[game_preservation] A Triumph Of Game Preservation

[Vowell, Zachary W]

I think you're right to be wary, Andrew, but fortunately I think the WCNews/Origin Museum are a great example of Henry's pt-boats (if you'll recall his analogy of academic battleships and collector/hobbyist pt-boats).  They're very serious about preserving these records for history, and to that end have put a lot of time into organizing the materials that they receive, and in talking with them it's even possible that they will provide duplicate files to one or more archives.

They have to make sure it's alright with EA before doing so, but they understand the instability of digital records, and so I think this will indeed turn out to be a triumph in the long run.

But man, I'm crossing my fingers about Mythic keeping the physical objects/hard copies too.  That would be a shame if they threw anything away.


--
Zach Vowell
Archivist, UT Videogame Archive
Center for American History
512.495.4405
http://www.utvideogamearchive.org



On 8/12/08 6:31 AM, "Andrew Armstrong" <andrew at aarmstrong.org> wrote:

Certainly interesting but...fans? Hmm?

While there are some brilliant fansites, I know as well as anyone else
that many just go offline at random times or have funding
problems/update problems :( - It'd be much more interesting if a museum
or archive got hold of the information, and was able to make use of it
or store it properly. After all, the Wing Commander range of games is no
small amount of information.

Or maybe at some point the fans can send copies of that stuff to
somewhere more permanent. Still much better then nothing! Applauding
from the sidelines here, at least it isn't all just stored at EA Mythic.
I just hope Mythic don't just bin it all now, with the excuse being
someone else has it, hehe.

Andrew

Mike Melanson wrote:

> This will bring a tear to the eye of anyone interested in game

> preservation:

>

> http://www.wcnews.com/articles/mythicarchiving/index.shtml

>

> Executive summary: The highups at the game company that owns all the

> Wing Commander IP gave permission for a group of WC fanatics and to

> come on-site for an entire week and thoroughly catalog everything

> relating to the series.

>

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