get along well!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:59 AM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2008

Once Upon Atari Clips

IGN has some clips of Once Upon Atari up on their TV site. Interesting interviews, I never knew of the documentary before, so neat! :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

November 07, 2008

Twenty Years of the Sega Genesis

Benj Edwards has written up a great article called Genesis of success: 20 years of Sega's dark horse console, celebrating the anniversary of the console.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

November 05, 2008

Inside the Commodore 64

The great Benj Edwards has opened up the Commodore 64 and spilled it's contents all over the table. Okay, really he's just looked at what makes up a Commodore 64.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)

Tim Schafer Grim Fandango Design Doc

Over at DoubleFine.com, Tim Schafer has put up a picture of his design doc, and a few thoughts from his reminiscing about the project. Interesting stuff, and is downloadable if you click on the picture!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2008

Chris Crawfords' Library - The Journal of Computer Game Design

Thanks to Devin for the tip - Chris Crawford has the complete set of The Journal of Computer Game Design in his library. As Devin noted we need to find more sources of old magazines and journals, so give us a shout if you know of any more!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

November 02, 2008

Digital Press #1-53 Online

News comes in from Digital Press that the first 50+ issues of DP's newsletter are now available.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

The End Of Pinball?

Nick Greeley at RetroBlast! speculates on if the problems at Stern, the pinball manufacturer, is going to mean the end of pinball.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:59 PM | Comments (0)

All Style: Early Psygnosis Games and Box Art

Eric Kaltman has another great HTGG entry with lots of pictures of Psygnosis Games and Box Art.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)

World of Warcraft for the Atari 2600

The April Fool's of Blizzard's has actually been made into an Atari-2600-esk game. Some dedication there, for sure. Good work Tiros!

Found on Raph's website.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)

October 27, 2008

Fallout Retrospective

Obviously to do with the new Fallout 3, there is a GameTrailers Retrospective on the Fallout series. It does briefly look at some other early "post apocalyptic" games too.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

The anatomy of the first video game (Tennis for Two)

Kristin Kalning reports on MSNBC about Tennis for Two, which is being rebuilt at Brookhaven National Laboratory and is billed as "The first ever videogame", although that particular statement is always debatable :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:35 AM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2008

The Making of…Deus Ex Machina

An Edge article (no author name, sorry!) about the making of the lesser known Deus Ex Machina title titled "The Making of…Deus Ex Machina". Interest descriptions of the technology used, and about how the game was made.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2008

Save the Videogame

Iain Simons has posted around GameCity people that the site Save the Videogame is up, promoting the new Nottingham Trent / Museum of the Moving Image collaboration archive.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2008

Fallout 180

An interesting tale of students getting into the original Fallout games before Fallout 3 on Michael Abbott's site. Proves the games still hold up well today with a little perseverance.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:18 AM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2008

In The Beginning, There Was Populous

Phil Harr writes a bit of something about Populous over at The Escapist. His thoughts on the game, at the time, and more recently.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)

MUD Turns 30

Richard Bartel states that the 20th of October (I'm a day late catching up on this) is MUD's 30th anniversary (along with some unique bits at the anniversary event). He say's it isn't important, I think everyone who reads this or is a member of our SIG would disagree however.

There's some more thoughts at Raph Koster's blog and Jay Barnson's site.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)

C64 Orchestra

Game|Life reports on the C64 Orchestra, which plays video game tracks from, of course, the Commodore 64. They're going on tour it seems, and releasing a CD too.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2008

Arcade Machines in the Movies

ButtonMashing links to a nice page about arcade machines in movies entitled ARCADE AT THE MOVIES. 7 pages, with lots of pictures, and some funny comments :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2008

USB Atari Controller

Found via. Rock, Paper, Shotgun, is the Atari USB controller. Looks pretty neat for something based on a retro design - I like the fact you can add buttons or use the board for other purposes.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2008

Sierra Game Servers Closing Down

Important to note, of course, is when servers that can only be run by the publisher go down. Sierra announced some recently for your perusal. Here is the list:

1. Alien vs Predator 2 (Released 2001-10-30)
2. Arcanum (Released 2001-08-24)
3. Caesar IV (Released 2006-09-26)
4. Dark Reign 2 (Released 2000-06-30)
5. Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (Released 2002)
6. Empire Earth (Released 2001-11-23)
7. Empire Earth 2 (Released 2005-04-26)
8. Empire Earth: Age of Conquest (Released 2002-09-17)
9. Ground Control (Released 2000-06-01)
10. Ground Control 2 (Released 2004-06-18)
11. Homeworld (Released 1999-11-15)
12. Homeworld: Cataclysm (Released 2000-06-30)
13. Nolf 2 (2002-09-30)
14. Red Baron (Not sure what version this is - 1997 or 1998)
15. Sanity (No idea what game this is)
16. Star Trek: Armada (2000-02-29)
17. SWAT3: EE (Original game release: 1999-11-23)
18. SWAT3: GOTY ( " " )
19. The Incredible Machine (1993?)
20. Tribes2 (2001-03-21)
21. Vampire (???)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2008

Q&A: GOG!

Some interesting information on the Good Old Games site, probably the last thing I'll link to of it too, at Eerga. Answers some basic stuff on how "old" things have to be, and on DRM.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)

October 13, 2008

Good Old Games beta Impressions

Mike Doolittle at GameCritics discusses the recently-put-into-beta Good Old Games site, explaining most of the details of the service and a few of the games available.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)

October 08, 2008

Amnesia, Forgotten and Remembered

Jason Scott has news about the game Amnesia, in it's original form, has been found. Pretty amazing is an entire manuscript of the original game too!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)

The Sierra Newsletter, Sierra News Magazine & InterAction Magazine Archive

Kevin Gifford at GameSetWatch has pointed to a recently completed collection of in-house Sierra magazines archive. Pretty interesting to have an internal view of a publisher presented for the public.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:51 AM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2008

A Comprehensive List Of Documentaries/TV/Shows/Movies About Video Game and Computer History

Steve Fulton at 8bitrocket has posted a list called "A Comprehensive List Of Documentaries/TV/Shows/Movies About Video Game and Computer History". Pretty much explained by the title. There are some missing (of course, the list jumps from 1986 to 1996 after 2 entries :) ) but it's a good resource for those wanting to find more documentaries.

(Via GameSetWatch.)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

October 02, 2008

The Game Master Speaks: Hudson's 'Takahashi-Meijin' Goes Retro

Gamasutra has a long interview with Hudson's Toshiyuki Takahashi by Brendon Sheffield, which touches a lot on his and the companies early days.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

Gaming, as Viewed 20 Years Ago

the-inbetween has an insight on why games are not accepted culturally, and why the term "20 Years Ago" is not really applicable to bedroom programmers anymore. Interesting thoughts, I wonder how quaint our discussions of history will be then.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2008

Complete History of Kirby

Nadia Oxford has written up The Complete History of Kirby at 1Up. Goes through his games and his appearance in other games, with some brief descriptions of each. There's more then I imagined! and more to come no doubt.

