[game_preservation] Cataloging Standards?

[Devin Monnens]

Thanks, Rachael. That is a really good bit of information. Mobygames has a
nice selection, but my one critique of them is that they do not seem to take
into account reprints or re-releases. This can be important when information
was changed in the reprinting.

For instance, there are several versions of *Maniac Mansion *in the US, one
of which allows you to microwave the hamster. While this isn't as
significant as, say, the *Aliens* extended cut or *Apocalypse Now Redux *in
film (in that it doesn't significantly alter the game's meaning), there is
no means of documenting this. Same goes with original and reprints of games,
though maybe this has more to do with different cover art (afaik, the sku's
are the same).

On a more meaningful side, we can have version numbers of games where bug
fixes alter replay for speedrunning. This is well documented with Metroid
Prime in which some speedrunning glitches are fixed. As a result, players
have to document what version of the game they are using when submitting a
speedrun.

-Devin

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Rachel Donahue <donahrm at gmail.com> wrote:


> Coming to this reaaalllly late, so apologies if this has already been

> brought up.

>

> In archives, we call it "description" rather than cataloging. And there are

> indeed content and structure standards, with values generally being in-house

> since archival material is more unique making a unified thesaurus kind of

> silly. Ok, really not many institutions follow the standards with rigor.

> There are also add on standards for various media, but video games do not

> yet have their own standard. Honestly, for the games themselves rather than

> development materials, library standards make as much sense since they're

> published. Here are a few examples of archival description standards,

> regardless:

>

>  *Rules for archival sescription (**RAD**).* Canadian Council of Archives.

> http://www.cdncouncilarchives.ca/archdesrules.html

>

> *Describing Archives: A Content Standard* (*DACS*). Chicago: SAA, 2004.

>

> *ISAD(G):** General international standard archival description *

> http://www.ica.org/en/node/30000

>

> *Encoded Archival Description (**EAD**)*. http://www.loc.gov/ead/

>

> *Encoded Archival Context (EAC).* http://xml.coverpages.org/eac.html

>

> Generally speaking, I think MobyGames has it right:

> http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards

>

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

> Rachel Donahue, MLS

> http://rdonahue.net

> Doctoral student, iSchool

> Research Assistant, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities

> University of Maryland, College Park

>

> Communications and Research Assistant

> Center for Advanced Systems and Technologies

> National Archives and Records Administration

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

>

>

>

> On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 1:28 PM, <ommail at cox.net> wrote:

>

>> It would be for everything related to games--data/physical

>> boxes/development documentation/photographs/ephemera/etc.

>> Having a method that would work for all aspects of gaming would be

>> paramount to a universal standard.

>> That's my dream, anyway--more to come soon.

>>

>> Joe

>>

>> ---- Martin Goldberg <wgungfu at gmail.com> wrote:

>> > 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

>> > >>>> _______________________________________________

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

>> > >>

>> > >>

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>> > >>

>> > >

>> > >

>> > >

>> > > --

>> > > Devin Monnens

>> > > www.deserthat.com

>> > >

>> > > The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>> > >

>> > > _______________________________________________

>> > > game_preservation mailing list

>> > > game_preservation at igda.org

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

>> > >

>> > >

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>>

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-- 
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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