Help save videogames from extinction News
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by
Robert Purchese
The newly-formed National Videogame Archive wants your help deciding which old videogames to save and present to future generations as historical and cultural landmarks.
This Save the Videogame campaign launches at Nottingham's GameCity Three festival, which takes place next week, from 30th October to 1st November.
Here, revellers will be invited to star in short video clips pledging support for their favourite games. Some developers have already done so on the Save the Videogame website, and a showreel of theirs and other industry pledges will be shown on the day.
Plus, there's loads of other stuff to do at GameCity, and it falls conveniently after the Eurogamer Expo.
The National Videogame Archive itself, formed in September, aims to collect any and all old game paraphernalia (as well as the games themselves), including box art, instruction manuals, fan art, walkthroughs, cosplay, superplay performances, speedruns, mods and more.
The NVA hopes we don't make the same mistakes that led to the loss of so many early examples of film, TV and music.
My name is Eurogamer, and I'm pledging my support to Save the Videogame.
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Comments: 1-48 of 48 in total
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Triggerhappytel
22/10/08 @ 13:27
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Well, it would obviously have to be a proper classic like Super Mario Bros., although my first thought was The Adventures of Alundra, because I love it and wish it had got more attention.
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Thunderbolt!
22/10/08 @ 13:39
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Well only a select few games are worth saving, as they tend to age very badly. Whereas Film and Music has a more timeless appeal IMO
And those worthy will have been already collected in some or other retro package |
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http://www.softpres.org/games
There's already humoungous list of preserved Amiga games, and by preserved, I mean exact copies down to every little bit and piece of code. These are known as .ipf files, and among many Amiga users they're also called CAPS, short for Classic Amiga Preservation Society which SPS was called before the namechange. Amiga owners with original games all around the world have contributed to this project, simply by "dumping" disk-images with a unique program made by SPS. Before you can do that, though, you'll have to pass a certain diskdrive test, to see if they're properly aligned and stuff. I myself has dumped plenty of games from my original collection, and I know that I and many others have bought a few Amiga games from ebay for the sole purpose of supporting the SPS project. This in turn has also made the list of WHDload games grow drastically the last few years (since they need an exact copy of the game to write the install). More about WHDload here: http://www.whdload.de The SPS are also completely objective when it comes to games... even universally accepted crap games gets preserved. They're aiming to preserve every single game ever created for the Amiga, regardless of quality or value. This project has also helped out and can help out developers who have lost the masters forever, as these IPFs are basically all masters, and not purely copies.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 22/10/08 @ 15:06
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kangarootoo
22/10/08 @ 14:32
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Maybe I am misunderstanding the concept behind this, but in this modern age of the internet pretty much everything is saved by the very fact that distribution is trivial. There is no reason to ever lose another episode of Dr Who (unfortunately) because someone somewhere is bound to have a copy.
Or is the idea that an actual DVD gets stored somewhere? Does it matter whether the game is in its original box? I need clarification (and I can't be bothered to seek it out for myself). |
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JohnnyWashnGo
22/10/08 @ 14:35
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Save each and every one of them - they are, after all, works of art.
Ideally, every company should open source every game that they have ever made and put the code into an online sunversion repository, along with the build scripts to recreate them from scratch ;) |
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videogangs
22/10/08 @ 21:10
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The Repton series on the BBC Micro. Great games.
__________ Bloody hell i had a copy of repton, completely forgot about that one lol. |
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SpyroViper
23/10/08 @ 08:05
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I do hope the only games that will be saved are GOOD retro games. Super Mario bros, Sonic The Hedgehog, COD4, etc would be good choices.
Just don't save the newer games that are absolute pants, Tabula Rasa for instance was a load of c**k. |
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kangarootoo
23/10/08 @ 08:38
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I second Broken Sword.
All the Monkey Island and LA Indiana Jones games, obviously. You could probably chuck Loom in the same sack too. That Hunter game on the Amiga (3D sandbox gaming about 10 years before GTS3 came along... AND it had a hovercraft). And Rupert and the Ice Castle on the C64... errrrr.... I mean.... Zak Gunship and the Tits of Doom. Yeah, thats what I meant to say. Ahaha ha hmm. |
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Serious answer... Save the early Ultimas! Seminal.
Even more serious answer... Don't worry about saving old games - collectors will see to that. It's the recent DRMed discs/games you want to worry about - they'll work fine years after the companies that made them go under. OH NO, WAIT! THEY'LL BE USELESS. And if the Jetsons decide to circumvent the DRM, they'll be criminals (in the US, at least...) Oh, and yes to System Shock (1, not 2).
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 23/10/08 @ 10:54
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canIdoyabombsforya
19/03/09 @ 11:50
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With some of the very rare and unique old shit that turns up from 100s of years ago, Im not too worried about video games getting preserved. More and more games are turning up hence ebay prices dropping over the years, I remember so called rare Amiga games going for £20 in 2002, now they're two a penny.
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Comments: 1-48 of 48 in total
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