Found via. GameSetWatch.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:33 PM | Comments (0)

Gameplayer "The Complete History Of..."

Gameplayer has put up a few articles on the history of the current big 3 game companies - Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

Relatively brief with a "Date - Event" style, but with an eye for a lot of things that each company did even if they are only covered briefly.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

Hybrid IBM/C64 Diskette Found

Slashdot reports on a hybrid IBM/C64 formatted diskette, unique as far as some other magazines, in so far there were two unique operating systems on one disk. Read the discussion for more on such phenomenon.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2008

PDP1 Spacewar!

Yes, I'm sure everyone knows there's a working PDP-1 which can play Spacewar! at the Computer History Museum in California, USA. However, this makes me envious (when Nick Porcino visited the museum and even met Steve Russell) - I so need to visit!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

Infocom's Numbers Graphed, Curmudgeonly

Matt Matthews for GameSetWatch has super colourfully graphicallised the previous numbers for Infocom.

ooooh! Pretty! :D And talk about long-tail sales when it comes to Zork...wow!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2008

A Short History of Game Manuals

Edge (but who knows who wrote it...sigh) wrote a piece up on the history of game manuals. Pretty brief to cover the entire history of them - to be honest, more pictures would make it much awesomeness, but it is a good read regardless.

A sad end too: "If, in the future, all games are delivered digitally, we will rue the loss of these artefacts." - too true!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2008

Infocom's All-Time Sales Numbers Revealed

I couldn't quite get myself to copy the pun-tastic title in it's entirity, but in any case Simon at GameSetWatch reports that Jason Scott's file have interesting numbers on Infocom's sales statistics. Some thoughts on the developer and what the numbers mean by Simon himself too.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2008

Nintendo Calendar

How They Got Game's Eric has more Nintendo stuff - this time a Nintendo calendar, in all it's glory. Includes pictures of each month, with some really odd artwork for some of them.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

'Lost' Virtual Boy Cache Found in Dubai

Quick news via. Game|Life on a cache of 100 factory sealed Virtual Boys found in Dubai. Some collectors are going to have a field day!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)

Austin GDC UT Archive Material Display

Zach Vowell shows off some of the UT Archive's material at the Austin GDC this week. Chris Kohler takes a look. Since I'm playing Deus Ex now, I'm envious of the Warren Spector stuff :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2008

DK source code link

Curt Vendel (who’s been groveling through a bunch of old Atari backup tapes for a number of years) has found and posted the source code to the Atari 800 version of Donkey Kong.

A neat find for sure (although the comments state it isn't the final code, although by that same account that might be a good thing - lack of copy protection and he like), via. GameSetWatch.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

September 07, 2008

Cloanto Releases Amiga Forever 2008 "RP2"

Some preservation news; a new release of the Amiga Forever suite:

Cloanto released this week Amiga Forever 2008 "RP2", the latest version of the award-winning Amiga preservation, emulation and support suite for Windows and other platforms, and a first batch of 10 games in the new RP2 format. Both the RP2 update and the new games are a free download for current users.

It's a pay-to-use suite for Amiga emulation, pretty neat!

(Via. GameSetWatch)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2008

The Worst Player in Video Game History

Bill Barnwell interviews Shawn Chambers about being the most poorly rated player in NHL '93. A pretty humorous account of it, admittedly someone has to be ranked 1 right? (This, of course, being in the days when EA didn't rate the lowest player 55). There's a lot of his history there, but also some funny comments on the videogame of course.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)

Consoles of the '70s

Shane Patterson at GamesRadar has a picture of supposedly every console from the 70's, 5 pages worth with short descriptions too. I certainly didn't know every one, I wonder if there are any missing though.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

Author of PEDIT5 speaks out!

Matt Barton at Armchair Arcade informs us that the developer of the earliest known CRPG PEDIT5, Rusty Rutherford, has given them some information since it was noted in the Dungeons & Desktops book they authored. It's an interesting read, for sure. I will eventually get enough time to get Dungeons & Desktops, part of which was featured at Gamasutra, and this will hopefully help their new book too :)

Great on finding information from these rather unknown people, with the early games it's almost impossible to gather information on software without talking to the author of it.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)

DigitPress Interviews Paul Allen Newell

DigitPress interviews one Paul Allen Newell, who worked on several Atari and Vectrex games. He details some of his work and information about his time at the companies he worked for, and even as a bonus made the code and documentation for his Atari VCS game, "Towering Inferno" available as long as it remains unaltered and unsold. Pretty cool, although the assembler without comments wouldn't make much sense to me :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

Update: the Archiving Virtual Worlds video collection

Henry Lowood, our SIG leader and working on How They Got Game, notes a huge amount of new Internet Archive videos, in an informative entry on the blog. Some are pretty interesting from what I watched, and worth checking out. There's a large variety of virtual worlds, so typically there is a large breadth and depth of material to see.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

An Interview With a Collector on Selling His Collection

Video Game Price Charts has a short interview with a collector, who is selling a utterly huge amount of games, and therefore most of his collection. A quick one, but without being a collector myself, I'd have no clue what it was like to build up then sell such an amount of work.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)

The Legacy at RPS

Alex Meer writes up his thoughts about the first game he ever brought, The Legacy. His slight analysis of the game leads him to believe, as he says at the end, "You shouldn’t always go back" :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:14 PM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2008

Pitfalls of DVD Collecting

An article titled "Neck Deep in Discs Or, the Practical Pitfalls of DVD Collecting" by Glenn Erickson comes to us via. GameSetWatch, an interesting look at the collector side of DVD collecting - which is basically, with the DVD-style case being used for the majority of games nowadays, very relevant for collectors.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:21 PM | Comments (0)

Errant Nintendo Licensing

How They Got Game's Eric Kaltman has an entry on the more humorous side-areas of the game industry - ie; Parties, Cereal, and School, coming in tablecolth, plate, back pack and cereal varieties. Is there anything Nintendo didn't license?

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:18 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2008

Katsuya Eguchi on Animal Crossing

A nice bit of history on Animal Crossing based around Katsuya Eguchi the creator of the series ntitled "The Inside Story of Animal Crossing", covering the history of the series and the designers thoughts on it, and the newer titles too.

Sidenote: The article, as seen in GameSetWatch, was originally "Eguchi’s Crossing", which I thought was a much nicer title ;)

(Via. GameSetWatch)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

September 01, 2008

EA Releases Red Alert for Free

EA decided to release Command & Conquer: Red Alert for free to promote it's newer sequel Red Alert 3. While it's not exactly an archivists dream (they do specifically say you can't put up your own download links of the files) it's a nice gesture. The game is from 1996, a cool 12 years ago now. Wow! (I remember playing it, played some more today - a great game, if a little fiddly).

