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[liormann]

Hello fellow Abandonians!

Today it's academia calling for the help of those-in-the-know (yep, Wisdom of Crowds rocks), which means all of YOU

I am doing research in preservation of video games - any kind, any genre, any developer. I'm working for a project called Planets (more here if you wish: http://www.planets-project.eu/) and part of our effort is to investigate how video games can survive obsolescence and provide a record of culture for future generations.

I have been running a number of experiments for this purpose - some using our beloved DOSBox - including binary translators, emulators and virtual machines (don't want to bore you with technicalities, but pls ask me if you would like further info).

However, a constant problem is how to measure the appropriateness of the different preservation techniques for preservation - or in other words how to find the significant properties of video games that should be preserved. This is where your help is needed (pleease...)! I would ne grateful it if you could come up with a few ideas on characteristics of video games that must be preserved, so that the content and the context of the original game is kept.

These can include issues such as graphics (eg support for ega, vga...), sound, speed, dependency on peripheral devices (eg mouse or certain types of keyboard arrangment) etc. There are some academic papers on the subject, but as it often happens people in academia are more interested in themselves and their precious views rather than the needs and expertise of the actual users!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know if you need any further info

Keep those ideas coming :thumbs:

Many thanks!

[_r.u.s.s.]

Originally Posted by liormann

However, a constant problem is how to measure the appropriateness of the different preservation techniques for preservation - or in other words how to find the significant properties of video games that should be preserved. This is where your help is needed (pleease...)! I would ne grateful it if you could come up with a few ideas on characteristics of video games that must be preserved, so that the content and the context of the original game is kept.

you mean, you are gonna be ripping the games? if you want to preserve the game you have to keep everything...

[arete]

I think keeping as close to the original properties of the game as possible is very important. Although remakes have their place, we're essentially catering to a nostalgia on the part of the users, and giving them their original experience is a vital factor. I also feel that we're something of an archive of old game software. Not only are we helping to preserve it, but we're promoting and popularising it as well. I feel that there is a deep pool of experience and technical know-how in this forum, and the technical people who help out here are worth their weight in adamantium. So to me the community is as valuable here as the software itself. I think that covers everything.

[Saccade]

Here is my method for preserving old games:

IF PC - keep discs and box, etc... in dark, dry room @ 5-30c (my study)
IF CONSOLE - keep cartridge/discs and box, etc... as above

IF NOT OWNED - keep archive/iso on DVD-ROM & external hdd with boxshots, etc...
WHEN "not on internet" - Upload all to internet.

BUT "CONSOLE" - let someone else do the emulations, as I haven't a clue what to do.

(except for 3DO. I know how to do that, but that counts as IF CONSOLE)

--
The "significant properties" of computer games to keep are:

ALL OF IT!!!

You can't preserve something intact by ripping bits out of it.
That's just puerile.

[Lulu_Jane]

Both methods have their place. That's what I reckon anyways, and would be best if done concurrently.

[liormann]

Originally Posted by arete

I think keeping as close to the original properties of the game as possible is very important. Although remakes have their place, we're essentially catering to a nostalgia on the part of the users, and giving them their original experience is a vital factor. I also feel that we're something of an archive of old game software. Not only are we helping to preserve it, but we're promoting and popularising it as well. I feel that there is a deep pool of experience and technical know-how in this forum, and the technical people who help out here are worth their weight in adamantium. So to me the community is as valuable here as the software itself. I think that covers everything.

Hi arete

I couldn't agree more with you, and this is why I turned to the community for insight rather than pretend to be omniscient myself and come up with characteristics. The community, and consequently the collective knowledge that results from it, plays a vital role in situating the context in which the software is used. Being a gamer myself - and an great fan of Abandonia - I also believe that such initiatives work towards preservation and dissemination of video games. However, there is growing demand from the digital preservation community for formal archival usage, i.e. one where the video game is accompanied by metadata and the preservation method is as persistent in time as possible. The latter is of course the pitfall of digital preservation - who can ensure long-term conservation? Some might argue that resources such as Abandonia are here now, gone tomorrow. Similarly, some view the "archive" - and by that they mean something like a national archive - as the only way to preserve. Personally, I am not convinced, again because the community is stronger and the golden logic of copy-(disseminate)-copy-copy might well be the remedy to save our games as cultural records.

