[game_preservation] FW: Spring Cleaning the SIG+2009 ideas (Please respond!)

Henry Lowood lowood at stanford.edu
Tue Jan 20 19:05:04 EST 2009


Well, the criteria were discussed within the group, but not openly
because there was no open forum. Recall that it was a GDC event, then
it became a website after that. If we continue the project with a mode
of presentation more focused on dissemination over the web and
documentation, that would give us an opportunity to explain the criteria

That said, the heart and soul of the enterprise is to create a list a la
what the American Film Institute has done for U.S. cinema. The AFI's
work has been a basis for preservation activities, as well.

Henry

Andrew Armstrong wrote:

> Also, note that 2008 was a terrible year for films, canonically. The

> "Best Oscar" will possibly look a bit bad, where as other years, every

> nomination could have won it.

>

> The criteria, as far as I'm aware, was just a private discussion.

> Since, after checking the archives, this mailing list was about dead,

> I wasn't surprised to hear it wasn't more formally done or publicly

> done, since it was only meant as a starting point for "these games are

> important, do something!" kinda thing. Henry could explain more I

> guess, hopefully I've not been wrong in my thoughts on it so far.

>

> Andrew

>

> Devin Monnens wrote:

>> Well, Ocarina of Time came out in '98. If that's not canonical, I

>> don't know what would be.

>>

>> I actually don't think we need 10 canonical games to be made each

>> year. I think there are some years with film and literature where

>> there really isn't that much produced that's actually worth looking

>> at (and some where it is a 'good year' or 'renaissance' and there are

>> more than 10). Further, if you took 10 things a year, your canon

>> would begin to get very unwieldy (1000 films is already beyond the

>> level where an ordinary person could know each one intimately, and

>> perhaps even see each one in a lifetime. Of course, we'd have to do

>> this for 100 years to get a thousand games, but by then I HOPE we'll

>> have more interesting games. I also think that before we get to that

>> point, there will probably be some changes to the system - for

>> instance, how can we go about preserving 10 other games when we can't

>> preserve any of the historical material regarding these others? Maybe

>> we really do need more than ten games to start with...

>>

>> More importantly though, I'd like to know what the criteria were for

>> selecting a game for the DGC. They're oddly not listed on the wiki,

>> and none of the news articles say anything about it.

>>

>> --

>> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>>

>> "Until next time..."

>> Captain Commando

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

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> game_preservation mailing list

>> game_preservation at igda.org

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

>>

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

>

> _______________________________________________

> game_preservation mailing list

> game_preservation at igda.org

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

>


--
Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood
<http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>


More information about the game_preservation mailing list