[game_preservation] The Videogame Archivist

[Andrew Armstrong]

The main thing that videogame doesn't encompass to me is things without 
video; there are a growing number of games for the deaf (or simply 
artistic games with no visuals) around. I think however at this stage it 
is just easier to realise they are included anyway (but is why 
electronic game/computer game/digital game could be considered more 
accurate).

Technical accuracy of the type of source is noteworthy though if 
necessary to distinguish things; in common usage it's not as much 
needed, because videogame is general enough.

I might gather these thoughts and differing opinions onto a wiki page 
sometime; even if some people think it is silly, it'd be worth noting 
for historical use in 10 or 20 years when we've forgotten what we 
discussed in 2011 :)

Andrew

On 10/01/2011 20:05, Panagiotis Kouvelis wrote:

> It reminds me of the state music was some years ago, are Manowar a 

> power metal band, or an epic metal, they say that they play true metal 

> and I always believed that they are a battle metal band, in one of 

> their songs they sing about rock'n'roll also :-)

>

> The term Electronic Games seems more right at the moment, but I'm also 

> into Videogames in one word. Also I believe that we have the titles 

> "analog" and "digital" to separate what we can compute for now, after 

> all we tend to rise the digital accuracy and someone can say that also 

> analog signal tend to quantization in a deeper level than our own 

> builded machines that calculate a higher level of discrete signal. I 

> also believe that there is a distinction between digital and analog 

> designs but in the videogame term thing that we are discussing here I 

> would say that it is also good to choose a term that the bigger 

> population will relate, that was always a good practice when 

> biologists named their newly found species, so I vote for "Videogame" 

> and with that "Computer Videogame" could be another option for the 

> computer driven applications.

>

> On 10/1/2011 8:49 μμ, Martin Goldberg wrote:

>> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 4:32 AM, Andrew 

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

>>> Ahh, but aren't all videogames also computer games? :D (do we even 

>>> have a

>>> proper answer?)

>> Yes, the technical answer is no. ;)

>>

>>

>> The Odyssey, dedicated consoles like PONG, and video coin-op machines

>> of the early 70's - they're all state machines based on discrete

>> logic.  They have no CPU, are not programmable, and certainly do not

>> follow any of the standards of Von Neumann Architecture to qualify as

>> a "computer".

>>

>> If you want to go by the idea of "computer" being simply a

>> computational device (ala pre-general purpose computers when

>> "computer" referred to an actual person, usually a woman, doing the

>> caclulations manually on a computational assistance device or

>> glorified calculator) you could stretch it to that.  But I wouldn't

>> call that accurate either.  Ralph for instance has stated on more than

>> one occasion when I questioned him on this exact subject, he in no way

>> considers the Odyssey a "computer".

>>

>> With this in mind, you're left with Henry's "digital games" being the

>> most accurate.  That is as long as you don't get in to an argument on

>> "digital" and "analog".  Some electrical engineers still consider

>> devices that use digital logic and components to be analog if they're

>> being driven by an RC or "analog pulse" vs. a crystal driven digital

>> one.  Hybrid systems.  Given the fact that most pre-digital IC driven

>> mainframe and mini computers used this pulse method (because that's

>> what was available), according to these people it also means they're

>> actually analog computers as well.

>>

>> I don't subscribe to that, as a lot of other people in the computer

>> sciences don't.  But it still brings up the constant conundrum we're

>> in - chooising descriptives that describe the context we're trying to

>> convey but still remain technically accurate.

>>

>>

>> Marty

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