However, my question remains: what do we preserve? For instance, DOSBox is great for rendering DOS games but what happens if DOSBox stops working on future systems? Is in this case a virtual machine running DOS could be more apposite. I should emphasise here that we're not looking to rip games or create remakes: we want to make the original files playable for anything the future might bring. To do this (hopefully), we need to know what are the technical and contextual characteristics of video games that must be preserved - unfortunately we can't keep everything and compromises have to be made.

[liormann]

Originally Posted by Saccade

The "significant properties" of computer games to keep are:

ALL OF IT!!!

You can't preserve something intact by ripping bits out of it.
That's just puerile.

I think my original post wasn't very clear... I am not trying to rip bits off the game, on the contrary I want to keep the game as intact as possible. However, by having an understanding of significant characteristics I can draw comparisons between different preservation merthods. Here is an example:

- Hand of Fate runs fine under Windows XP but with no sound. Is that acceptable? SHould we say that the game is fairly preserved and sound is not that important? If not, then sound is a significant characteristic.

- Similarly, the same game has speech. The version on Abandonia doesn't include the speech files (at least in the version I have, please ignore if I'm wrong ). Is speech necessary to preserve so that we can safely say the game is preserved? If so, then speech is a significant property.

I hope this clarifies things somewhat... The problem with video games is that so many parameters are involved, it's hard to know if eg virtualisation or emulation are good ways of preserving a game, when you don't know the criteria on which this will be based (comparing always the "preserved version" to the original).

[_r.u.s.s.]

please delete this post

[The Fifth Horseman]

Originally Posted by liormann

- Hand of Fate runs fine under Windows XP but with no sound. Is that acceptable? SHould we say that the game is fairly preserved and sound is not that important? If not, then sound is a significant characteristic.

You are mistaking compatibility with preservation. Backwards compatibility is - for the most part - an oxymoron. If a game runs on a modern system, but without proper sound then it cannot be claimed to be fully compatible with that system.

- Similarly, the same game has speech. The version on Abandonia doesn't include the speech files (at least in the version I have, please ignore if I'm wrong ). Is speech necessary to preserve so that we can safely say the game is preserved? If so, then speech is a significant property.

All sensory properties of a game are significant to the end user, just as are the gameplay properties.

This is something you want to keep a note of: Many games were released in two versions - one on CD and one on Floppy Disks. These usually weren't the same: the CD versions routinely took advantage of greater space offered by the medium to present the player with additional / improved contents (higher quality sound samples, digitized speech, FMV cutscenes and so on), but that doesn't mean the content was equivalent to the floppy version (compare the CD and Floppy versions of Flashback or Space Hulk - the cutscenes differ greatly in presentation, and the latter has some changes in level design).

Thus: The games should be preserved in a form replicating the original data structure - if not neccesarily the media it was stored on - as close as possible. All alternate versions (due to content differences) should be preserved if possible.

However, my question remains: what do we preserve?

The game as both entertainment medium and a media experience.

For instance, DOSBox is great for rendering DOS games but what happens if DOSBox stops working on future systems? Is in this case a virtual machine running DOS could be more apposite.

As it is right now, DOSBox is open source - if the dev team dissolves for whatever reason, anyone else with sufficient programming know-how would be able to pick up the project as they left it and continue it.
Thus, it's very unlikely for DOSBox to just "stop working" any time soon.

To do this (hopefully), we need to know what are the technical and contextual characteristics of video games that must be preserved - unfortunately we can't keep everything and compromises have to be made.

Most users don't really care about the installation or configuration processes, but the game's presentation and gameplay must remain unaltered to their perception. Since most of these games used completely individual one-off engines, and very few had their source code released to the public, emulation/virtualization is the only means through which this can be achieved on a grander scale.

The ideal way would be, convincing the publishers to make the source codes available under some sort of GPL once they cease selling a game and have no intent to re-release it. Pity that very few ever chose to do that.

[Saccade]

Originally Posted by _r.u.s.s.

please delete this post

please delete russ' account.

---

Sooo - you mean that you want to "preserve" the game by having it run EXACTLY as it was supposed to in its Native OS, but on any operating system..?
Is that correct, Liorman?

If so, what OS are you thinking of..?