(Found via. Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2008

Nintendo 64 101

One andymol21 helped Racketboy do a informative guide on the Nintendo 64, another in the series covering the basics of the console and some of the lesser known attributes. A very interesting read for those who've never owned this particular console, with the addons explained and the problems the console had.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2008

The rise and fall of Full Throttle: a conversation with Bill Tiller

Adventure Classic Gaming has a feature titled "The rise and fall of Full Throttle: a conversation with Bill Tiller", of course on Full Throttle, the classic adventure game, and it's non-existent sequels. It rise, it fell, but why and how?

Found via. Rock, Paper, Shotgun who has their own comments to add.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2008

MSN interviews Joe Santulli

Joe Santulli is interviewed in an MSN.com video - he is described by Devin as: the guy who runs Digital Press, one of the best classic game catalogues out there (as well as a big store in New Jersey). He's got a collection of 30k titles along with the encyclopaedic knowledge behind them.

We're always looking for information on collecting, since it is a nice parallel to game preservation. Give us a shout if you know more or would like to help our knowledge on the area.

Thanks Devin for the heads up!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:03 AM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2008

Warcraft 3 Commentary and History

Commentaries of matches people play are not new now, but were back in the day. Iain Gridwood did many for Warcraft 3, although he's now lost them and found one uploaded online (one where he takes some not small amount of pleasure eliminating his teammates and the entire enemy in a 4v4 game) - so made a few comments on what he did. It'd be interesting to find more commentaries from old games, old matches and whatnot, so if anyone has any it'd be nice to hear from you.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:41 AM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2008

Atari: The Golden Years -- A History, 1978-1981

Steve Fulton has done a massive history article at Gamasutra entitled "Atari: The Golden Years -- A History, 1978-1981" - carrying on from his previous article on how Atari started covering 1971 to 1977. This period in Atari's history is probably a peak, with their Atari 2600 console and many popular games made by them, up until the "Game industry crash" period. It has some good detail in there, a great writeup of the company history.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)

The History Of Nintendo

Randomly found, a blog entry on The History Of Nintendo, means you can grab some info on the early and mid days of Nintendo in a more readable format then an encyclopaedia entry :) (or at least I found it readable :) ).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2008

Steve Meretzky profiled "Sign of the Crab"

Over at The Escapist we have Susan Arendt looking at Steve Meretzky, profiling his past and current work and the man himself.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2008

The TRON design documents

Chris Ainsworth on his blog has found in the deep recesses of the internet some design documents for the original TRON game, which is a really neat bit of history.

(Via. GameSetWatch)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:00 AM | Comments (0)

Writing the history of virtual worlds

The BBC reports (in their technology section...sigh) about Writing the history of virtual worlds - the UT preservation project we previously reported. This is interesting for containing a shocking UK-based person speaking about preserving material, although no doubt the British Library are probably red faced for not having a hugely active part in any digital preservation I know of (and if I'm wrong, prove it! :) ).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:26 AM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2008

Count Pixel's Top five classic games

The BCS game blog has one of it's infrequent entries centred on what he says are the Top five classic games. These do include links so you can play them, which is what I'm using to justify myself missing it earlier this August :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)

Baldur's Gate 10th Anniversary

I missed putting this up, but Bioware did a short feature on their brilliant Baldur's Gate game becoming 10 years old.

There's some nice shots of the old design documents, a shame it hasn't got more, I'm sure it'd be an interesting read.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

Preserving Video Games UT Project Website launched

Megan Winget has launched the Preserving Video Games project website, including a relevant passage for myself as picked out by Zach on making material available:

With permission from project participants, all of the collected materials: digital audio interviews, their transcripts, case study reports of the interviews at the studio and individual level (if the interviews are considered too intrusive by participants or the corporation that employs them), observation transcripts, and creation artifacts will be made freely available on the Internet, through the Video Game Archive, housed at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Great stuff! The site looks like it'll be a decent source for some information, so I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)

The SEGA Game Archive

RetroBlast! points out a SEGA blog post on their SEGA archive. There is a flickr album of pictures too, and it looks like a big collection. Hopefully the collection will be well looked after, some of the piles look to be in a bit of a state :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:51 AM | Comments (0)

Chinese Chrono Trigger NES Cart

Derrick Sobodash has posted a look at the criminally bad (ho ho ho!) game Chrono Trigger, no, not the SNES one, but the NES/Famicom one, piratically made in China. Sprites ripped from everywhere, terrible plot, and superficial similarities means total knockoff goodness!

(Via. GameSetWatch)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)

The Beginnings of Sierra Part 2

Eric Kaltman at How They Got Game has put up part 2 of his look at Sierra's history. Go go horrible knockoffs!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:43 AM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2008

Sega CD 101: A Beginner’s Guide

racketboy has another getting-started article, which is interesting to learn a bit of the history behind a system even if you don't have an opportunity to own it. This time it is the Sega CD system and variants. A nice read, certainly more interestingly presented then wikipedia with a lot of extra information on it's state today (Emulators, imports, prices etc.)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)

PacMan: The Other Movie

Retroblast links to a nice youtube video for PacMan, the Hack & Slash interpretation. I found it funny at least :)

PacMan, you monster!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:33 AM | Comments (0)

The Beginnings of Sierra Part 1

Eric Kaltman at How They Got Game has been investigating Sierra, and has part 1 of the beginnings of the company since they might be no more in the future. One thing though, unless I don't get the joke; Strategies is spelt with an "e" right? So the article is correct? :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)

Game Libratory at CRCA, UCSD (NOTCOT)

The Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA) at Calit2, UC San Diego has a "Game Libratory" - "Yes, Game Libratory = Library + Laboratory", made up for investigating games. Looks great, I hope more places such as Libraries or educational institutions do things like this! Check out the main site for more info.

(via. GameSetWatch)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:22 AM | Comments (0)

Inside Nintendo's Classic Game Console

Benj Edwards has another great article at PC World, looking at the guts and glory of the Famicom! Man, I've never even see the box to this machine.

I missed posting this (and other bits and pieces) before, so oops! Sorry Benj!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:17 AM | Comments (0)

Mario, Luigi & Bill O’Reilly

TheLeetGeeks have a recording up of Bill O'Reilly doing an Insider edition on the game Super Mario Bros. You even get hints for playing the game from the people who get "paid to play games for a living", lucky them!

(via. Buttonmashing)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:59 AM | Comments (0)

Wing Commander Archiving Project

It appears EA Mythic who hold the Wing Commander IP and archives, have allowed fans in to document and archive it all. Great stuff, some nice pictures there.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:58 AM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2008

"Lost Server Connection": The Last Minutes of a Virtual World

Our own Henry Lowood has posted up a piece called "Lost Server Connection": The Last Minutes of a Virtual World, where he details the end and demise of EA-Land/The Sims Online, captured by Alex Degtiar. Check the post for much more detail. This sort of preservation work is a totally unique and one-off area, which no kind of book or interview can capture after the fact. (read on for the video)

The 5 minute ending video is quite touching, here's an embedded version of it (although the download is of much better quality):

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

Introducing the Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection Blog

Eric Kaltman at How They Got Game has a new bit up called "Introducing the Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection Blog" - it is easier if I quote:

Hello, and welcome to the official blog for the Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection in the History of Microcomputing Library. This space will mainly function as a showcase for different items in the collection, along with mild commentary and analysis of said objects.

