[game_preservation] Preserving Flash Games

[Martin Goldberg]

Actual videos playing through flash are another matter, those are
easily accessible and archivable via RealPlayer (which installs a
plugin in IE that allows you to download the video when you hover over
it).

Games themselves are a much more complicated matter, and it has little
to do with protection.  Remember that games played over the web are
using web technology.  That includes databases, server side scripts
and programs, graphic and sound resources stored separately and loaded
later (which is usually what the loading status bar is for).  Very few
sizable flash games nowadays store everything in the client side
object (the .swf file that gets loaded in to your browser). About the
only thing you can archive with out direct access to the server to get
everything else, is the client side .swf.

The matter of archiving becomes a little easier when you're talking
about Flash games moving directly to the desktop via Adobe Air.


Marty


On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would be interested in this as well. I know a few Flash games have been

> distributed through other means (Danny Ledonne included some on his SCMRPG

> DVD), and I've saved a few flash videos from the past. The other thing to

> keep in mind to is different versions of games that have been updated. Game

> videos on YouTube are another matter altogether.

> -Devin

>

> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:15 PM, Jan Baart <jan_baart at yahoo.de> wrote:

>>

>> Due to some recent experiences with flash games I was wondering whether

>> any of you know of preservation projects that either preserve flash games or

>> have at least thought about how to preserve them. It seems like they're a

>> major part of current PC gaming and if we have to rely on the websites

>> staying online we will surely have lost most of them in 10-20 years. I know

>> you can download some or use Firefox cache to get them but it seems most are

>> so well protected there's no way to save them even if one had the legal

>> framework to do so.

>>

>> - Jan Baart

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>

>

>

> --

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

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