[game_preservation] Game developers memorial page?

[Andrew Armstrong]

Hey,

Sounds good to me :-) I've only seen the odd few memorial webpages, such 
as Eric Dybsand's page: http://www.bergs.com/InMemoryOfEricDybsand.htm - 
although I don't really know many people in the industry at all, I 
specifically knew of this from GameAI.com

It'd be good to have a page dedicated to this, the wiki would be apt and 
would allow people to add memorial notes if they so wanted. If the 
future IGDA site has the facility, it'd be better to have it on pages 
with a comments field since the main eulogy likely won't be altered over 
time.

I can whip up a basic wiki page setup (such as page names, location); do 
layout (picture place, headings); but it'll take me a few weeks to start 
since I'm in the start of university semester exams. I can probably get 
it done after Feburary 5th or so, I have some spare days there. The only 
problem: I can do /nothing /about the data, since I know no obituary 
database or existing source of information, perhaps except for some 
limited stuff on Wikipedia. If it was to be of any use, either putting 
it up as and when, or asking me to do it via. email would be the likely 
avenues of getting it usable.

I'll use Erik's page as a "base", at least if I get permission.

Oh, and on the credits/preservation crossover - it's more then this SIG 
can handle, since I'm having trouble writing some basics for the Digital 
Game Canon pages - only 10 games worth of stuff! I think this is 
manageable with contributions since, unlike games, we don't have 
hundreds of thousands of people and games to add at once :-)

It is certainly also data which is more apt for a database (thus my 
earlier comment on "eulogy's don't change much") - Mobygames has it 
partially right (although misses a ton of things like arcade games for 
starters, and see my PS below), since a wiki is *really hard* to add 
relationships in. IE: There is no way but to *manually* cross reference 
things, a big pain!

I also don't see why promenent related people to the industry (card 
games, board games, puzzle games, any related research such as AI or 
game theory, etc.) couldn't be added, since for many, I am sure there is 
a crossover on design/work/ideas/ideals.

Andrew

PS: Mobygames is annoyingly rubbish for developer information, and 
contains nothing about the persons living/dead status, birth date or 
anything else, and only contains people credited with a game - some 
people do research who are never mentioned on Mobygames or work in 
organisations (or contracting organisations) rather then produce them 
directly, which is a pain!

I wonder if it is worth asking them to improve it, but I don't even know 
how it all runs - it's not entirely "free" and so forth.

Captain Commando wrote:

> Henry,

>

> I can see what I can do about the wiki, though I think I'd need some 

> help from Andrew Armstrong on getting the thing going (this and I 

> really need to finish my Masters in one month!).

>

> A memorial wiki would also likely have connections with a game credits 

> wiki - if we are remembering game developers, we should have a list of 

> all the games they worked on. Right now, I usually just get all my 

> credits information from Mobygames, but they're not very complete, so 

> I usually have to dig up information from places like Wikipedia, 

> Mamend, Gamend, and the like. Of course, we shouldn't be concerned 

> about listing EVERYTHING somebody has done; a few major works will do 

> and then link to his entry on the credits wiki. Now that I think of 

> it, it could also be cross-linked with the preservation wiki for 

> things like interviews.

>

> I'm thinking a large part of building this wiki will come from 

> community support. There's a lot of guys out there who know a lot more 

> people than I do. Once the page starts going, we can encourage other 

> developers to contribute what they know. One good way of coordinating 

> all of this would be to contact the individual IGDA chapters, as they 

> funnel a lot of local information. We've also got contacts in Japan 

> who should be able to provide information on that side of the world. 

> If we get this wiki brought up at monthly meetings, then we can have 

> people discussing it and contributing names and information.

>

> Other than this, I think basic information like name, year of birth, 

> (birthday?), year of death, some games they worked with (and what they 

> did, even if it's something basic like 'programmer'). Then we can 

> provide appropriate cross-links to other information, like bios, 

> information on the games, interviews, etc. and maybe include a short 

> blurb in the wiki entry itself.

>

> Personally, I think if you helped work on a game then you should be 

> eligible for the list. I don't know if we want to keep this with 

> videogames, but I also think it wouldn't hurt to add board and card 

> game developers, as well as guys like Ron Knerr. Of course, we could 

> also continue to expand this to include game theorists (Huizinga, 

> Callois), though at a certain point things could start to get unwieldy 

> so it's going to come to a question of what's feasible and what really 

> fits. I mean, you don't have to be a game developer to have done 

> something beneficial for games.

>

> -Devin

>

> On Jan 21, 2008 4:00 PM, Henry Lowood <lowood at stanford.edu 

> <mailto:lowood at stanford.edu>> wrote:

>

>     Devin,

>

>     This is a superb idea.  I doubt anyone will have anything negative

>     to say about the idea; the only issue is really how we implement

>     it?  Any thoughts on that?  Devin, would you be willing to take

>     the lead?  Andrew Armstrong is the wiki editor for the SIG, and

>     I'm sure he would be willing to provide guidance.   Also, the

>     group should probably agree on a rough format or perhaps a

>     procedure for getting appropriate names on the page.

>

>     Henry

>

>

>

> -- 

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

> "Until next time..."

> Captain Commando

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

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