Since I'm posting this late, he then has already posted the first entry: Sid Meier's First(?) Game and an Early Look at MicroProse. Great stuff! I'll keep posting new ones. Must be nice to open the software, but collectors must be a fainting :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

Game Mag Weaseling: Where to begin?

Kevin Gifford explains the reasons behind the educational games press in the UK, in this case Let's Compute!, exists in his column titled "Game Mag Weaseling: Where to begin?".

I personally only ever used Acorns, I wasn't old enough for BBC Micros, but obviously these magazines did fill a small niche, for a tiny while.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

Simon Turns 30: The History of the Toy and Gaming's First Grudge

Only a...bit late. Here for posterity, who said history had to be on time anyway? Benj Edwards has written up a good piece at 1Up called Simon Turns 30: The History of the Toy and Gaming's First Grudge. This involves the named machine, Ralph Baer and Nolan Bushnell.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

A History of Gaming Platforms: Atari 8-Bit Computers

Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice have a new Gamasutra article documenting the consoles, entitled "A History of Gaming Platforms: Atari 8-Bit Computers" - I wonder if you can guess which one it is? :)

(I missed posting this before, oops).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)

The History of Video Games: The First Video Game?...

Randomly found we have one Harry looking at the various claimants of the "First Video Game" title. A interesting read for myself who didn't know all of them, and no presumptions are made on behalf of the author.

"Make your own decision" I think is probably how it is best put in the end, it won't be something easily "solved" :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:39 AM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2008

Word Play: The Evolution of Game Journalism

Steve Kent at Crispy Gamer has an article up titled "Word Play: The Evolution of Game Journalism", detailing the start of game journalism, up to the present day and some thoughts on the future. I meant to post this ages ago, but only just now got around to reading it. Interesting stuff!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)

The World of Western RPGs

Via. The Rampant Coyote Jay Barnson (with some nice commentary!), it seems a new set of Mobygames articles are out called The World of Western RPGs. As Jay states, the articles might not be of the highest quality (and some comments made comparisons with Matt Barton's Gamasutra articles on RPG history and his book), it might be well worth a read.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2008

Journal Starting "Historical Studies of Digital Entertainment Media"

Our own SIG leader Henry Lowood has on How They Got Game mention of a new journal titled "Historical Studies of Digital Entertainment Media", which will be published online for free (it appears) in Winter 2009 and all authors will retain rights. Looks interesting, since the first issue is titled "Digital Games: Historical and Preservation Studies.". Henry will have more details to come, so keep an eye on his site.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2008

Making Tennis For Two On Modern Hardware

A very interesting "How to" with a lot of detail, on how to create Tennis for Two on modern hardware. Seems like enough detail to do it on your own oscilloscope!

(Via. Grand Text Auto)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)

The Good and Bad of Sport Videogames

Patrick Hruby has on ESPN an article on the innovations (both the good and bad) throughout the history of sport games. While many recent features are listed, it touches on a lot of classic features from the cartridge era and beyond.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

Defender...in a Favicon

Yes, it is true, hehe. Try the enter version to at least make it partially playable :)

(via. Wonderland)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2008

SomethingAwful Game Articles

Some humour from SomethingAwful with PC Game Covers 2, looking at various poorly made old game covers, and for Nintendo fans comes some humourous Counselor's Corner! tips in Nintendo Power: The Lost Pages.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2008

GOG from CD-Projekt to Offer Classic Games

Good news, from some perspectives, is that CD-Projekt are offering classic PC games for download from their new site come August or so at GOG.com, with prices either being $5.99 or $9.99. They say modern compatibility (perhaps the obvious objective for it really!) is there, and possibilities of extra downloads. It is good to see some great games get some life, and there is no DRM according to the interview - a big plus for us preservationists who hate it! Without a physical copy being offered, the fact is, if the system goes offline we'll still be able to play the games. I am glad they understand this!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)

Stanford Workshop: “Preserving Knowledge in Virtual Worlds”

Our own Henry Lowood at How They Got Game has advertised a new August 2008 workshop titled "Preserving Knowledge in Virtual Worlds". This will among other things hopefully answer: "How will businesses, government organizations, and academic institutions preserve and manage knowledge emerging from work in these spaces?" - read the post for much, much more detail, and I hope to hear news from the event when it is finished!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

The Importance Of History In The Excellence Of Video Games

Via. Matteo at How They Got Game, a The Escapist piece which passed me by until now, titled "Excellence Never Goes Out Of Date" penned by Rob Zancy - detailing the basic fact that, of course, if no one plays old games then they couldn't very well make good new ones, and the history of games is very important.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)

Henry Lowood on Machinima and the History of Digital Games

As the titles says, Henry has good piece on Machinima, it's importance for digital game history. Nice to see more evangelicalism for this sector of game preservation!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

The First Video Game Sequel with modding?

Jay Barnson at Rament Cyote muses on what the possible first video game sequel and moddable game - Hunt the Wumpus. A interesting note to look at.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

Discworld Game Remakes

Very interesting, from Chris Bateman comes the news that all 3 Discworld games are being remade by fans, officially allowed and to make the games free to play on modern platforms! This is awesome news, and I've never had the pleasure of playing Discworld Noir - which faired poorly on most systems due to the bugs.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

July 02, 2008

Interview with Benoît Sokal

Adventure Classic Gaming interviewed Benoît Sokal, designer of celebrated adventure games such as Syberia and Amerzone, and asked his opinion on projects both old and new.Syberia won several awards when it was released in 2003, making Sokal a well known figure in the genre.

Posted by JuliaBrasil at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

10 things everyone should know about Space Invaders

Benj Edwards from Vintage Computing and Gaming has just published an article in 1up about the 10 Things Everyone Should Know About Space Invaders. It covers everything from development to impact in our culture. A must read for anyone interested in games!

Posted by JuliaBrasil at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2008

THE MAKING OF… Carmageddon

Edge (via. Next-Gen.biz) has the Making Of...Carmageddon online, a not too new game from the haydays of PC, and a controversial game in the UK and German markets. Should have possibly got more love, it and it's sequel were really just fun.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2008

Ralph Baer On The Industry’s Birth, Preserving History

Ralph Baer had a talk about many things, as detailed in this Gamasutra news article, especially interesting is on the first videogames and the need for preservation. I wonder if any form of transcript would become available, it'd be certainly an interesting read to hear it in full.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2008

@Play on Roguelikes and History

Interesting overview of the history of roguelikes by John Harris on his @Play GameSetWatch column, and the efforts made to preserve them. I missed posting this earlier this week, so go read it now if you haven't ;)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2008

Video Games and Libraries

An interesting overview of Video Games and Libraries by Heather of Adventures in Library School, which includes a note about the Library of Congress work with them, and several other endeavours in American Libraries.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2008

The History of 8bit Gaming in the UK

The History of 8bit Gaming in the UK, a website by Tony Barnett, I recently found and seemingly details a good amount of press releases from 1982 onwards for the UK's gaming scene. Makes for some interesting reading, especially for companies which still exist in one form or another. Certainly, the UK 1980's gaming scene was very different to the USA one, so that too is a nice contrast.

