[game_preservation] update

Sun Jun 19 19:33:57 EDT 2005

Honestly I don't see any reason to get excited.
AOL is putting 75 people to run a subscription service, probably callcenter
operators, accountants, lawyers, service personnel, janitors and the like.
No one who could actually do or did something for game preservation.
I don't see any way of any of the income going towards _game preservation_
something that this service freely benefits from obviously using freely
available material.
There is nothing wrong with any of this, actually it's a good thing but only
if they give something back to where they are getting their revenue making
material from.
Also DRMing freely available material is plain wrong from a preservation
standpoint, but this is so far strictly a business opportunity taken.
However they should keep in mind that once something that is complete free
becomes a pay service:
a, people get uninterested. They can get any illegal download for free
without any hassle including software that is not even released, especially
the very latest pc games leaked straight from the duplicators, testers and
journalists (sad but true). Compare this price to $15 a month. It does not
come very favorable. The reason to compare like this is that many emulation
enthusiasts were actually forced by clueless companies to obtain their
emulation fix from illegal sources, and from that point it is just a matter
of a few clicks to get even unreleased titles easily instead of 20 years old
games.
b, people expect more than free stuff, including 100% working emulation and
so on. Since they do not have any competent people just using free stuff
they'll be surprised at the negative response about some quality issues that
they can't possibly fix. You don't complain at your friends about their
lunch invitation, but you never return to a bad restaurant...

Most companies can't save their games themselves, because:
a, they no longer exist
b, don't care
c, it costs money
d, they lack the knowledge
e, all of the above

Another example is Nintendo Revolution. You will be able to get emulators
and game downloads for it, but once people have to pay for that their
success is questionable, although it is evidently becoming a niche console
being completely ignored by publishers and developers alike - despite the
usual welcome notes we've seen how ngc has fared, and the revo is likely to
do worse.

To provide a solution is the task for an independent group, not AOL or
Nintendo. They won't focus on anything that can't be sold next week, and as
I said I don't see effort in giving back to the community from where they
are taking.
This is quite dangerous in its current form.
Movies are being restored and kept safe by independent but industry and
government funded organizations. The same is true about books and other
endangered species.
This is beneficial for both the public and the private interests of all
involved.
However if this balance does not exist public interest will no longer match
the companies' and all parties will suffer. This is something that can be
prevented, and we have quite good examples to see what is to come.
The game industry is young, but there is no reason to make mistakes just by
ignoring the examples set by others. (on a semi-related note see the
industry unionizing while the key players are trying to avoid that at all
costs, running sweatshops instead of workplaces)

If you however see them funding real world preservation as opposed to just
collecting subscription fees for practically free stuff, please cheer me  up
:)

As for the group please feel free to pm me and tell what is being done, what
is expected etc.

István

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Simon Carless" <simon at archive.org>
To: "IGDA Game Preservation SIG" <game_preservation at igda.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: [game_preservation] update

> Hey Istvan,
>
> You know, that's a good idea. I have a couple of things to
announce/update.
>
> - firstly, there were some fairly major server/structure changes at the
> Internet Archive, and some problems that are still being resolved, but
> the game videos collections got moved across without TOO much trouble:
> http://www.archive.org/details/gamevideos . Items are still being added
> to the speed runs and machinima collections, but we haven't had too much
> time to do any other major additions - we can add a lot of the Kikizo
> videos again when we have a chance, because we're allowed to archive
> those a month after they're posted.
>
> - secondly, I'm very, VERY excited about a new commercial project called
> GameTap (http://www.gametap.com) from Turner, the AOL Time Warner-owned
> folks who also do Cartoon Network/Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies,
> etc. Here's the pictures from their E3 assets CD:
> http://www.breakmanx.com/E32005/GameTap/ . Basically, the deal is - this
> is commercially-motivated, but extremely intriguing game preservation.
> Turner are putting 75-100 people into this service, which uses proper
> emulation and officially licenses arcade, Atari 2600, Intellivision,
> Sega Master System, Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, and more (Commodore is
> rumored to be coming, possibly!). You'll pay $15 per month for an 'all
> you can eat' monthly fee to play any of the 300 games the service
> launches with, and there will be games added each week. The big deal
> with this is that - well, one of the reasons the Internet Archive's
> preservation efforts for actual games (as opposed to game footage) has
> tailed off is that there's nowhere to go with them - you have to wait 75
> years for them to become legally available under PD. Well, the Turner
> guys are using the original ROMs, as far as I know, and they're putting
> care into getting additional material to run alongside it, and most
> importantly, they have the money to make old games available again. It's
> not the answer to anyone's problems, and you can't keep the games that
> you download forever, but it _is_ good news for people who want to play
> old games legally - also, these guys really care about games. For
> example, despite the fact they're all American, I spoke to them about
> Team17 at E3 and they knew all about the pre-Worms material and all
> sorts of obscurity. And they seem to really care about getting emulation
> right. So... I like em. Doesn't mean we should stop doing other things,
> but having a business model for re-publishing old games easily will make
> a big different for companies actually saving these games themselves, I
> reckon.
>
> - thirdly, it looks like I really do not have the time to develop this
> SIG any further. What it would be _great_ to have would be someone who
> could keep updating the SIG weblog (which we have very basically ready
> to go) with news of game preservation-related efforts. Mail me offlist
> if you can help.
>
> Anyhow, that's my update.
> s!
>
>
> István Fábián wrote:
>
> >We'll have some new things to announce soonish.
> >Since this forum has been quiet for quite some time how about an update
from
> >the others?
> >
> >
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> >game_preservation at igda.org
> >http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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