Archiving and Video Games: Thoughts on Preservation

The topic of video game archiving has become a recent piece for discussion due to unfortunate events surrounding PT and the attempts to remove it from existence.  With many games moving to a digital-only platform or having servers running integral parts of an experience, it is only understandable that people would discuss how such items are being kept in archive for the purpose of maintaining this medium’s history.  Being someone who has worked in the museum space for the last couple years as well as academic research during my uni education, this is naturally a subject I feel strongly about.  We can travel to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa alongside an array of sculptures and other art pieces, but where can we go to experience the original Pong?  Places like the National Video Game Arcade in Nottingham are working towards this but we’re still in our relative infancy. 

What I would like to talk about today is my experience within the museum world to give a rough assessment of the process of archiving and the unique factors that video games have.  I would treat this as an overview and encourage readers to look more into the subject as there are people who have been involved in this area for a lot longer than me.  As well as this, I do work in a relativity small archive (around 30,000 items) so larger organisations will have different practices. 

With all that out of the way, let’s talk about archiving:

Process

An object is brought to the museum for the purpose of donation.  This could be from lots of different people such as members of the public, local business, local council, etc.  A conversation is brought up about its relevance to local history to which if it feels suitable a formal contract is signed setting out a number of pointers: a) the object is to be kept on site for the purpose of the museum (information, education, entertainment) b) the object may feature within a collection that maybe shared with another museum c) the owner can reserve the right to access of the object if necessary.  Once this has been done, the object is then reviewed by an archivist who looks to identify, mark and tag the object while adding a physical and electronic data mark into the museum’s archive.  This is also known as ‘Accessioning’.  Once the object has been accessioned, the object is then stored in a suitable location depending on things such as material (metals and cloths being such items that need particular environments) where it is kept until it is requested again. 

Usage

Items within the museum can be used in a number of different ways such as:
*Internal exhibitions on a particular subject
*External exhibitions where another organisation would like to use a selection of items for their exhibition.  This can be done as either individual items to improve an already existing exhibition or as a whole collection much like a ‘tour’
*Information requests where a person (or persons) request to view an object for the purpose of information.  Examples of this can be researchers reviewing accounts of an event, architects looking over building plans or an enthusiast piecing together a story. 

Much like the initial accessioning, this process requires that the object is cared for and that all forms of data (physical / electronic) are updated to reflect its current state. 

Accessibility

Getting back to the point of video games, accessibility is of course an issue that surrounds a wide array of items kept in museums.  Having a piece of history on an old format that requires an old system for it to work naturally has its issues when it comes to accessing it.  I have recently been working with VHS and Betamax tapes in which half the struggle is finding ways to play it properly.  There are of course ways to convert these items to CD / digital formats, but having access to those means can sometimes be tricky.  Now consider a piece of digital media with an internal server to run some of the processes and you can quickly see how accessibility in this state may only be possible in a fairly rare occasion.  The thing is thou, it would potentially take a lot of work and be accessible to a couple sites in the world, but then we into the subject of ‘legal accessibility’.

When I say ‘legal’ I don’t mean the question of whether it is legal to do such a thing, but the subject of going through the above processes with an organisation like Konami (the holders of PT).  With my initial example, the holder is aware that said item in the hands of the museum becomes the ownership of a) the museum and b) the town in which it resides (in my case).  This object is not for profit, but for the subject of historical preservation, knowledge and explanation for as long as it resides within the museum.  When you have an organisation that has attempted to remove all accounts of this title from history, presenting it for archiving for the purpose of accessibility and knowledge naturally conflicts with their approach. 

There is also the subject of cost.  Many museums are run by charities and funded thanks to the work of project investors such as the Heritage Lottery Fund (in the UK at least) so for an archive to have the funds to go to Konami and ‘purchase’ the ability to archive PT for the accessibility of future generations seems like a difficult situation. 

In an age where nothing truly dies due to the internet, we are dealing with a genuine issue surrounding the preservation of video game history for generations to come.  The question of “will I be able to play PT in 50 years” is an important one as other forms of media like audio recordings, film, art and the likes have found their place in the museums throughout our world.  Personally, I don’t feel it’s a subject of potential, but time as video games continue to become a significant piece of culture and gain a word on the international stage of preservation.  If I was to suggest something, it would be the creation of video game archiving board that look to preserve our history much like the RIBA or National Trust for Architecture or Horticulture; finding ways to keep the skills alive and relevant for years to come. 