Tony also seems to run the parent site ZXSoftware.co.uk, which contains information on Sinclair systems.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:35 PM | Comments (2)

The Horrors of Retro PC Game Covers

SomethingAwful has a look at some of the worst PC Game Covers from the 1980s and 1990s.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:52 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2008

Alone in the Dark History In Pictures

Alone in the Dark has a long history since the first 1992 release - PCGH shows a moderate gallery of pictures for nostalgia.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

Darling Brothers Honoured With CBE

David and Richard Darling, co-founders of game developers Codemasters, were both made Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Good news, and some history too, on the BBC article. Some more on Bruce On Games too.

(Via RPS).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

Dan Rubenfield Speaks Out on New Game Enhancements

Not-too-distant-past history, but still worthy of a look is the thoughts of designer Dan Dubenfield on the NGE (New Game Enhancements) to Star Wars Galaxy.

His points are looked at by Scott Jennings at Broken Toys, who is pretty critical of the ordeal in general.

Finally, Rock Paper Shotgun's Kieron Gillen takes a look at the original source and musters some thoughts on it.

(Via. GameSetWatch)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2008

Big Budget Videogame Diasters

Although possibly not all historical fact (with several being estimates of budgets) a pretty good list called "Big Budget Disasters" by Mike Smith charts some of the famous and infamous budget diasters of videogames. I happened to quite like The Last Express however, so check it out if you can like Mike suggests :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:45 AM | Comments (0)

June 11, 2008

The Slow Decline of the Wii Virtual Console

Starlight at PS3news.com has an article up entitled "The Slow Decline of the Wii Virtual Console". This details his opinions on the current failures of Nintendo and the system, and why it will be unlikely that several classics will ever appear on it, or other, virtual places - licensing issues mainly. He compares NES vs. SNES releases and comments on Nintendo's own odd withdrawing from releasing some games (which get posted to the ESRB site then pulled).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)

IA: The Art of Interactive Storytelling

A video from 2003, uploaded recently to the Internet Archive, is "The Art of Interactive Storytelling". Interesting view for those who are too young to know the early games, or have missed playing some that are featured (from a few text-based ones, to Ultima, to Final Fantasy, Half Life, Neverwinter Nights, The Secret Of Monkey Island and others).

Description:

This video is one of two loops prepared by Douglas Wilson for an exhibit curated by Henry Lowood and Casey Alt of the How They Got Game Project, Stanford Humanities Lab, called "Fictional Worlds, Virtual Experiences: Storytelling and Computer Games." The exhibit was hosted by the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University and ran from 12 Nov. 2003 through 28 March 2004.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:05 AM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2008

The Best N64 Games That Still Matter Today

racketboy and andymol21 have put together a list of the The Best N64 Games That Still Matter Today with some detail on the reasons why these games still matter - these are the games that likely will stand the test of time for their uniqueness or sheer enjoyability, even today (and expect to see most of them pop up on the virtual console service of course).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2008

Kevin Gifford Enjoys Typing Out A Commadore Program

Okay, "Enjoys" might be a bit of spin. It's interesting none the less that he took the time to try typing out a Commodore 64 program despite never having done so before. Typing in two BASIC programs to even get started on the assembly. You can even view the final result in all it's glory!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2008

Nolan Bushnell To Be Played By Leonardo DiCaprio in Biopic

Basically as the title says. I didn't know this film was in existence in fact - although Leonardo thinks so much of it he is producing it too:

Written by Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman, project is a biopic about entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell, the creator of Atari and one of the founding fathers of the vidgame industry.
Although Bushnell's life rights had long been pursued by various suitors, Hecker and Craig Sherman convinced the gaming pioneer that they could do his unique story justice. Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari Inc. in 1972 and were instrumental in bringing arcade games, home vidgame consoles and home computers to the masses. Among the company's contributions was PONG and the Atari 2600.

"vidgame" is a new one to me, but there we go. We'll see how good it is when it is released I guess!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2008

Remembering 'Deus Ex'

Patrick Klepek has a short piece called "Remembering ‘Deus Ex’ — One Of Modern Gaming’s First Titles Offering Real Player Choice", obviously detailing the fact it has a ton of choice - choice not afforded in more recent games, sadly. It comes on the heel of news that Deus Ex is available for free on GameTap, so might be worth playing or replaying if you have the time.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

The End of Arcades

Michael Thompson has posted on "What we all knew: classic arcades are dying". This details more on the Chicargo Tribunes "Video arcades' last gasp" by Christopher Borrelli, which has information on why local arcades are failing, due to costs and lack of people, from an industry that was "once a $50 billion business and it's now around $7 billion", it seems that arcades are going to die eventually, but the big question is only "When".

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

A Mario Retrospective - Parts I to III

The Plumbers Log, a fan blog for Mario, is doing a retrospective on the Mario series. Might be worth checking out for nostalgia, parts one, two and three are online, with plans to work up to Super Mario Galaxy.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)

Phosphor Dot Fossils

Randomly found,and I've never heard of it (has anyone reading this?) that a DVD entitled Phosphor Dot Fossils, which sold some recently and is considered a hit. It says to have:

Actual video clips of dozens of games in action, from 1971’s “Computer Space” through the dawn of the NES era, accompanied by fascinating game-by-game historical notes.

It also has adverts and hardware featured.

Sounds interesting, anyone seen it?

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:48 AM | Comments (1)

Brief History of Game Ads

I missed this before, but last Saturday came an article titled A Brief History of Game Ads at Next-Gen.biz, by Joe Keiser.

These detail the advertisements in magazines, from 1989 to 2008, with a choice selection of different adverts for systems and games.a

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2008

Nottingham Trent University Starting an Archive

Good news for anyone lamenting the lack of UK game archives, from the Gamasutra Podcast with Iain Simons:

And he closes with Nottingham Trent University Undergraduate and Post-graduate programs' support of GameCity's latest project: an archive of early to current game artifacts and history.

I'll post more news when it becomes available.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2008

Alex Trowers - The Bullfrog Story Part 2

Alex Trowers details the work continued from Part 1 of his details of Bullfrog, up until EA took over, in Part 2. Insightful article on the now-disbanded company, with Part 2 covering the leaving of Peter Molyneux, the problems getting some games started under EA marketing (marking the departure of some others) and the eventual assimilation of Bullfrog into EA. It finishes on some trivia of Bullfrog, and some fads they had.

