[game_preservation] [Monthly SIG Roundup] August 2009

[Andrew Armstrong]

We've got through rainy July (well, rainy in the UK at least). Not much 
to report in this opening :)


      Preservation SIG July 2009 Work

The SIG has had some discussions on the mailing list, and I've 
personally been working on the Bibliography project in the background, 
currently organising all the types of data that might be useful and 
testing various PHP and HTML. :)

The SIG hasn't got any other ongoing projects right now, but if you are 
interested, at all, in preservation to help us with our projects 
<http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG> (and if you think 
something is missing, please tell us). We could use some champions and 
some activity if anyone has time!


      Future Work for July 2009

More work from me on the bibliography work, but apart from that I hope 
to check the Memorials project and make sure it is up to date, and 
possibly revise the layouts and templates a bit.


      Mailing List Discussions

If you've not joined our mailing list 
<http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation>, please do 
so. We've never tried using our forums it seems :) we stick to 
old-fangled email. This will eventually change when the IGDA site 
changes over - although those wanting email can still get it.

July 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/thread.html> 
has had the DiGRA 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/001248.html> 
paper 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/001262.html> 
proposed for starters. We also caught up with the GIDA website progress 
and mailing list backups 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/001254.html>. 
I have got the entirety of them downloaded, and what I last heard 
backups of the old site and mailman servers was something that was going 
to be looked at.

There is the report of Eludamos call for papers 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/001261.html> 
on preservation among other topics (this is noted below too).

We also discuss Old PC game sales 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/001280.html> 
- including different digital distributions (Good old Games, Steam, 
others), emulation, and so forth. Windows 7 looks like it will run about 
as much as Vista 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/001283.html>. 


Finally we discussed a random assortment of things when iPhone game 
preservation 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-July/001300.html> 
was brought up. There was both comparisons to film (my bad! it was more 
expensive then I ever realised), and some numbers were sent around. 
Without any active digital preservation archives however, no one seems 
to be able to think about this without setting about a project, it being 
a low priority right now. The issue of censorship, removal of apps (by 
Apple or otherwise) and other issues all come up.


      Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

/Have I missed anything this month? Then email it in to 
preservation_news @ igda.org !/

    * State of the Videogame Nation
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/07/state_of_the_vi.html>

    * Eludamos: "Next Gen" Issue Wants Gaming History Entries
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/07/eludamos_next_g.html>



      Final Thoughts

I am fascinated by a lot of topics which need more 
journalistic-investigation - or nice question asking - like the iPhone 
and digital distribution issues this group (or it's members at least) 
will have to think of in the future. Once I have sorted this 
Bibliography project I'll probably get to doing some serious articles to 
do encyclopaedic-like knowledge for the wiki - if you're interested in 
helping give me a shout, otherwise this will be a long term thing to do 
(and finish off some of the existing projects which need wiki info). 
Stay tuned!

Andrew Armstrong

IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor

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