Game Preservation

[Monthly SIG Roundup] July 2009

The SIG will have their first white paper presented at DiGRA, which Dan Pinchbeck is still organising and has posted news on, although I've been too busy to work on anything additional for the SIG and no one has other contributions this month.

Preservation SIG Juny 2009 Work

I've been busy, so apart from some planning haven't got anything to put forward as work. The SIG hasn't got any other ongoing projects right now, but if you are interested, at all, in preservation to help us with our projects (and if you think something is missing, please tell us).

Future Work for July 2009

All our projects need to get going really!

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. This will eventually change when the IGDA site changes over - although those wanting email can still get it.

June had mainly discussions on the the SIG paper at DiGRA. We'll sort the paper being presented, and I'll be down for the panel in October.

Devin also has kept us updated of some very neat items - the making of Earthworm Jim, 1Up on Michael Jackson, and Unseen 64 Call for Art.

Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

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

I'm afraid there's been nothing presented my way, or anything I've seen, to post about regarding the state of game preservation.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully I'll get my spare time sorted to work on some of the projects. I want to try and finish or at least get going one per month. Please, however, if you're interested in helping just put some work into the information on the wiki would really help :)

Andrew Armstrong

IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor

[Monthly SIG Roundup] June 2009

Not much activity this month from our SIG, although we've discussed the IGDA's own backup situation and that will be investigated in the future.

Preservation SIG May 2009 Work

No work as far as I'm aware this month apart from me working on backend material for the Bibliography project - make sure if you are interested, at all, in preservation to help us with our projects if you're interested (and if you think something is missing, please tell us).

There was however some bits of news and discussion, check it out below.

Future Work for June 2009

I have still got to contact the Japanese collection of material, and projects still need leads and work started on them. I hope that by the end of June, which at least in the UK is around the same time as all the Universities ending the final semester, people will be around with a bit more time :)

Mailing List Discussions

May had mainly discussions on the IGDA's backup situation. Many of the topics discussed in early may were mentioned in the last newsletter such as Encarta dying. After the update, we have Old printers and trueSpace having stopped support.

There was an interesting discussion touching on aspects of preserving non-physical games - download, MMO and others. A very tough part of the work that is going on.

Finally, there is a discussion on the news that IGN is shutting down their hosting, for all but FilePlanet and IGN.com it appears. We'll obviously see more shortly.

Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

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

A few items of news this month:

Final Thoughts

I've got a list of things the length of my arm to follow up, so less time spent writing this the better. Adios!

Andrew Armstrong

IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor

[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 :)

IGN Hosted Sites - Classic Gaming/Gamespy Networks Shutting Down

IGN is shutting down the hosting of all their hosted sites on August 31st 2009. Devin brought up the news, the sites affected appear to be all the XXX.gamespy.com sites ("Planet" sites), all the XXX.classicgaming.gamespy.com sites, xxx.ign.com sites ("Vault" sites) and possibly others. FilePlanet and IGN.com remains, and presumably the main Gamespy site and services/branding too.

Rehosting is offered by Konfiskated Technologies Network, although I urge anyone reading this who has access to data that IGN hosts to send it our way so we can preserve it somewhere, and to crawl your sites or the sites you want to save now, download any files, and make backups immediately as well as inform readers that it will disappear for good. A lot of crawling will need to be done since no doubt many of the sites are not maintained often, the Archive Team might be called into action once I have a chance to gather more information on what will be shut down permanently.

[Monthly SIG Roundup] May 2009

In the previous month we're trying to restart some of the projects the SIG wants to run. Hopefully anyone who is interested can get involved!

Preservation SIG April 2009 Work

The projects listed on our front wiki page have been put forward on the mailing list to get volunteers and interested people involved. Sadly, if there is no action on some fronts the projects will indefinitely lie dormant. If you know of anyone outside the SIG who is interested in videogame preservation and can lend a hand, please invite them!

The Memorials project has had a few updates, both to the layout and to the people added to our records. We are looking for biography writers, and also any missing entries, so please email memorials -at- igda -dot- org to suggest anything.

Devin Monnens has also started setting up Facebook and LinkedIn pages/groups, we'll advertise the links once they're up and running :)

Future Work for May 2009

Apart from being late doing the roundup (with a mixture of a server issue for a week at the start of May and me being busy), so actually this is mid-may, there are still things to finish. Among them I intend to finally get the last museum I actively know collecting a major amount of videogame material which is situated in Japan, and then hope to publish the list and start on gathering more detailed information about the museums soon.

The projects also need some active work put into them, but this is up to the individual project leads. I can help organise things, so give me a shout if you're too busy to get specifically started or need some help.