Here's to Bullfrog!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:20 AM | Comments (0)

'Neo Geo is the REAL DEAL'

Chewing Pixels has an interesting circa-1991 letter from SNK "The Game Lord" Chad Okada which rubbishes the competition, and shows what the company thought in 1991. You'd likely never get this kind of letter today :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:35 AM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2008

Indiana Jones and the History of his Videogames

British Gaming Blog has released a light-hearted article on the history of the Indy games, from the Atari Raiders of the Lost Ark to Lucasarts' new title still under development.

Posted by JuliaBrasil at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

Tennis For Two, The Second Videogame - Video

Via. denialworld.com I noticed a Youtube video which shows Tennis for Two being played. Description:

Way back in 1958, William Higinbotham invented Tennis For Two to liven up visitor day at Brookhaven National Laboratory, his workplace. The game uses an oscilloscope with two control pads. It remained largely unknown until 1981 when a lawyer trying to break Magnavox's patent for video games came across writings talking about the game.
Blueprints of it were found to predate Magnavox's game, the case was settled out of court, and the game found fame as the second ever invented, since it was later predated by A.S. Douglas' 'OXO' game from 1952.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:05 AM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2008

Alex Trowers - The Bullfrog Story Part 1

Gaming Verdict has Alex Trowers explaining his time at Bullfrog from 1990 onwards, part 1 called: Alex Trowers - The Bullfrog Story Part 1, and goes up to the time Bullfrog released Hi Octane.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:02 AM | Comments (0)

Space Invaders: The Story of a Legend

At Gaming Verdict Chris Wilkins has written a brief article on the beginnings of Space Invaders.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:01 AM | Comments (0)

May 31, 2008

The History of Prince of Persia

Rus McLaughlin at IGN has written an article on the History of the Price of Persia series, detailing some info about each game up to todays releases.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:32 AM | Comments (0)

May 30, 2008

Gamasutra: Game Design Essentials: 20 Atari Games

John Harris has written up a 23 page article entitled "Game Design Essentials: 20 Atari Games" at Gamaustra. This details some of Atari's history, design practices, signature elements, and then lists the 20 essential games from the company.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:18 AM | Comments (0)

Parody: 1979 Game Developers Conference

Via. Retroblast is this funny parody on game design ideas, set in 1979...

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:49 AM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2008

Gametrailers.com Metal Gear and Star Wars Games Retrospectives

Gametrailers.com has a Metal Gear Retrospective up, covering all the Metal Gear games - Metal Gear, Snake's Revenge, and MG2: Solid Snake in part 1. Metal Gear Solid, VR Missions, and The Twin Snakes in part 2. Finally, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and MGS2: Substance in part 3.

They also have The Star Wars Retrospective covering games from the movies. The Arcade shooters and Atari beginnings of far, far away in part 1. The games that brought you each original chapter from start to finish in part 2. The games that started the saga - Menace, Clones, and Sith in part 3. Finally, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Alliance; the dogfights that drove the conflict forward in part 4.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2008

Sega Genesis / Megadrive 101: A Beginners Guide

Scooter has contributed a guide at Racketboy.com called http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/genesis/2008/05/sega-genesis-megadrive-101-a-beginners-guide.html. Looks like a good overview of the systems history, variants and current emulation and availability.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:43 PM | Comments (0)

Escaping the Escapist

Jason Scott has some commentary on The Escapist's old PDF versions and it's change to web format. An interesting read, noting how commercial websites change.

I also learned something about the Webby awards, something that means I doubt the IGDA site will get one anytime soon ;)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2008

Book Extract: Dungeons and Desktops: 'The Silver Age'

A great 14-page extract from the book Dungeons and Desktops by Matt Barton is at Gamasutra, specifically the section on "The Silver Age"

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:23 PM | Comments (0)

Capcom Releases Lifetime Sales Numbers

Capcom has released the sales numbers for its franchises and individual titles over the past 22 years with some very interesting numbers. I, for one, am surprised to see that Dino Crisis sold more copies than Devil May Cry or Resident Evil 4.

Thanks to Captain Commando for the link.

Posted by JuliaBrasil at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2008

Classic Gaming Expo 2008 Not On

Sadly, the Classic Gaming Expo 2008 will not be on this year, due to problems getting a location. Hopefully there will be one in 2009!

(Via GameSetWatch)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2008

A history of the Amiga part 7

Jeremy Reimer has part 7 "Game On!" of the series about the History of the Amiga online at ArsTechnica.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2008

A History of Gaming Platforms: Mattel Intellivision

By Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice have written up another part of the series "A History of Gaming Platforms", this time concentrating on the Mattel Intellivision at Gamasutra.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2008

Timeline of Casual Gaming

CasualGaming.biz has put up a brief history of casual gaming in the form of a Timeline from 2200BC up to today.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:26 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2008

Video Arcade Timeline

Via RetroBlast! (again, whee, they get a ton of good links to post :) ), comes a link to a Video Arcade Timeline (Javascript required) going through from 1971 through to today. Details a lot of varied arcade machines many with videos of them being played.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:44 AM | Comments (0)

The Rise and Fall of Atari

Via. RetroBlast! comes a great piece on the Rise and Fall of Atari (the original one!) which should be interesting, especially since the Atari name is ongoing with it's company being brought by Infogrames.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:39 AM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2008

Retrospective: Kingpin

RPS has a retrospective of Kingpin: Life Of Crime, with a few details too on what the game might have been if development had more money and time.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:38 AM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2008

Flea Market ROMs Dumped and Confirmed

An update on the previously released Flea Market ROM's found, they've been uploaded after being checked - the set includes 10 revisions of the Cabbage Patch Kids game. Check the later Gism Butter articles after the release for much more info on the titles, and who helped get them off the chips.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2008

Starcade Episodes Online

Via. RetroBlast!, it seems Starcade! are all online in full episodes. It was a adcade-based game show (playing arcade games to win an arcade cabinet at the end), which is an interesting look back.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2008

The first Grand Theft Auto BBC Report

BBC News has a old clip up of Rory Cellan-Jones touring DMA Design's Dundee office, meeting several of the staff, seeing the audio, music and testing departments and even motion capture for another game, although I've no idea what one (Possibly Body Harvest or Space Station Silicon Valley according to their release info).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2008

Amiga "Still Alive" Animated Tribute

Eric Schwartz has put up a youtube video entitled "Animated Amiga Tribute", all done on an Amiga in fact. He himself does agree, it's a bit late, but he was trying to get Valves permission, but never got a response.

