[game_preservation] How studios dispose of prototypes and libraries

[Andrew Armstrong]

Interesting on the disposal front - horrible atrocities to games which 
are released already exist, I'm sure there are a ton which are never 
released too :) Most no doubt went further into the "

As for the second point, if we start judging history by today's 
standards, or even locality by today's standards, we'd never get 
anywhere. If we're islamic, we'd ban all mohammed-showing games. If 
we're Christian, it'd be a hard stance on bible-problematic games. If 
we're German, violence is out. There's a ton of problems without 
bringing in just general historical-problematic games.

There's always someone who will hate something, so if a reason is needed 
to stop "liking" or even preserving something (a medium, a specific 
title or anything) there will be one, valid or not. I prefer to keep 
everything around - as for sex games, which the WIG one went a bit off 
on, it's a difficult situation - although in virtual form, I'm not 
exactly an expert, but it's damn better something being virtual then 
real I'd say - as for violent games too of course, it's all pretty 
fantastical. I'm pretty impartial to things being released - whatever 
the taste - I'm never of the mindset "ban it" and am quite the opposite, 
which likely will conflict with a few people here, but it's the truth, 
so I'd say it's all important to keep a record of :)

Andrew

Devin Monnens wrote:

> Not sure how most studios deal with development material, but in a 

> recent interview with Michael Kelbaugh of Retro Studios, we find out 

> they have an interesting - and definitive - solution:

>

> "I always like reading the posts about Raven Blade. There's this 

> underground mystery about that game. When you start reading the blogs 

> and newsgroups and what have you, there's always this post that says, 

> 'Oh, they're going to work on Raven Blade' or 'I wonder if they're 

> bringing Raven Blade back?' And at one point I went back and had them 

> burn the last copy of Raven Blade -- and this was probably two or 

> three years ago -- and I looked at it," says Michael Kelbaugh, 

> president of Retro Studios..."I just couldn't believe that we even 

> came close to making anything like that because it was absolutely 

> horrible."

>

> Despite my game preservation obsession, this brought me a chuckle. I 

> think we can learn from it.

>

> In other news, there was an article in the Times the other day about 

> how some Tintin comics have been placed in the back room of the New 

> York Public Library because they were deemed too racist for visitors. 

> They don't mention them by name, but the Tintin comics are undoubtedly 

> in the same storage area as the Uncle Remus children's books. This 

> brings some interesting things about game preservation and also 

> relates to some other current events. Now hopefully, this won't get 

> into such a huge long argument that it did on the WIG SIG mailing list...

>

> Essentially it involves how we deal with games depicting objectionable 

> material. I think what it comes down to is a situation similar to the 

> Uncle Remus books, which are horribly offensive by today's standards 

> but which have historical importance about the culture of the time. I 

> think if you look at the worst examples from videogames, there's 

> Custer's Revenge which is used as an example in many game studies 

> books (such as Miguel Sicart's book on game ethics). I would argue 

> that from a purely formal standpoint, even though the material is 

> about as offensive as games have become (even in its crude 

> simplicity), because it is a work referenced by so many people, it 

> should be archived for that reason alone, but kept in a similar 

> category as the Uncle Remus books (not that I think there's anything 

> really redeeming about Custer's Revenge other than an example of what 

> NOT to do - also makes me wonder if anybody tracked down the 

> developers and asked them what they were smoking when they made it).

>

> Anyway, I just figured I'd bring these two topics up here to see if 

> anyone had any reflections or anything they wanted to add.

>

> -- 

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

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

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