Any unassigned projects also need leads, and all the projects do need more help (since no project has more then one person working on it!). Please see the main page for basic information and the mailing list discussions below:

Mailing List Discussions

April had discussions on online DRM, Soviet Game Museum, Geocities going under, TV emulation and a massive UK Ebay auction.

SIG stuff - GDC roundtable notes, Bibliography Project, Improving the News area, Facebook / LinkedIn pages, and finally a discussion on Our Membership - importantly on who we want to join up in the future.

Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

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

With me working on the Bibliography project, intended to replace the "Linkblog" of old, and the fact this means that there can be automatically generated, cross-referenced and accurately sourced articles and stories means the current blog will only post preservation-related news.

I have, however, fallen behind on this, meaning not much added this month, including internal SIG news. I have no idea what the readership of the blog is like, but I want to improve this over the coming months - by posting SIG project news, and news about emulation, preservation projects and museums, and so forth. I'm going to be visiting the Urbis in Manchester tonight for the opening of a videogame history and play exhibit, which is one of the types of article I hope to link from the blog.

Once the bibliography is up, I'll code up some RSS feed for it, but also make a function to be able to linkdump a ton of interesting entries people enter that are flagged up as good to publish (being relatively new).

Final Thoughts >

With so many recent videogame companies closing their door, it appears history and game preservation isn't really near anyones minds at the moment. It's a tad shameful that the only bits of of 3dRealms own material is being released by people looking for new jobs rather then by the company itself (or letting it be preserved!) - showing they had been working, not just doing nothing on the infamously long Duke Nukem Forever project. This is one of the best reasons to preserve unfinished and incomplete projects, and document the closing of companies in more detail. Maybe in the future we'll be able to provide more direct assistance in doing this across the world!

Andrew Armstrong

IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor

[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!

[Memorials] Frank Herman, Kentaro Haneda

New memorials we've recently started for developers Kentaro Haneda and Frank Herman, who died in 1997 and last week respectively.

[Monthly SIG Roundup] April 2009

GDC has come and gone, with our white paper now released, go read it!

Preservation SIG March 2009 Work

The white paper "Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper" was finished, and is available in several flavours: DOC, ODT, PDF, Lulu Copies

March also hosted, of course, the Game Developers Conference. I have put up my notes and created the relevant project placeholder links on the wiki. Tell me or Henry if you are interested in any of the projects, or have a suggestion for an area to cover!

Finally, the panel submission for DiGRA has been put forward by Dan, so we'll hear news on if that is successful or not in the coming months.

Future Work for April 2009

My work will include cleaning up ready for new projects and pages, but the SIG as a whole can contribute to the flow of ideas for new and old projects and information to work on. Hopefully this month I will get started into a bibliography website for putting various resources related to videogames.

Mailing List Discussions

March had discussions on the laments of young gamers not knowing about arcades, Google's book digitising project, Henry Lowood appearing on a podcast focusing an episode on the history of videogames called A Life Well Wasted, and a short discussion on preserving websites.

Other minor stuff - there was our GDC flyer made up by Henry, and some neat article finds - Fallouts design document and the first(?) lightgun with additional discussion on the museum that hosts it.

Finally, the white paper was released! Feedback very welcome!

Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

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

The format of the news will likely change in the future. Without help I am falling behind on the actual useful stuff to report on for preservationists, historians and the like (no one emails me any news, luckily I guess!). I'll probably post useful news immediately, on techniques, events (both ones you attend, and big events like something shutting down!), preservation/history projects and SIG items. I will be working on the Bibliography project for more or less interesting historical or game history articles, where I will likely point a feed from for more regular "Updates of articles related to game preservation and history that you might be interested in reading", whew!

Final Thoughts

Hope anyone who went to GDC had a good time, and those that didn't don't feel left out. The roundtable was definitely more a general discussion and not focused much on SIG work except for suggestions on what to do :)

Andrew Armstrong

IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor

Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper Released

We have finished the 2008 Game Preservation SIG white paper, titled Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper. You can download it in Doc, ODT or PDF formats. You may also purchase a print copy from Lulu.

This is aimed at saying exactly why game history needs preserving, what needs preserving, and what you can do to help preserve game history! Spread this to anyone who is a developer or who is interested in videogame history.

Many thanks to Henry Lowood for leading the project and the contributors Andrew Armstrong, Devin Monnens, Zach Vowell, Judd Ruggill, Ken McAllister, Rachel Donahue, Jon-Paul Dyson, Stuart Feldhamer and Jo Barwick.

Look out for our next white paper looking at the best practices for game preservation coming in 2010!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.