Warren Spector On Preserving Gaming History
Gamasutra is evidently launching a new feature, concerning the preservation of old video games and materials pertaining thereto. And to help inaugurate the feature, they’ve enlisted none other than Warren Spector to offer his opinions on the subject:
“Unlike earlier media, like film and television, which were born at a time when historians and academics tended to focus on an established canon of ‘important’ works and ‘great men,’ video games were born at a time when the cultural gatekeepers were more open to new ideas, new thinking and new media.”
“Where the early history of film and television has been largely lost thanks to industry indifference and academic ignorance, we have a chance to preserve our history, before our pioneers pass away, our design documents, marketing materials and beta builds disintegrate or get trashed, and our hardware deteriorates to the point of inoperability. The fact is, over the last 40 years or so, we’ve seen the rise of the first new medium of expression and communication since the rise of television and not to preserve our history would be a crime.”
Spector also comments on what the biggest obstacle to such an effort would be. And though he does discuss the cost of such an effort as well, it’s not what he sees as the biggest problem:
“The biggest threat is indifference. Most people making games see what they do as ephemeral, as not worthy of preservation. Who cares about an early design doc for any one of the thousands of games released each year? Why bother saving a T-shirt given out at E3 to promote the release of a game? Will anyone ever care about the September 1st draft of the schedule for a Mickey Mouse game?”
I can’t speak to the Epic Mickey context, but I will note that we have, in the galleries here at Aiera, several documents — some of them about as mundane as a project schedule — which emerged from the development processes of various Ultima games. Including, it should be noted, a few that Spector himself worked on.
Anyhow, Gamasutra has already gone live with their new feature, and evidently has commentary from Richard Garriott as well. (I’ll see if I can get around to posting an excerpt from that later today or some time tomorrow.)
I’ve posted this a few times, but it’s worth posting again:
Why History Needs Software Piracy: http://technologizer.com/2012/01/23/why-history-needs-software-piracy/
There are already so many games that would likely have been lost if not for the abandonware community and various fan communities. The best way to preserve things is to have copies in various places, so the loss of one is not the loss of all.
I’m also always reminded of the BBC series Doctor Who. Many of the older episodes are considered to be lost forever, since nobody bothered to keep the original film (or filmed over it!). People assumed at the time that it was one sci-fi show, and that nobody would care about it in twenty years. However, it’s still going strong with fans all over the world (many of whom like to watch those old episodes). Some episodes have been found, others were collected from fans who had videotaped them from television broadcasts.
Who can say what people will want to look back on in the years to come? Will there be a museum in the future for old gaming, old PC hardware, modems through the ages? We should strive to archive as much of the history of the computer age as we can.
Heh, I actually sent WtF_Dragon that link a while back.
And I definitly agree with this assesment. I’m no advocate of pirating games… but I think it’s a different thing when it concernes antique that can’t be found anywhere and I’d have a hard time blaming people who runs *proper* abandonware site when I think of the number of games that would have been lost forever without these guys.
While legally speaking it might be the same thing according to the letter of the law, I would argue that getting a very old game by alternate means is not necessarilly unethical or morally wrong(especially when we now have developpers telling us how eviiiil it is to buy used games – well guess what Sherlock, that’s the only way to get a legitimate copy of an old game in many cases!)
Now thankfully the legal alternative have been growing and keep growing over the last decade, which is good – and as I’ve been saying before, the vast majority of people will always prefer a good legal and easy to use alternative to seeking obscure abandonwares or emulaiton sites. But there are still many more obscure games that can Be hard to find (sure… I can buy Ultima I~VII through GoG, but what if I want to buy a legitimate copy of Knighs of Legend, Time of Lore or Autoduel ?)
This is why I’m advocating for abandonware to be made legal under very specific conditions – not the “If it hasn’t been published in 5 years we can distribute. Period.” that is usually brought forward but perhaps more something like 10 or even 15 years, with the possibility for the IP Holders tu “unabandonware” the game if they decide to publish it through some means (Digital distributon, compilations or such…). I think it’d go a long way to help preserve the history of videogames.
I might be naive about this, but I think there a many publishers, developpers who tacitely approve or this, or at the very least don’t care – or else there wouldn’t be so many abandonwares site on the net. You often see actual piracy sites being shut down and all, but it doesn’t seem to happen quite often to abandonwares site – probably because they know they’re not actually losing any money over antiques being distributed over the internet.
@Sergorn
I think you’d be right about pubs/devs approving of certain abandonware sites. I’ve done reviews and stuff for Abandonia, and they’re one of the biggest abandonware websites. Abandonia has quite a strict policy on making games available for download, and offer appropriate links for those games that are available to buy. I’d be pretty confident that many publishers are fully aware of what Abandonia offer, and if they wanted to could shut it down, but they don’t. I’m very glad that they’re willing to turn a blind eye.
Or does this just mean we are all hoarders? 😛