Trash cans, landfills, and incinerators. Erasure, deletion, and obsolescence. These words could describe what has happened to the various building blocks of the video game industry in countries around the world. These building blocks consist of video game source code, the actual computer hardware used to create a particular video game, level layout diagrams, character designs, production documents, marketing material, and more.
These are just some elements of game creation that are gone -- never to be seen again. These elements make up the home console, handheld, PC and arcade games we've played. The only remnant of a particular game may be its name, or its final published version, since the possibility exists that no other physical copy of its creation remains.
As a community of video game developers, publishers, and players, we must begin asking ourselves some difficult but inevitable questions. Some believe there is no point in preserving a video game, arguing that games are short-term entertainment, while others disagree with this statement entirely, believing the industry is in a preservation crisis.
Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis [more inside]
posted by timshel
on Feb 9, 2011 -
44 comments
Contrary to a lot of idle criticism, Bungie's
Halo series of video games has
a surprisingly rich backstory -- a universe complex enough to support
seven bestselling novels,
a wiki with over 7,000 articles, and
one of the most successful ARGs in history (including
a full-fledged radio drama). The series has also turned out sweeping audiovisual work, from the games'
cinematic cutscenes and
epic music (lots of free previews) to
top-shelf anime and the Hollywood-quality short films --
ODST,
Believe,
Deliver Hope,
Landfall -- that were made to promote the games (the latter of which, produced by Neil Blomkamp,
inspired District 9). And that's apart from all the material produced by Bungie's dedicated fan base:
genuinely hilarious machinima from
Red vs. Blue,
professional-level graphic novels (table of contents at the top),
gorgeous artwork,
hours of recorded dialogue,
complete transcripts of
hidden apocrypha, and more
factual analysis,
story speculation, and
casual discussion than you can shake an energy sword at. But most of these pale in comparison to the latest and greatest exercise in Halo beanplating: the
Svmma Canonica, a 40-page, 17,000-word formal treatise on the nature of canon in the world that Bungie built, and how it will fare once Bungie moves on and the franchise is managed by 343 Industries. Discussion
over at Bungie's official site, or at decade-old fan forum
Halo.Bungie.Org.
posted by Rhaomi
on Jan 31, 2011 -
71 comments
It starts with Delaware... Over at Google Answers, a Microsoft Games Studio employee has posted a most interesting puzzle to solve. Over the course of the last twenty
months a list of states has been gradually revealed by his boss, but under what criteria are they listed? He's giving $200.00 to the winner; just think of
what you could
buy. The fine folks at the
Straight Dope are already on the case. To the Googlemobile! [via
Cardhouse]
posted by thewittyname
on Aug 22, 2002 -
75 comments
EA:WTF? I understand if people want to make web apps that only work on Windows based browsers. But you would think that a large games company like EA would treat others a little better than this (Proud Macintosh owners, get ready to squint).
Besides, I really want to play
Majestic, and last time I checked, a game that uses email, fax, web and AOL IM technology doesn't require Windows. : p
posted by Brilliantcrank
on Mar 8, 2001 -
13 comments
Alexey Pajitnov , the creator of Tetris has had a remarkable life. He developed one of the world's most recoginizable (and mind-numbingly addictive) games - and in the process, managed to survive through all sorts of incredible bureaucratic and corporate nonesense. Speaking of corporate nonesense, he's currently an employee of Microsoft.
posted by grant
on Dec 9, 1999 -
0 comments
