[game_preservation] Preservation SIG questions + helping out

[Andrew Armstrong]

Hey anyone who is in the Game Preservation SIG,

I joined up after seeing the Gamasutra Civilisation article, and 
cleaning up some bits on the IGDA wiki to do with the project.

Since I am a student currently, I think I could lend some support (at 
least administratively) to helping the Preservation SIG. I'm not old 
enough to be there at the beginning of history, and actually think its 
vitally important to retain what happened before I was born, even though 
I have not played most of the things from the time.

Basically I'd love to help, but first maybe someone can answer these 
questions so I know how I can help! These are some of the things I've 
thought about:

* Are things like the Classic Gaming Expo important? Should they be kept 
track of, at least for informative reasons? What sorts of Game 
Preservation things happen at conferences/talks, are there any?

* How is the Digital Game Canon project going? how does it work/what are 
its aims? Can I help?
    o Are these some useful things to do: Collect interviews, sources of 
information and game information for the digital game canon, and other 
games that need preserving, on the IGDA wiki.
    o And: Link to a variety of sites and articles (gamasutra has some, 
others do) on old games / companies / history.

* Is the SIG's aim *just software?* What about manuals, box physical 
CDs/extras (or at least pictures of them), music and soundtracks, game 
reviews/game magazines, advertising media (posters, trailers, interviews)?

* On that note, apart from the Digital Game Canon, I can't find a good 
list of things going on anywhere. Are there any? Who can I help, or what 
can I help with? Is preservation just on "preserving games" or the media 
as a whole (advertising, news articles, etc)? Is it just to help 
archiving organisations (of which I don't know too many exist), or more 
involved and historically "gathering information"? What is historically 
important to the SIG anyway?

* Can I update the IGDA wiki and fix some of the old broken links and 
research some of the new physical archive locations?

* Why has the archive.org DMCA exception not been updated? - 
http://www.archive.org/about/dmca.php

* Is there any major research into game preservation research and news? 
Can the wiki be a bit more informative if so? (I can look into this) 
since the area has not been as researched as well as film and TV. 
Research on copyright and IP might be relevant (especially length of 
such things), and I don't see any information available there.

* Does anyone know what government agencies or media organisations 
preserve film, tv, books, etc. and see what they might be doing about 
games in the future, if they don't preserve them already?
These are related, probably rhetorical "you can research" ones :)
    o what laws, regulations and permissions do these organisations 
have? DMCA is a problem in America, but what about elsewhere?
    o What use is keeping a game preserved if no one is able to at least 
buy it or play it somehow? - How does preservation work for film and TV? 
Is hardware stored, or virtual machines created?
    o What help does the archive organisations get from companies?

* Is anyone seeing what game companies keep archives of media, history 
or other information? Some might have vaults of the stuff (at least 
publishers might).

Whew, sorry about that, quick answers are fine I'll always ask again if 
I am confused. Was thinking of this stuff last night actually when I was 
reading Wired Classic Gaming Expo reports, so wrote a lot down.

Also, I am more then willing to investigate more in the UK directly, on 
behalf of the SIG, if I need to actually physically go anywhere (out of 
the country I can't do at the moment however) since the UK has some 
people who are important to gaming history. I will at least update the 
IGDA wiki if no one objects.

Feel free to email me directly if anyone wants. I'd have posted in the 
forums, but they are pretty dead.

Thanks,

Andrew Armstrong