[game_preservation] Cataloging Standards?
ommail at cox.net
ommail at cox.net
Wed Dec 30 13:23:45 EST 2009
Devin-
YES--this is exactly what I'm thinking--I'm currently working with a friend on this, and I hope to have something to show soon. At least this will give us a place to start from.
Joe
---- 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.
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