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Thread: Is their a agency preserving the History of Video Games?

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    Default Is their a agency preserving the History of Video Games?

    Video Games are like fine art. Every single game needs to be documented and recorded, and saved for all time. Is any agency of any type doing this?


    Somebody must make sure that all video games are saved on some massive hard drive, for all of time. So that even 200 years from now, somebody can witness the horror that is "Trevor McFurr in the Cresent Galaxy".

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    I've wanted to do something like that. An officially sanctioned organization would be able to get things that collectors or hobbyists might otherwise not have the opportunity to get.

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    Well, there was such an agency, but with all the current budget cuts and bad economy, the Federal Buerau of Video Game Preservation's budget for the coming year amounts to a handful of Chuck E. Cheese game tokens and a year's renewal on their GameStop discount card.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Wrong
    Well, there was such an agency, but with all the current budget cuts and bad economy, the Federal Buerau of Video Game Preservation's budget for the coming year amounts to a handful of Chuck E. Cheese game tokens and a year's renewal on their GameStop discount card.

    That was quite funny! Bravo, my young lad. Bravo!

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    Great Puma (Level 12) Sylentwulf's Avatar
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    I'm sure a lot of people on HERE have every game ever made on backup.

    I thought you were going to say something like what Joe has going
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    I like to think we're doing our part, but it's hardly a sanctioned organization. Archiving ROMS is one effort, cataloging everything in our database is another, but I don't know if this is the kind of "preservation" you mean.

    What would such an organization do, exactly?

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    Quote Originally Posted by digitalpress
    I like to think we're doing our part, but it's hardly a sanctioned organization. Archiving ROMS is one effort, cataloging everything in our database is another, but I don't know if this is the kind of "preservation" you mean.

    What would such an organization do, exactly?

    Basically, the organization would catalog every video game known to man. This would involve knowing when the game was released, for what system, who published it, who developed it, and then actually having one copy of the actual game. Even Arcade cabinets. They should have one, original version, of every single video game known to man, and they should also have the games saved to a hard drive in Rom form, with the emulators and stuff.

    It kind of would be like a Library of Congress for Video Games. Documenting and saving the history of video games for future generations to look back upon. In fact, there should actually be a museum, that people could go to, and look at all this stuff. There should even be 3 locations. One in Tokyo, one in London, and one in San Francisco.

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    I was thinking of something more along the lines of an industry timeline. Companies could relinquish items not normally seen by consumers (Development kits, design docs, etc), with the understanding that these items do not fall into individual collectors' hands; this seems to be the main legal reason why many things do not make appearances outside the company.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Anthony1
    Basically, the organization would catalog every video game known to man. This would involve knowing when the game was released, for what system, who published it, who developed it,
    Okay, we're on that already... but

    and then actually having one copy of the actual game. Even Arcade cabinets. They should have one, original version, of every single video game known to man, and they should also have the games saved to a hard drive in Rom form, with the emulators and stuff.
    KLOV.com keeps info on arcade machines but getting an original version of every single video game known to man would certainly take an army to gather. And since it's really going to be a challenge to keep a "rom form" of games that are on diskette, cassette, and DVD - and who knows WHAT media in the future - it's a tall order.

    Documenting, we'll continue to do. Archiving? That's gonna have to be someone else's job. A lot of someone else's, I would expect!

    Cool idea though.

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    The games don't necessarily have to be saved to ROM or ISO files or anything, they just have to be saved, and preserved, so that in the year 2123, if Buck Skywalker wants to check out a game like Power Drive Rally for the Atari Jaguar, then he will be able to do so.


    Basically, I just hope that somebody is saving all this stuff somewhere, somehow. I don't know exactly how it will be done, but it should be done.


    On a side note, do you think anybody has done this with movies? Like they've gotten a copy of every single movie ever made, and have cataloged it and archived it?

    Or say Paintings or something like that. I know they wouldn't have the originals of course, but copies of the original. Replica's of the original.

    Same thing here.

    I don't even think that the agency that would catalog and archive this stuff would need to have every original, even if they just had a copy of everything, of course, legalites would come into play on that, but you know what I mean.

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    I thought about this too, I don't know if the Federal government has any department doing this, I would assume it falls under the library of congresses domain, but other than that I though it would be cool to have a National video game museum. It could function on donations of cash and used games, doubles of which could be sold to fill in holes of the museum's collection. Might even be able to get companies to provide one copy of all new games to the muesuem for archival purposes. Could have exhibits ans such, with timeline and game evolution information.

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    Well, it's all completely FEASIBLE, except the arcade cabinets, no way that will ever happen anywhere ever. There's gotta be tens of thousands of different arcade cabinets (hundreds of thousands? Million maybe? I can't even guess)

    You'd need to buy a CITY and put a roof over it to hold that many.
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    Not even Bill Gates could own one of every arcade machine ever made, let alone justify spending time looking for old arcade games over work.

    The fact that old games are disappearing (and so is knowledge about them) does indeed suck, but that's the nature of life. The only ones who care are us.

    *Cue Metal Gear Solid 2 theme*

    I like that you care, but for the moment this undertaking is our responsibility. Someday there will be researchers looking over information such as posts at this forum, looking for clues about titles long gone. The best way to protect for the future is through small organizations such as this. Whatever we save now will likely survive for a long time, but whatever we miss will be gone forever.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Oscuro
    Not even Bill Gates could own one of every arcade machine ever made...
    I don't know about that... He's pretty rich.

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    I have thought about this as well, personally I would like to see a museum set up somewhere, much like other museums, were people/company’s can donate and lend products. There would also be game themed art such as advertisements and pieces influenced by video games as well.

    Perhaps it could include with a video game hall of fame, which would include awards for when a game goes platinum and breaks selling records as well.

    The museum should incorporate the old as well as what is currently going on in the video game market. Which may or may not help with donations from big video game companies.


    I have plenty more ideas on this that need to be fleshed out but I think it is doable. The placement of the museum would be key to its success or its failure.
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, dosen't go away"

    Phillip K. Dick

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    Default preservation

    You could probably find every console game ever produced in the hands of collectors. No one organization or person could get all the games, but these top collectors could form some kind of "collector's consortium" where they agree to certain rules in the preservation of the games. Certain items would be historically protected and could not be modified or destroyed under the rules.

    The arcade games would be problematic for the reasons stated above, but certianly all the existing rom code could be preserved. I'm doing my part.

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