[game_preservation] Cataloging Standards?

[Martin Goldberg]

Is this a game cataloging system, or game and hardware?

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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

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>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> --

>>> 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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