[game_preservation] IGDA Chapter Meeting Minutes

[Jim Leonard]

On 3/9/2012 11:40 AM, Henry Lowood wrote:

> Devin, were you not able to attend remotely? I think the video feed went

> ok; we had 5 or 6 people on it.


The feed went rather well after everyone on the feed muted their mics, 
which stopped all the ambient compression noise ("swishing") and we were 
left with only Henry's mic.  It was very low, but it was audible.

Something concerned me briefly during the meeting:  Someone (a 
journalist, I didn't catch the name due to low chat volume) mentioned 
that he was apprehensive to talk badly about MobyGames, as I was present 
in the (virtual) room.  I'd like to make a few things clear:

1. I'm no longer officially associated with MobyGames now that the sale 
to GameFly is complete, so I can talk about any aspect of it I want to.

2. I don't have any hangups about failure -- failure is an opportunity 
to learn and succeed the second time around.  I have no problem both 
admitting and talking about some of the ways MobyGames failed in what it 
was/is trying to achieve.

So next time, bash away :-) and I'd be happy to give context to some of 
the design decisions that were made, what practices we tried to adhere 
to, what failed, what succeeded, etc.  There are portions of MobyGames 
that outright failed, and I'm not blind to them, nor opposed to 
discussing them.

In fact, I think I heard a criticism during the meeting that MobyGames 
can't possibly be comprehensive without coin-op arcade games.  This is 
*absolutely true* and I agree with the sentiment.  At the time we 
started to expand platforms in the early 2000s, we made the decision to 
stay away from arcade games because the KLOV was doing a pretty good 
job, and we wanted to turn our attention to platforms that weren't 
covered as well (for every powerhouse like the NES or Xbox, there's an 
Atari Lynx huddled in the corner that deserves a fair shake :-).  So 
that's why coin-ops were initially out of scope.  TODAY, however, there 
is no reason why they should be excluded; it would be a good suggestion 
to make on the MobyGames forums.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Check out some trippy MindCandy at        http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars:  http://trixter.oldskool.org/