(via. RPS)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2008

Unreleased Atari 2600 Game Found At Flea Market

Via. slashdot, comes a story of a flea market find of an unreleased Atari 2600 game. Finding actual EPROMs, of unreleased material no less, at a flea market, must be quite random :) . He says that the old games (which some he can only guess at what they are) are stuck on the EPROMs until he can find some help to transfer them to PC (any takers here?). It's a wonder how they turned up however, even if they will be very bad/buggy/unplayable.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:23 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2008

"Everything I Needed to Know About Programming I Learned from BASIC"

A look back at the programming language BASIC by Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror, and how he programmed Atari programs using it. (I like the pictures of the code input controls! wowza!)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2008

First Issue of EGM

Racketboy.com has some nostalgia posted, it being the first issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, from way back in May, 1989.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)

Milliways: Infocom's Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Andy Baio at Waxy.org has put up a piece on Milliways: Infocom's Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Julie, who will be a new blog editor around here, wrote this up for the mailing list, where there is a few posts discussing the use of private emails too.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2008

The History of Panzer Dragoon

Kurt Kalata has written a rather in depth article on The History of Panzer Dragoon, a series now abandoned likely forever by SEGA, even though fans still exist. (those interested in more on Panzer Dragoon should visit page 8 where there are some decent links to other retrospectives and history pieces regarding the series).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

How to fix your NES

Game|Life takes a look at how to fix any old NES consoles you have, in it's video, aptly named "How To Fix Your NES".

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:00 AM | Comments (1)

April 09, 2008

"Tilt: The Battle To Save Pinball" Interview

GameSetWatch hosts a interview with Tilt's director Greg Maletic, about his film Tilt: The Battle To Save Pinball. Why is this even on GameSetWatch, or even here? Well, Pinball 2000 was an attempt to merge pinball and videogames to revive the market, and this documentary looks at it, with the interview providing some nice details.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)

Super Mario in Javascript

Seems one CupBoy has made a 14kb javascript version of Super Mario. It's pretty fun, although I didn't try the music version. Try it for a bit of nostalgia, and the fact it's a pretty impressive use of Javascript!

(Via Guardian Games Blog)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)

Rediscovering Arcade Nostalgia

Jeff Atwood loves his arcade machines, and details a ton of information on recreating the nostalgia and what he's done revamp-wise. A neat read about what you can do to get the arcade feel back.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:51 AM | Comments (0)

April 08, 2008

Gaming Pioneers: Part Two: Ralph Baer Interview

GameIndustry.biz has Mark Androvich interviewing Ralph Baer in part two of an interview series on gaming pioneers.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:47 AM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2008

American Libraries and Videogames

GameSetWatch has released an ALA (American Library Association) press release about their Gaming in libraries project. Interesting, and I hope in the future Libraries will at least get into storing and preserving games with as much vigor as books.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

April 03, 2008

RPS: The Making of System Shock 2

Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Kieron Gillen has put up his Edge-commissioned Making of: System Shock article. It's quite a nice read about the game.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2008

GameDev.net: Learning From The 3000 "Classics"

Ben Garney and Eric Hartman take an interesting look at Mame and the different ROMs available from it - trends, patterns, the design of them and more.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)

March 31, 2008

Retro: Space Hulk

Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Alec Meer has another rose-tinted-glasses Retrospective, in the form of Space Hulk.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2008

Ocean and Imagine 1983/4 video

Simon at GameSetWatch links to a video described as a "Fantastic bit of history showing a behind the scenes of software houses Ocean and Imagine circa 1983/4." - go watch if you're interested (I wonder where it's from, unless it's literally called "Commercial Breaks" :) ).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2008

Debut UK Commadore 64 Virtual Console Titles

Gamasutra reports the first Commadore 64 titles, Uridium and International Karate.

While not strictly preservation as such, this does go to show nostalgia seems to be a seller, and that those games won't be open sourced any time soon. Virtualization and emulation is certainly an important part of videogame history, and I'll post other articles which are linked to it as I see them.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2008

Apple IIc Autopsy

Benj Edwards noted he's now taking apart more things, this time an Apple IIc computer for PC World.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2008

Gaming Pioneers: Part One: Allan Alcorn Interview

GameIndustry.biz (with their fancy new site) has Mark Androvich interviewing Allan Alcorn in part one of an interview series.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:08 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2008

Raph Koster on A brief history of botting

Raph Koster has put up a neat little entry entitled "A brief history of botting", a look back on the days of MUDs and the invention of client-side automated bots, and the reasons for banning them but not the entire telnet clients they ran from.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

RPS: Retro: Colonization

Rock, Paper, Shotgun author Alec Meer has a rambling retro look at Colonization.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2008

Internal pictures of a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo)

There's a large set of photos over at TechRepublic by Mark Kaelin detailing the taking apart of a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo). Lots of internal photos with good explanations, and instructions on how to open it - no doubt a bit nostalgic for those that ever owned the system!

(Thanks Captain Commando!)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2008

The History of The Sims

Eurogamer has an article by Dan Whitehead which details The History of The Sims.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2008

The Atari and Sega Failure-rama, Part 1

411mania.com has an article by Vincent Chiucchi entitled The Atari and Sega Failure-rama, Part 1, looking back at the original incarnation of Atari, and the last failures that pushed the company into failure.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)

'Beeb' creators reunite at museum

People who remember the BBC Micro might be interested in this BBC article, noting the creators of the "the beeb" will be meeting up and hopefully there'll be a 2009 exhibition about the machine.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2008

A History of Mac Gaming

Susie Ochs has written a long article titled "A History of Mac Gaming" over at GameTap, giving a overview of the history of the Macintosh and games on it.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:33 AM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2008

Al Alcorn Interview (Beyond Pong: Hacking Allan Alcorn)

GameSetWatch has a good interview with Al Alcorn by Drew Taylor about various things, and is an interesting read.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2008

GTA Profile

Develop has a IP profile of GTA, exploring it's history, and the trends of the game.

(Via. Level Up).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2008

THE MAKING OF... Japan's First RPG (Black Onyx)

Another article I missed, a look back on THE MAKING OF... Japan's First RPG (Black Onyx) over at Next Generation/Edge.

(Via. GameSetWatch).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:07 AM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2008

A History of Gaming Platforms: Atari 2600 Video Computer System/VCS

Gamasutra has another history article I forgot to post, A History of Gaming Platforms: Atari 2600 Video Computer System/VCS by Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)

February 27, 2008

Retrospective: Dungeon Keeper

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has got an article up about Dungeon Keeper. I missed this earlier so enjoy it now - it's a nice short read about the game.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

Ralph Baer and Al Alcorn's GDC talk

GameSetWatch is covering Ralph Baer and Al Alcorn's GDC seminar on the birth of the industry and a rundown of their talk. It was previously at Gamasutra but I missed it, sorry! I also couldn't make the talk myself, damn!

From GDC we should have preservation roundtable rundowns and other information of plans made for the SIG, stay tuned!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

February 10, 2008

Born Free: the History of the Openworld Game

An article by Dan Whitehead at Eurogamer titled "Born Free: the History of the Openworld Game" goes through the history of open world games, leading up 2001 with the release of GTA III.

(Via. Rock Paper Shotgun)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 07:25 AM | Comments (0)

February 09, 2008

Past GDC and E3 photos

The time of GDC is almost upon us - of course, the past has seen lots of GDC conferences and E3 events. Dave Mark has a collection of some photos from previous years.

