[game_preservation] Frank Cifaldi's preservation article on 1Up

[Andrew Armstrong]

I think (and I don't want to second guess him, he's on this list I 
think) but it's the scope and size of the institution, and the rigor of 
preserving the materials, and the fact that almost no game company 
actively preserves anything they make with a 3rd party, whereas film 
places I bet have agreements for providing a copy of their films when 
they are released into the archives properly, as well as the archives 
having copies of their digital and non-digital film stocks as necessary.

I also think the game archives are a lot smaller, just the way it is 
really, and without a large amount of money there's not much that could 
change that.

Andrew

On 09/01/2010 20:09, Devin Monnens wrote:

> Well here's a question then: what exactly do we need to get to the 

> level of a UCLA or ASIFA preservation and archive group? Stanford and 

> UT Austin are getting there (as is the LoC), but what types of 

> resources and recognition do we need? I also suppose, how does this 

> compare with film archival after the first 30-40 of the medium (which 

> is about where we're at in terms of commercial games).

>

> I mean, you look at commercial films (1890 is a good benchmark) and 25 

> years into that there was Birth of a Nation (1914) and then you 

> compare that with games, we have Super Mario 64 (1996) (and in terms 

> of narrative, say...Planescape and MGS? And hey, at least none of 

> these are viewed as racist today!). You know, I think that's a pretty 

> good comparison, but I think we could do a little better for making 

> games that explore history and culture (kind of hard since games are 

> made to entertain, part of the reason why I say Shigeru Miyamoto is 

> more the Buster Keaton of videogames rather than the Spielberg).

>

> On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Andrew Armstrong 

> <andrew at aarmstrong.org <mailto:andrew at aarmstrong.org>> wrote:

>

>     "As much as I wish this weren't true, widely distributing an

>     unreleased game in pirated form over the Internet is the only

>     method of preservation that I trust, at least for now. There is no

>     equivalent of, say, a UCLA Film & Television Archive or an

>     ASIFA-Hollywood for videogames. Certainly we have the beginnings

>     of equivalent institutions -- the archives at Stanford and UT

>     Austin for example are off to tremendous starts -- but the

>     resources and industry recognition just aren't there yet, at least

>     to my satisfaction."

>

>     A shame this is basically true still - there just isn't the

>     resources around, and the standards and concentrated effort just

>     sadly isn't present, at least as far as I know! (if it is present

>     but hidden, that's just as bad!)

>

>     Interesting reasons laid down to justify it, although I don't

>     think anyone here would need convincing. :)

>

>     Andrew

>

>

>     On 09/01/2010 16:45, Devin Monnens wrote:

>>     Nobody's reported on this here, but there's an article on backing

>>     up beta and unreleased games.

>>

>>     http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3177520

>>

>>     -- 

>>     Devin Monnens

>>     www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>

>>

>>     The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>>

>>

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>>        

>

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>

>

>

> -- 

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

>

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>    

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