[game_preservation] Cataloging Standards?

[Devin Monnens]

It's similar yes. But I noticed a few flaws in the system (mainly, no way to
catalogue them alphabetically. It's also harder to track games
cross-platform).

I suppose the whole idea behind it is to have a catalog system that can make
it possible to cross-reference, kind of like an ISBN for games or the kanji
catalog numbers. That way, we know that when you're talking about a
particular game, you are talking about this one specific version that had
one specific bug. This would go hand-in-hand with a reference system for
APA, ACM, and MLA citations of games.

-Devin

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>wrote:


>  Looks like what libraries would (or do?) use. Would be worth seeing if

> anyone on the list who's working on their archive or library of games has an

> existing system and methodology. I'm not for reinventing the wheel for

> something that is so simple, and really needs no discussion if someone has

> something worth using (or an idea worth standardising properly).

>

> Andrew

>

>

> On 28/12/2009 16:54, Devin Monnens wrote:

>

> Actually, I know Ritsumeikan has their own catalogue system, but I don't

> remember how they did it. VGMDB simply adds new catalogue numbers whenever a

> new album is discovered (for ease of the database). It might be interesting

> to hear what other libraries are using.

>

> On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>> A catalogue system was something I had been thinking about myself. These

>> numbers would be something that all libraries would recognize and so they

>> could list their catalogue in an online database that could easily be

>> cross-referenced. Certainly, you could use a citation list with all the

>> information I listed, but it would be easier to reduce it down to a few

>> numbers. These should be pretty easy to recognize too. We could use any of

>> the common abbreviations for system (AT = Atari (or AT2 for Atari2600, AT5

>> for 5200, AT7 for 7800), GC =Gamecube, W98 = Windows 98, etc). Publishers

>> and developers would have numbers or abbreviations as well (I'd stand for

>> abbreviations though as they are easier to understand). You could probably

>> number games based on year of publication in case a new version was found

>> (that way, you're not adding new entries alphabetically). So you might say:

>>

>>  System.Number.Version.Developer.Publisher.Year

>>

>>  AT2.001.v1.US.Ata.Ata.1977

>>

>>  From this, you could tell that this is an Atari 2600 game published in 1977, version 1 (it's a first print), it's

>> the US

>> region and the developer and publisher are both Atari, Inc. This narrows it down. If you can't guess the sample game, it's Combat :)

>>

>>  NES.001.v1.JP.NCL.NCL.1985.9

>>

>>  First see how much of this you can recognize. This might be the entry

>> for the Japanese Super Mario Bros. Note that we can also add another number

>> at the end indicating the month (or even the day too).

>>

>>  DOS.143.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2

>>

>>  Ok, here is a PC game. We can tell it runs on DOS and that the version

>> (or rather, patch) number is 1.21. It was published in the US and Bli stands

>> for Blizzard :P A Feb 1995 release date narrows this down to...*drumroll*

>> Warcraft.

>>

>>  However, we might want to list the patch separately. You could probably

>> list .pa for 'patch' or the medium (fl for 'floppy', CD, etc).

>>

>>  DOS.142.v1.US.Bli.Bli.1994.fl [Original Floppy]

>> DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1995.2.pa [Patch]

>> DOS.142.v1.21.US.Bli.Bli.1996.CD [CD version]

>>

>>  This way, games get listed together based on whenever they are added to

>> the catalogue.

>>

>>  You can then

>> have extra fields in the extended catalogue entry that indicate any special hardware

>> or software you need to run the game (maybe also if the entry actually runs

>> or has succumbed to bit rot?).

>>

>>  An online catalogue would make it necessary to indicate if the library

>> has box, manual, game, and inserts lines as

>> well (in case someone was looking for one of those).

>>

>>  Is this system closer to what you were thinking of? Is this level of

>> complexity too much? (you could probably just have say

>> DOS.142.v1.21.US.1996.CD and skip developer and publisher altogether). I

>> think maybe this privileges release date, too so that the name of the game

>> is associated with its release dates. You could divide these into genre with

>> say 1.XX as 1 (action), 2 (rpg), and then the second number is the entry

>> number.

>>

>>  -Devin

>>

>> On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 8:11 AM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>wrote:

>>

>>> With that being the case, standard archive and library systems can easily

>>> do "(Game) Name(s)" "Date" "Publisher" "Developer" "System" (or game type)

>>> and possibly "Credits", and maybe (a broad) "Genre" or "Category" one, as

>>> well as if it supports it a "Cover picture".

>>>

>>> What more do you think a library system catalogues? Looking at the

>>> University I'm working at, that's what they do for DVD's, books, etc. etc. I

>>> don't think archives would do much more, as a baseline for finding things in

>>> their collections. Perhaps someone working on one can tell us. The only odd

>>> thing would be the comparison to book's categorisations. Oddly, the

>>> University of Nottingham uses an American system, which is odd mainly

>>> because it has massive sections for "American History" but, say, UK history

>>> gets dumped into tiny categories in "World History" I think, which I found a

>>> tad silly, but hey ho!

>>>

>>> If we need to standardise those fields, well, are there any I've missed

>>> out? We can put up some suggested fields as to allow people to, for example,

>>> provide SQL database copies of what they have with those fields with

>>> standard field names so that, perhaps, they can be shared (or just searched)

>>> for historian's sakes if that was part of your intent.

>>>

>>> Do you want to write it up somewhat, with more what your intent is?

>>>

>>> Anyway, it's more fun talking about bigger databases, I'm glad it went

>>> off topic a bit :)

>>>

>>>

>>> Andrew

>>> _______________________________________________

>>> game_preservation mailing list

>>> game_preservation at igda.org

>>>  http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>>>

>>

>>

>>

>>  --

>> Devin Monnens

>> www.deserthat.com

>>

>>  The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>>

>

>

>

> --

> 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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