[game_preservation] How studios dispose of prototypes and libraries

[Andrew Armstrong]

I meant to finish the sentence "reworked into future game 
material/ideas" realm. :) oops!

Andrew

Devin Monnens wrote:

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

>>

>>     The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

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

>>

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>

>

> -- 

> Devin Monnens

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

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

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

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