Game Preservation SIG/Monthly Roundups/200905
International Game Developers Association
Contents |
May 2009
In the previous month we're trying to restart some of the projects the SIG wants to run. Hopefully anyone who is interested can get involved!
Preservation SIG April 2009 Work
The projects listed on our front wiki page have been put forward on the mailing list to get volunteers and interested people involved. Sadly, if there is no action on some fronts the projects will indefinitely lie dormant. If you know of anyone outside the SIG who is interested in videogame preservation and can lend a hand, please invite them!
The Memorials project has had a few updates, both to the layout and to the people added to our records. We are looking for biography writers, and also any missing entries, so please email memorials -at- igda -dot- org to suggest anything.
Devin Monnens has also started setting up Facebook and LinkedIn pages/groups, we'll advertise the links once they're up and running :)
Future Work for May 2009
Apart from being late doing the roundup (with a mixture of a server issue for a week at the start of May and me being busy), so actually this is mid-may, there are still things to finish. Among them I intend to finally get the last museum I actively know collecting a major amount of videogame material which is situated in Japan, and then hope to publish the list and start on gathering more detailed information about the museums soon.
The projects also need some active work put into them, but this is up to the individual project leads. I can help organise things, so give me a shout if you're too busy to get specifically started or need some help.
Any unassigned projects also need leads, and all the projects do need more help (since no project has more then one person working on it!). Please see the main page for basic information and the mailing list discussions below:
- Collectors Information
- Emulator Information
- Legal Issues/Information
- SIG Collaboration
- Preservation Standards
- Videogame Museums, Archives, Displays and Collections (Information)
Mailing List Discussions
If you've not joined our mailing list, please do so. We've never tried using our forums it seems :) we stick to old-fangled email. This will eventually change when the IGDA site changes over - although those wanting email can still get it.
April had discussions on online DRM, Soviet Game Museum, Geocities going under, TV emulation and a massive UK Ebay auction.
SIG stuff - GDC roundtable notes, Bibliography Project, Improving the News area, Facebook / LinkedIn pages, and finally a discussion on Our Membership - importantly on who we want to join up in the future.
Preservation SIG Blog Updates / Links
Have I missed anything this month? Then email it in to preservation_news @ igda.org !
With me working on the Bibliography project, intended to replace the "Linkblog" of old, and the fact this means that there can be automatically generated, cross-referenced and accurately sourced articles and stories means the current blog will only post preservation-related news.
I have, however, fallen behind on this, meaning not much added this month, including internal SIG news. I have no idea what the readership of the blog is like, but I want to improve this over the coming months - by posting SIG project news, and news about emulation, preservation projects and museums, and so forth. I'm going to be visiting the Urbis in Manchester tonight for the opening of a videogame history and play exhibit, which is one of the types of article I hope to link from the blog.
Once the bibliography is up, I'll code up some RSS feed for it, but also make a function to be able to linkdump a ton of interesting entries people enter that are flagged up as good to publish (being relatively new).
Final Thoughts
With so many recent videogame companies closing their door, it appears history and game preservation isn't really near anyones minds at the moment. It's a tad shameful that the only bits of of 3dRealms own material is being released by people looking for new jobs rather then by the company itself (or letting it be preserved!) - showing they had been working, not just doing nothing on the infamously long Duke Nukem Forever project. This is one of the best reasons to preserve unfinished and incomplete projects, and document the closing of companies in more detail. Maybe in the future we'll be able to provide more direct assistance in doing this across the world!
Andrew Armstrong
IGDA Game Preservation SIG Site/Blog editor
