National Film and Sound Archive of Australia to collect and preserve Australian video games

NFSA to collect and preserve Australian video games. National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. September 26 2019.
     The Archive announced they will start collecting Australian video games for archival preservation. "Today we welcome video games into our collection of more than 3 million items. The collection represents the cultural diversity and breadth of experience of all Australians, and it is constantly evolving just like our creative industries."  "It is essential that games be collected alongside other audiovisual media, to ensure their continued preservation and access."

An initial list of eight games has been selected for preservation. They span almost 40 years of gaming history, from 1982 to 2019, across all platforms, from cassette tape to mobile devices and virtual reality headsets. This will provide "an overview of the evolution of the medium, as well as an opportunity to identify the archival challenges in preserving the different technologies employed - both software and hardware."

The Archive will work with game developers to develop solutions for long-term preservation of their work which will benefit future generations. The initial selection will "allow the NFSA to explore what components and documentation must be collected in order to paint a complete picture of the game’s creative process from concept to finished product. It will also identify challenges around software and hardware obsolescence, long-term storage and access, rights and proprietorial platforms, etc., to inform the ongoing preservation strategy. Following this phase, Australian games will be collected on an ongoing basis."

Digital Preservation Matters.

Current Game Preservation is Not Enough

Current Game Preservation is Not Enough. Eric Kaltman. Eric Kaltman's blog. 6 June, 2016.
     The current preservation practices we use for games and software must be reconsidered for modern computer games. The Standard preservation model considers three major areas of interest:

1. the physical extent of the game, 
2. the data stored on it, and 
3. the hardware necessary to run it. 

The long term physical maintenance of games is not particularly good since the media and hardware degrade over time, and the data will not be readable as the media fail. The model also does not reflect the current game technology or the networked world.  "Solutions? What are some ways to combat this looming preservation quagmire? (It’s also not looming, since it’s already here.)"

1. Consider what we are trying to save when we preserve video games. Is it to save the ability to play a historical game at some point in the future or record the act of play itself.
2. Get the people creating games to dedicate time to basic preservation activities, such as providing  records of development, production processes, and legacy source code that would help to recreate or recover the games .
3. There needs to be more pressure and motivation from society to legitimate games as cultural production worth saving, and to create institutional structures to fight for preservation activity. Similar to what is being done for film.
4. This all applies to more than to just games, but also software in general, which may be in an even worse situation.

The post refers to two YouTube presentations that the author gave on game preservation: 

• Knowledge Cafe - Games in Sound and Vision (with Eric Kaltman)
• The Troubles with Game History: Objects and Game Play

Digital Preservation Matters.

Video Games and the Curse of Retro

Video Games and the Curse of Retro. Simon Parkin. New Yorker. January 11, 2015.
 Almost two and a half thousand MS-DOS computer games have been added to the Internet Archive game collection (which says that "Through the use of the EM-DOSBOX in-browser emulator, these programs are bootable and playable.") The archive has rescued historical games which are unplayable unless you also have the original hardware.

Video games are more prone to obsolescence than other digital products. When hardware and software change, many games become unplayable. Unlike other digital media, video games rely on audiovisual reproduction and on a computer’s ability to execute the coded rules and instructions. Game publishers may not have an incentive to maintain older games, so they become obsolete.

Britain’s National Media Museum established the National Videogame Archive, which aims to “preserve, analyse and display the products of the global videogame industry by placing games in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts.” The Internet Archive, by contrast, makes games playable online. The games are part of our social, political, and cultural context. “We risk ending up in a ‘digital dark age’ because so much material that defines our current era is immaterial and ephemeral.” This is the motivation for many video-game preservationists: save everything before it’s lost, and let the future decide what matters in the long run.

Digital Preservation Matters.