[game_preservation] "Selecting Save on the Games We Make" on Gamasutra & at PAX East

[John Andersen]

Hi Devin, 
 
Glad you liked the article, I also really liked Yosuke Hayashi's comments, that level of detail was what I was looking for in answers and statements.  You'll really like the answers from the indie developers coming up in the last part.  
 
You're right about the various statements that were written by PR reps. In the case of Square Enix, two separate PR reps did their very best to circulate the questions around the Tokyo office of Square-Enix, I was fortunate enough to get any kind of response, but nothing as insightful as Hayashi's detailed answers unfortunately.  I've also heard the stories about Square not holding on to various material as well.  I wonder how the Enix side of the business did in preserving its development material? 
 
What I hoped to have also accomplished with these articles is to at least get high-level executives and management at developers and publishers to look into their archive/preservation situation.  If just one developer or publisher begins to look into the status of their own archives, and take steps to do something with any material from the past or present,  then I feel like I've accomplished something.  This actually happened with indie developer I was in contact with for the article.  He emailed me after he sent along his answers to say that my questions for the article prompted the company to go out and purchase a couple of back-up drives.  I was really floored by that admission, but I also felt like "Mission Accomplished".  To get companies thinking about preserving, archiving and even searching for older material is what i hope will happen "behind the scenes" as well.  
 
- John Andersen  
 



Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:13:30 -0700
From: dmonnens at gmail.com
To: game_preservation at igda.org
Subject: Re: [game_preservation] "Selecting Save on the Games We Make" on Gamasutra & at PAX East

Just read through the article. Great work, John! It's great to hear so many positive comments from the developers (I especially liked Yosuke Hayashi's insightful statements). 


Some of these comments are obviously colored by PR though. I've spoken to some people who worked at Square or knew about Square, and so I have heard second-hand that Square did not do a good job of preserving their development materials. Square-Enix's response is therefore not exactly a false statement, but it is vague enough that it perhaps does not show the true picture. I just wanted to throw that out there because some companies are obviously more concerned with it than others.


-Devin Monnens
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