[game_preservation] Questions about a website to preserve culture

[Scott Sheppard]

I, for the past three years, have kicked around the idea of starting a
website that would act as a main hub to catalog the entirety of video game
culture and history in digital form. Everything from Game entries, to
Developer profiles, to photographs that often show up on reddit, to
sprites, to in-game items, music, etc. I originally imagined it as an IMDb
for games, but after tweaking the idea off an on for these past years, have
decided on a larger scope and purpose. The goal would be to create a
dedicated platform that every game could have the detail as WoWWiki, in a
more profile oriented layout.

The goal would be to create a database website around the framework of a
crowdfunding game that would appeal to gamer's hearts. The game would be
made so as to foster the intrinsic benefits of contributing to an MMO style
collaborative project. It would be made in the style of what Jane McGonigal
talks about in her book 'Reality is Broken'. It would both serve as a way
to preserve the memory of games as we know it now and throughout the
future, as well as boldly experiment and test the waters in the field of
crowdsourcing games.

I'd like to first off inquire about the interest in such a project. I
planned on making this a large scale community project that would be open
for libraries and museums to include in their institutions. Is that
something that's even desired? Also, I wanted to know about collaboration
with other projects of a smaller more niche scale. Projects like
gamemusic.multimedia.cx, Ocremix, vNES, or Moby Games all have done amazing
things with their individual efforts, but lack the scale that could come
from banding together in a collaborative effort to preserve the things that
we all love. What are your thoughts on being able to all work towards a
common goal?
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