If you are interested in this subject, I would recommend having a look at the Nottingham game arcade or the recent video game Hall of Fame as they discuss relativity recent developments and hold a great deal more experience than I do.  Regardless, I hope you found this interesting.

End note: visit your local museum! They’re great and you might just find out something about your past while you’re there = )

My last week (a mix of stuff)

Hello there.  This is gonna be a bit of a mish-mash of traditional ‘bloggy’ content alongside a brief delve into my usual architectural musing so that will explain the potential irrelevance against my previous content.  Regardless, here is my last week and what went on:

I got a cold kinda sums it up :-\

Elaborating on that point; in the later part of last week I got a rather painful throat, drippy nose and the occasional headache that put a damper on my previous plans of travelling and doing some research.  Now I know that the common cold isn’t a particular debilitating thing to happen, it’s just I like to ‘get it over with’ and not do much for the brief day or two so that I can get back on track faster in the long run.  Unfortunately, this was hampered by the fact it decided not to clear after one or two days and that I had a busy weekend / early weekday coming up.  In this time of ailment, there were events I was involved in which I met with varying circumstance and they go along as follows:

• 1.      Field research visit on Sunday morning (5^th October 2014).  This was a rather early start to the morning which was met with a bite in the air and my throat on the mend.  The walk was pleasant but coarseness of the wild was annoying as I was looking to be involved in meetings for the visit later on.  The site itself was an old manor house in my town’s communal parkland and with its age and current restoration in progress was a den of dust; particularly its basement / cellar in which the dust created a short term skirmish with me.  Talking in the later meeting was a case of directed coughs away from the others as we discussed the current research deadlines and potential output.  Other than the respiratory side of me making itself known frequently, it was a nice morning met with some good progress made with the project related to the site. 

• 2.      Architectural talk on Tuesday afternoon (7^th October 2014).  The day before had been an aggravating grab of tissue paper every 5-10 minutes to clear my nose which followed right into the night.  This night / morning in particular I got asleep around the 7-8am mark, giving me at max 2-2 ½ hours of sleep to work on.  This would have been fine any other day, but this was the day I was giving a talk to a group of adults with an interest in art and design.  It was a group I advertised my interests and research to and by that action was hired to give a talk on architecture and its history; so giving a brilliant first impression and enjoyable talk was paramount to me expressing this world that I am involved in.  The venue was packed to some 50-odd attendees and now I had to inform, entertain and intrigue them with some 4000 years of architecture in the space of an hour or so; alongside being very tired and blowing my nose every 5 minutes.  Much to my delight, I charged head on with the talk and in the space of a couple minutes found my stride into the fundamentals of pre-historic concepts of architecture.  As of today, I called it my “academics adrenalin” in a random off-topic chat on skype which I’ll look to put into the vernacular onward.  Anyway, The talk ended to a very happy crowd to stayed around for ½ hour or so to ask questions and thank me, which in the end kept me going right back to my home where I crashed and caught up on sleep.

As of last night / today I’m now feeling very well and hoping to get fully back on track over the upcoming weekend which should be nice.  I’m kinda hoping that I ‘got in early’ so to speak with getting a cold so that any potential bug going around closer to the Christmas holiday period should be suitably avoidable and not affect one of my favourite times of the year.  I’m involved in some fun locally based pub crawls and the likes around Christmas and you can’t be on form with flu meds in your system eh!

During all this time, I didn't really look to play a lot of games which may seem odd to some of you.  With more time dedicated to lounging about, one may image that you want to kick back and not think while you command an army or further a story.  However, I kinda didn’t do too much other than keeping up with my youtube subscriptions and watching a lot of twitch.  In my usual gaming time, I like to have twitch / youtube running on my phone as a peripheral screen with audio but I wasn’t really feeling the mild multitasking it involves.  The games I watched were mostly Dota 2 and Hearthstone but it also involved Heroes of Newerth, Path of Exile and a couple random games that one sometimes browses out of curiosity.  Whenever I watch the more competitive games, I always think back to the vision of when watching competitive games will be more widespread in the entertainment industry with pubs and bars showcasing it alongside traditional sports like Football and Rugby (UK references but of course replace relevant to own culture).  I have been to a couple ‘barcraft’ events and they were enjoyable for the most part. 

