The Importance of Digital Game Preservation
A new white paper from the Game Preservation Special Interest Group (SIG) of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and published in a recent issue of the American Journal of Play, warns that classic electronic games are in danger of being lost forever if some effort isn’t made to preserve them. The white paper, “Before It’s Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper” warns that these games, which are as much a part of human history as any other medium, may be lost forever to future generations of players and researchers if efforts are not made for their preservation. The white paper was produced by Henry Lowood (editor) and Devin Monnens, Zach Vowell, Judd Ethan Ruggill, Ken S. McAllister, Andrew Armstrong (authors).
“If we fail to address the problems of game preservation, the digital games of today will disappear, perhaps within a few decades,” according to an excerpt from the white paper. “We will lose access to the history and culture of contemporary games and find it impossible to trace their influence on other forms of play, leisure, entertainment, communication, learning, and work.”
The prime culprits, according to researchers, media decay or bit rot (the gradual and natural decay of digital information, especially problematic with magnetic storage and optical discs). Magnetic storage media like floppy disks, magnetic tape, and hard drives are particularly susceptible to bit rot.
Besides media decay, the movement to catalog and archive these games faces another hurtle: intellectual property owners. Industry support is crucial to solving these problems but there is currently no single institution within the game industry or in any government that is responsible for archiving digital games.
IP owners must be willing to allow someone to make a copy of their property and store. Besides IP owners not allowing this to happen, archivers face problems with copy protection schemes that make it difficult to copy anything at all. Another problem is that the software and hardware platforms archived games need to run must be emulated, which can conflict with copyright laws governing hardware and software environments.
“For long-term preservation to be accomplished,” notes the white paper, “copyright holders must grant exceptions to libraries and archives so these tasks can be performed. . . . Certain business practices such as digital distribution, server-side authentication, and installation verification are only some of the challenges preservationists will face.”
This is the first of two IGDA Game Preservation SIG white papers. The next one promises to offer some solutions.
For more information on the American Journal of Play, visit www.americanjournalofplay.org.
