[game_preservation] How studios dispose of prototypes and libraries

[Devin Monnens]

Unfortunately, looks like your first part of the quote got cut off :) I
think it's an interesting discussion - for a really crappy demo like Raven
Blade, was that worth preserving? Certainly the studio has a right to
destroy their own property, but a real question is how culturally or
artistically important is the artifact and for artifacts of great
importance, does the company have a - shall we say? - responsibility to hold
onto those?

In terms of banning versus speech... Well, it's not that you're not allowed
to tell Uncle Remus stories anymore or create a film like Birth of a Nation
or show blackface, but it's culturally inappropriate to do so (and I think
this is a benefit to our society as a result). We should be treating games
with that same treatment we give film and literature. I think if we look at
violence against women in the same category, then presenting it for the sake
of presenting it and not being constructive is akin to creating a racist
game (rather than say an artwork about racism), and we should treat it as
such. But it's not like we have control over what other countries can do,
and that's a bit off-topic.

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 4:01 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>wrote:


>  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

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

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-- 
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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