As my thoughts were with my IRL work mostly this week, I haven’t really thought about any particular games / architecture crossovers this week.  That being said, while looking through my old university notes, I did feel like I should make a small note on one of my previous posts.  On my post regarding Kitsch Architecture and paint by numbers game design, I do feel that there is a possibility that one could find higher relevance in the term “Vernacular Architecture” over “Kitsch” as it’s a term regarding the everyday.  That could be up to the reader in question, but you may want to personally review whether either term is more appropriate.  However, I may do another piece which tries to address the potential differences / similarities so we shall see.

Other than that, it leaves me with thinking what I want to talk about in the coming week.  I was thinking either ‘signs and semiology’ or regionalism concepts but I’m not sure.  Assume one of them and I hope you found this view into my current life interesting at least.

Historiography, Critical Thinking and Gaming Discussions

Over the past couple weeks; discussions surrounding gaming have been rather heated involving certain people and their practice.  Gaming, like other forms of leisure and art, finds itself having very strong opinions one way or the other with a limited central representation.  As it has been discussed for many generations; we associate by what we exclude and this carries onto hot-button topics not just in gaming; but in politics and social status, economics and welfare, artistic forms and interpretation, and so on and so forth.  That being said, I’m not too interested in this debate and it would do this blog a disservice to ‘pick a side’.  Because of this, we’re going to review why people may have a particular opinion and the potential weight to said opinion.  In history, this comes under the discussion of Historiography. 

Historiography is the discussion of the opinions behind an event and the correlation between them.  Historians naturally find themselves writing about important events (wars, political premierships, etc.) and over time a group of people will have similar opinions.  This is known as a school of thought and there are a number of factors behind this.  To give an example we’re going to briefly review the Cold War and its Historiography.

The Cold War was a significant event after WW2 that shaped world events for a course of 40-50 years (that to some extent still do) between Russia and the USA.  Throughout the Cold War there were 3-4 schools of thought that changed for a number of reasons:

1 – Traditional / Orthodox.  Coming from American historians starting in the 1950s, this view was naturally a pro-American viewpoint.  It discussed how America was in the right and it was protecting the world against the Russians and communism.  Such things discussed are the domino theory and the iron curtain. 

2 – Soviet / Socialist.  The opposite view coming from Russian historians of the same era, this was a pro-Russia viewpoint.  It discussed how Russia was treated unfairly and was a country on defence, looking out for its people.  Such things discussed are the capitalist vs. communist conflict and America’s missile bases in Europe. 

3 – Revisionist.  The alternative view coming from American historians in the 1960s.  This decade brought the ‘peace not war’ mentality and the Vietnam War; a conflict that caused a split opinion on the home front.  It looks to critique the traditional view and consider America’s own mishaps.  Historians of this school of thought tended to have a ‘left-wing’ mind-set although not exclusively. 

4 – Post Revisionist.  There are some differences of opinion to this school of thought, but for this I’ll be looking at the later soviet period and its policies.  Gorbachev, known as the reformer, created the policy of Glasnost (openness) in the 1980s to allow greater freedom of information and less censorship.  Historians of many backgrounds (not just American / Russian) now had a wealth of information to review and produce new interpretations. 

So as you can see, many different factors can come into play when we see someone’s opinion.  We can pair this with Critical Thinking to hypothetically break apart someone’s viewpoint to see what weight we can give them.  In Critical Thinking, we want to analyse things like corroboration, vested interests (bias), data, tone, body language, etc.  The last two are a bit more difficult to discuss on the internet but it’s something to consider.  So, let’s try and create a hypothetical example:

“Are you pro or anti <insert topic here>”

Person X is pro-topic

Person Y is also pro-topic

Person Z is anti-topic

Person X’s previous posts on the subject have been pro-topic as well as their friends.  They fit into a school of thought that believes in said topic.  They may also be other factors like agreeing in association (the friends are together because of this); personal background (parents / community may have this opinion); or dissociation (person X disagrees with someone of the anti-topic viewpoint).