Know of any others? Post a comment or contact us to have them linked from there. I've not yet found any from the very early GDC's, which surely would be interesting to see :)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)

The History of Dragon Quest

This is a tad late, but an enjoyable 10 page article on The History of Dragon Quest by Kurt Kalata is at Gamasutra.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:49 PM | Comments (0)

February 06, 2008

Atari Games Document Library updated

The Atari historian/collector Scott Evans has updated his site, AtariGames.com, to include lots of new documents in the library. Well worth checking out if you're interested in the old arcade games.

(via. GameSetWatch and AtariAge)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:24 AM | Comments (0)

DMA design pictures and photos

Back from DMA design's history is a new set of uploaded photos, from Mike Dailly. Interesting look at the history of the company, up until it became "Rockstarred". Some very good material for those interested!

(Via. ScottishGames.biz)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:01 AM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2008

A History of Gaming Platforms: The Apple II

At Gamasutra, Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice continue the series on gaming platforms, this time with an in-depth look at the Apple II.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

Retro look: Syndicate

Rock Paper Shotgun has a look back at the classic PC game Syndicate.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)

January 30, 2008

A Guide to Board and Card Games Based on Video Games (1971 to 2007)

I came across a link to A Guide to Board and Card Games Based on Video Games (1971 to 2007) by Yehuda, from Raph's website, and is a good read through of the conversions from videogames to board/card games - either for promotional material or as actual separate things.

(Source)

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:01 AM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2008

The 50 Greatest Arcade Cabinets In Video Game History!

This article at I-Mockery.com is quite a fun look at some great arcade cabinets of the past.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:12 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2007

Gamaustra: A History of Gaming Platforms: The Vectrex

Gamasutra has an article By Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice on The Vectrex, a early home console.

This comes on the heels of the Commodore 64 article a while back in Gamasutra. I'd love to read more when they appear!

(Missed this earlier! oops, I should keep more up to date ;) )

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2007

Computer History Museum youtube channel

The Computer History Museum, known on our project list as a "massive Silicon Valley-based collection of hardware/software, includes some game material", now has a youtube channel, showing some videogame related media such as the newest being Commodore 64 - 25th Anniversary Celebration - worth checking out!

Found via. Slashdot.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:10 AM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2007

VC&G Interview: Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari

Benj Edwards yet again has an excellent interview with one of the historical figures of the videogame industry, Nolan Bushnell.

If you're interested in more interviews by Benj, he has done interviews with Ralph Baer, Bill Harrison and Steve Wozniak too. All well worth reading!

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 04:37 AM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2007

The History of Atari: 1971-1977

A 20-page "The History of Atari: 1971-1977" has been published at Gamasutra, done by Steve Fulton. A good and highly detailed read (even with it's own sources and references page).

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2007

A History of Gaming Platforms: The Commodore 64

Gamasutra has a great piece "A History of Gaming Platforms: The Commodore 64", by By Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2007

Q&A on Johnny Mnemonic

At Game Set Watch there is an interesting Q&A with Douglas Gayeton about Johnny Mnemonic, which he help design and write for - a classic 1995 interactive FMV based game.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

Preserving Game Worlds - Kotaku interview

Kotaku has got an interview/feature up about the Preserving Game Worlds project. GameSetWatch also has a writeup and additional comments on it.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 02:41 AM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2007

UT Videogame Archive fundraiser reports

The UT Videogame Archive funraiser happened yesterday - a report from J at Game Set Watch (with Photos) gives the details, and Warren Spector posted about it too, twice, and did an interview with Gamasutra with some details on it too.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2007

UT Videogame Archive Fundraiser annouced

The new UT Videogame Archive is having a fundraiser on September 4th at Richard Garriott’s estate on Lake Austin.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2007

Original Collossal Cave Adventure Source Code Found

Adventure: Crowther's original source code found; photos from inside the real Colossal Cave - Source code for the original Colossal Cave Adventure has been found.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

August 03, 2007

Preserving Virtual Worlds project annouced!

Digital Preservation Program Makes Awards to Preserve American Creative Works - Preserving Virtual Worlds project is officially announced.

Posted by AndrewArmstrong at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

Game Preservation

Work-in-Progress blog for the IGDA Preservation Special Interest Group.

June 01, 2009

[Exhibit] Videogame Nation at the Urbis Gallery

April 09, 2009

[Article Link] Saved Games: Preserving the New TV

March 18, 2009

Meet Nolan Bushnell, the man who created the videogames industry

Speak, Atari - How the 2600 forged the home video game future

The History of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater: Ollies, Grabs, and Grinds

Learning to let go

The Center for the History of Electronic Games

Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes

March 17, 2009

Byte Back Reports

March 05, 2009

The Stunning Art & Design of the Atari 2600

March 03, 2009

On Atari Cartridges In Deep Caves

A History of... Qwak?

The Pac-Man Dossier

Looking Back at Ensemble Studios

The History of the Pinball Construction Set

March 01, 2009

The National Videogame Archive Updates and My Report

February 23, 2009

Retroaction - Retro Gaming Mag

February 19, 2009

Ask the Game Trust: The First Game You Bought

February 16, 2009

Home of the Underdogs Website Hosting Ceased

The Trough of No Value

February 05, 2009

European Project KEEP - Keeping emulation environments portable

On Daikatana

January 30, 2009

Nolan Bushnell to receive BAFTA Fellowship

Space Invaders Development

January 27, 2009

The Pac-Man Dungeons

Videogame History Events: Back-Byte 2009

The ultimate Atari collection!

Websites 'must be saved for history'

January 26, 2009

Smash Pack programmer wanted Echelon to release ROM Loader

Games that smell

Donkey Kong's misrepresentation on home consoles

The Game Developer Archives: 'Monsters From the Id: The Making of Doom'

Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll - the game that never was

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System Released

January 20, 2009

Fukio "MTJ" Mitsuji Passes Away

January 11, 2009

Ancient Artifacts of the Origin Museum, Part II

The History Of Pong: Avoid Missing Game to Start Industry

January 08, 2009

EGM Shut down, 1UP Sold

The RePlay Files: A Trip To The 1986 JAMMA Arcade Game Show, Part 1

Archiveteam

More on Threshold Wikipedia Article

January 06, 2009

Losing the Threshold MUD Wikipedia Entry

January 01, 2009

[Monthly SIG Roundup] January 2009

Preservation SIG Updates

December Preservation SIG Work

Mailing List Discussions

Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

Final Thoughts

December 29, 2008

IGN Retro: Revising History: The Crash of '83

Legend of Zelda Retrospective Vids

VirtualBox Gets OpenGL Acceleration Support

Adventure Game Interfaces

Your Sinclair Final Issue

December 11, 2008

The Making of... Dune II

Sega Master System 101: A Beginner’s Guide

December 10, 2008

Fifteen Years Of Doom, Ten years of the Dreamcast