[game_preservation] Arthur C. Clarke dies, aged 90

[bcain at criticalmassinteractive.com]

Dave _is_ in the MobyGames database - I was trying to point out that his contributions to video gaming (while not just D+D) are still marching onward.

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-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>

Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:38:15 
To:IGDA Game Preservation SIG <game_preservation at igda.org>
Subject: Re: [game_preservation] Arthur C. Clarke dies, aged 90


Hey,
 
 
I have no idea how it handles uncredited people), but keep this kind of thing in mind, and we'll come back to it later. 

 Funny thing is, I just e-mailed them about it. Turns out they will accept uncredited information if you can provide documentation from the developer about this (so if Tommy Tallarico wanted to be recognized for his SFX work on Metroid Prime, he'd have to send them a document with that information from Retro Studios).
 No, what I meant was, does Mobygames list people who did not directly work on a game? They seem to list some people who are "thanked" but as Billy said, Dave Arneson isn't in the database, despite being the co-creator of D&D and a academic highly related to the industry. Gary Gygax is on there luckily due to some "Thanks" credits - he'd never be on there usually since he didn't like videogames and wouldn't have directly worked on one.
 
 So, does Mobygames accept people who cannot be directly linked to a game despite being a high influencer, academic or related person? That's what I don't know. If we ever got to the stage of doing a similar but more in-depth database, it's be something to look at.
 
 I did assume they'd accept proof that some people worked on a game - as with the recent Manhunt 2 debacle, or when credits are accidentally forgotten or not noted.
 
 
... It opens up an embarrassing can of worms regarding FMV game actors (and voice actors)...
 Since we are doing the memorials for, hopefully, these reasons:
 
 * To recognise the contribution these people made to the industry.
 * To allow people to comment on the memorial.
 * To have a centralised area where these are recorded, rather then them being spread out over the internet and news sites.
 
 For point 2, it makes sense that if someone will want to comment on a specific person passing away due to their influence, friendship, or help then we should likely consider putting a memorial up. Arthur C. Clarke might have highly influenced the developers of Rendezvous with Rama, and so, despite it being an old game, we don't know (since they likely won't know about this project) if they'd want to comment on it, or even actually do the obituary! If they did want to, however, we'd be hard pressed saying no. (Same goes for any person related to a game project, like voice actors).
 
 For anyone else, we consider point 1, where we might not know of any direct influences (I still have had no one wanting to write Gary Gygax's obituary/memorial, but again, the project is not known), we consider them on their merits, using what resources we can to correlate on if anyone would have wanted to comment or put up a suitable tribute for developers to know about the person. So we guess if they were influential or well known.
 
 One problem with relying on either to be accurate is that people who are already dead can't comment on people who die later - the last member of a development team might get no memorial based on point 2, but we should try and rectify it with point 1. With older games (such as Arthur C. Clarke's example) it might be difficult to get information on how influential to the team he was.
 
 Then going onto any of the credited people - do we report on the lowly QA testers when looking at point 1? (What if they were a member of the famous "NCL Super Mario Club", which never listed their members?), and like you said, actors, voice actors or other not-design-team people? It's really hard to decide, but they are credited for a game (or more then one!). Then again, if there is interest even from a single person, I say we can't really say no, since that goes against point 2. (Arthur C. Clarke is therefore on the bench still).
 
 And should the number of titles matter when deciding point 1? Shouldn't a single game be enough if people wish to comment on the person, yes? It's a bit of a hard call in some cases (like this one), especially if we don't know what they did contribute. (Notably, while there are a *large* amount of games, some people produced only one but it, at the time, was one of very few perhaps, or a highly influential one off, or was a one off that sold a lot, etc.)
 
 Formalising the guidelines needs stepping forward of course. I'm gathering some more info and so please list what memorials you want me to catch up on. I have Gunpei Yokoi, Bobby Fischer, Richard Knerr and Eric Dybsand to do - any more? Once we have a base, it'll be a good idea to "go public" and get more people involved to sort things like this - since I am not going to write a new website for it for now :-)
 
 Andrew _______________________________________________
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