Person Y’s post on the matter mentions a number of resources to back up their viewpoint.  This person is using corroboration to give weight to their view.  That being said, it depends on the validity of said resources and whether they have any particular vested interests.  Like with X, Y may also have some of the traits mentioned above. 

Person Z’s post originally discusses the topic but moves to challenge X and Y.  This person can look to critique the resources or the association concept between them to try and review why they may have the same opinion.  The challenge moves away from the topic so at this point the subjects of tone and body language come into play to see what language they use and what particular viewpoint they’re trying to refer to. 

This of course is a limited example and I’d ask that you do some further reading into the subject of critical thinking.  I should stress that this doesn’t intend to pursue anything but the discussion of ‘why’ which interests me most.  You could see this as a personal reflection and consider where you sit on certain topics and why.  Was it because of a particular news story on the matter, a friend’s mention of it, your own morals related to your upbringing, etc?  

I hope you find this discussion interesting.  Next time, I want to take fragments of this subject into the world of Architecture as we debate ‘form vs. function’ and the concept of Kitsch.  

Gaming Through Architecture

(post #2 of the uploaded website)

This may seem like an odd paring at first glance but hopefully i’ll explain some method behind the madness in the coming sentences. Like many people, I enjoy playing video games and experiencing the wide range of entertainment in this medium. Over the last 4-5 years however, this has grown further into a interest to promote video games in a better light; opening the medium up to such topics as education, social considerations, drama, etc. This has been heavily influenced by the web series “Extra Credits” by Daniel Floyd and James Portnow, which has grown from a small weekly discussion on games into a large group of invested individuals with their tagline of “because games matter”. What made this series special in my view was that the presenters weren’t only discussing views from a designer point of view; giving precedence to the arts, humanities and scientific considerations. Quite appropriately I was starting to open the world of architecture into a new light soon after watching these early episodes.

My second year at university featured a small book called “What is Architecture?” which opened my mind to countless possibilities beyond bricks and mortar. With such theorists as Heidegger, Leach, Lyotard and Certeau asking the question of said book title, I viewed my environment (both real and virtual) through different ideas and possibilities. That being said, these years didn’t really make the strong connection that I’m investigating now due to my gaming habits at the time. I played a significant amount of WoW (World of Warcraft) and HoN (Heroes of Newerth) from a quasi-competitive point-of-view and as such wasn’t thinking about my actions beyond performance of play. However, I hope to talk about both genre’s in a future post….

Getting back to the crux of today’s point, it started to come along only recently some two years ago. I had changed from architecture to history due to a number of personal reasons and found myself alot more time to pursue personal interests. Initially, this was more gaming, but didn’t take long to slow down and get me thinking. My starting point was ‘combient’ architecture (or at least what I’ve thought it to be defined as) being the discussion of architecture through the use of technology. A rough example discussed in a past lecture was ‘Second Life’ but at this point I was more interested in the literal interpretation that something like ‘Minecraft’ gave, with its digital Lego feel. That being said, a great deal of people have built wondrous pieces in Minecraft with the care and attention on both a individual and group level which in this context constitute architecture; it just wasn’t really letting me feel like when I read “What is Architecture?”. I needed a way to discuss these views and so then I turned to the real world and started talking.

In my last year of university, I found myself with a new set of housemates. One of new guy’s was a first year architect who enjoyed designing buildings and playing games. We got on well and chat quite a bit about games we were playing. One evening when discussing the medium, we came onto the topic of architectural theory and how to interpret it. After umming and erring through a couple ideas, I started to use video games as ways to discuss Certeau (the definition of space and place within architecture) and we got to understanding of the subject. I enjoyed this alot, possibly owing to the hour or so conversation it entailed, but it got me talking about it. Over the period of that year, we spent time ever so often having similar talks which became the inspiration for producing a web series on the connection.

As discussed in the introduction however, its been a long time coming and I hope to get talking more about this odd combination in an ever growing medium. (That being said, i’m gonna do a little review on a game I’ve been playing next so it’ll be a slow but steady pace).




Extra Credits – http://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCredits or http://www.extra-credits.net
“What is Architecture?” Ballantyne, A .(2002). Routledge, London.