[game_preservation] Game Database question

[Devin Monnens]

Thanks, Jim, for the concept of 'better to at least have a shell entry than
nothing at all' for 'closed systems'. While Mobygames isn't doing something
like this, it's certainly something that should be part of a catalog. On the
Memorials page, we have a way of indicating which memorials need more data,
too. A system like that would work well for a shell entry, though doesn't
look like something Mobygames wants to add.

Coming back to my early question about ports... I think it might be useful
to think of these as translations of the game. Instead of a book being
translated from say Italian to English, we can think of a game as being
translated from Arcade to Genesis or PS2, C64 to Amiga, or Windows to Mac.
In a language translation, there is always something lost, and this is
almost always true for a game port. Translations can be poorly or
inaccurately done, but two translations can never communicate the same
information (there is always something missing with cultural context as well
as the sound of the words). With games, I think there is a desire to make
the two games identical, though this may only be possible with platforms
with similar capabilities for running the game (i.e. Braid on PC and 360;
Bayonetta on PS3 and 360, or for a poor translation, Final Fantasy XIII on
PS3 and 360 (major graphical glitches)). Of course, this goes back as well
to Lunar Lander where fans recreated the game on a then-modern operating
system, but Jack Burness said the timing was off and so it was a completely
different game. I suppose the difference here between translation is that we
are capable of experiencing two games on two different platforms without
needing to learn another language, so the differences are much more
transparent.
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