[game_preservation] [Monthly SIG Roundup] March 2009

[Andrew Armstrong]

White paper work has gone on strongly and GDC is looming!


      Preservation SIG February 2009 Work

The white paper "Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White 
Paper 
<http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG/White_Paper/Before_It%27s_Too_Late:_A_Digital_Game_Preservation_White_Paper>" 
is now nearly complete, there is some more editing to do and printing to 
take care of before GDC. Good work all who has contributed to it! we'll 
release a digital copy to the SIG and public when we can :)

The SIG also has a logo, finally. I finished up the design, and is shown 
proudly on our wiki page 
<http://www.igda.org/wiki/Game_Preservation_SIG>. I'll be sure to get it 
on future content, new IGDA site pages, and whatever else I can.

At the Internet Archive we have two major changes - contributions to the 
videogame footage collection 
<http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Satakore.com%22> 
from Satakore.com <http://www.satakore.com/>, a Sega site.

Secondly, we have been working on the new section for game patches 
<http://www.archive.org/details/gamepatches>. This is currently having 
bits and pieces added to it (so I can get up to speed on the kind of 
thing which is a good idea to do for items - patch notes, etc.). Help 
would be welcome, so if anyone has a large collection of patches, 
especially for older titles, getting them to me or uploading them would 
be a great help. Contact me or Simon (simon -at- archive -dot- org) to 
offer help.

We also have had some interest for starting up the Oral Histories 
project for real, at least in collaboration with existing efforts in the 
area - Dean O'Donnell from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The 
collectors information project might also get some help from Stuart 
Feldhamer, thank you both!

Finally, Dan Pinchbeck from Portsmouth University has got some 
preservation panel work to be offered to DiGRA <http://www.digra.org/>, 
one item will be the white paper, and some other related research of 
course. The actual event is at Brunel University, West London 1st - 4th 
of September 2009, a date for your diaries if you're in the UK.


      Future Work for March 2009

Major items to get done in March include preparing for GDC. We'll make 
sure to advertise when the extra meeting session will be, the roundtable 
has been confirmed to be Friday (March 27, 2009), 2:30pm --- 3:30pm 
<https://www.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=G&V=3&id=99189>. Catch us 
there if possible!

I personally am also going to report on Byte-Back 
<http://byte-back.info/> next weekend, and finally play some more old 
videogames. I certainly don't do enough in that regard!


      Mailing List Discussions

If you've not joined our mailing list 
<http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation>, please do 
so. We've never tried using our forums it seems :) we stick to 
old-fangled email.

This month 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-February/thread.html> 
we have discussions on an extra GDC meeting 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-February/000817.html>, 
the aforementioned collectors project 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-February/000822.html> 
and oral histories 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-February/000845.html>, 
as well as a lot around KEEP 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-February/000834.html>. 


There is also sad discussion on HOTU 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-February/000890.html> 
(Home of the Underdogs) shutting down, and an interesting discussion 
started on preserving analogue media correctly 
<http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/2009-February/000858.html>. 
Contributions to the latter discussion welcomed this month!


      Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links

/Have I missed anything this month? Then email it in to 
preservation_news @ igda.org !/

*Note*: this month I've been terribly lax. I've got 300+ things just in 
my RSS feeds to check out, so expect more news on the blog next month.

    * The National Videogame Archive Updates and My Report
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/03/the_national_vi.html>

    * Retroaction - Retro Gaming Mag
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/02/retroaction_ret.html>

    * Ask the Game Trust: The First Game You Bought
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/02/ask_the_game_tr.html>

    * Home of the Underdogs Website Hosting Ceased
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/02/home_of_the_und.html>

    * The Trough of No Value
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/02/the_trough_of_n.html>

    * I'm Back!
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/02/im_back.html>
    * European Project KEEP - Keeping emulation environments portable
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/02/european_projec.html>

    * On Daikatana
      <http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/02/on_daikatana.html>


      Final Thoughts

Hopefully we'll see some of the SIG gather at GDC :) should be fun!

Andrew Armstrong

IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor

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