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	<title>Preserving Games</title>
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	<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget</link>
	<description>Archiving the Creation Processes of the Video Game Industry</description>
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		<title>Guarding Intellectual Property</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/guarding-intellectual-property/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/guarding-intellectual-property/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:50:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>StephenJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=268</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Roberts, Paul F., &#8220;Havok Finds Haven for Game Codes,&#8221; eWeek 22, no. 40 (2005): C1-C11.
In my previous post about incremental innovation, I noted that intellectual property becomes particularly important within a stagnant industry.  Rather than continue to develop new technologies for each game, studios often rely on one or two of the most consistently successful [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Roberts, Paul F., &#8220;Havok Finds Haven for Game Codes,&#8221; <em>eWeek</em> 22, no. 40 (2005): C1-C11.</strong></p>
<p>In my previous post about incremental innovation, I noted that intellectual property becomes particularly important within a stagnant industry.  Rather than continue to develop new technologies for each game, studios often rely on one or two of the most consistently successful technologies developed by other companies.  Thus, the studio that develops these coveted technologies have the most to gain from a rational industry uninterested in radical innovation.</p>
<p>In Paul F. Roberts&#8217; 2005 article, he presents an example of just how important such technological IP can be.  Irish company Havok, developer of the Havok Physics Engine, has sold its tech to several successful game franchises, chief among them the Madden NFL franchise from EA Sports.  At the time this article was written, Havok&#8217;s engine was receiving a great deal of praise, but it was also under attack by hackers looking to leak the engine&#8217;s code to the Internet.  In fact, hackers did succeed in leaking the source code for Half-Life 2, which included portions of Havok&#8217;s code.  Because of this breach in security, Havok was forced to take measures to protect its code from future theft, using a variety of digital theft prevention services, which occasionally made accessing Havok&#8217;s services more difficult for those entitled to it.</p>
<p>Clearly, Havok and others in the industry recognize the importance of protecting coveted IP, perhaps the most valuable resource in a stagnant industry.  Despite complaints from those who said the security made using Havok&#8217;s engine more difficult, the studio maintained that such protection was absolutely necessary for the continued success of their company.  Havok certainly recognizes the power that it derives from this engine.  With so many game studios depending upon Havok&#8217;s technology to provide the physics processing so that the developers can focus on making incremental innovations in other areas, Havok can essentially set the terms of use for its product, no matter how difficult or annoying they may be, without worrying about industry backlash.  This may be one of few incentives for other companies to develop their own major innovations: the potential to reign over a particular segment of the industry.</p>
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		<title>Incremental Innovation</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/incremental-innovation/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/incremental-innovation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:46:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>StephenJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=257</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tschang, F. Ted, &#8220;Balancing the Tensions Between Rationalization and Creativity in the Video Games Industry,&#8221; Organization Science 18, no. 6 (2007): 989-1005.
In this 2007 article, F. Ted Tschang argues that increased financial success within an industry often results in an increased hesitancy toward creativity, using the U.S. video game industry as an example.  As he notes, &#8220;product [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Tschang, F. Ted, &#8220;Balancing the Tensions Between Rationalization and Creativity in the Video Games Industry,&#8221; <em>Organization Science</em> 18, no. 6 (2007): 989-1005.</strong></p>
<p>In this 2007 article, F. Ted Tschang argues that increased financial success within an industry often results in an increased hesitancy toward creativity, using the U.S. video game industry as an example.  As he notes, &#8220;product innovation usually gives way to efficiency considerations&#8230;[and] the market locks into a specific, dominant design that is based on certain firms&#8217; superior technology, productivity, fit with the market, and capabilities.&#8221;  In other words, as the industry begins to notice growing potential for financial gain, a more rational focus on productivity overtakes the initial creative tendencies that provided for these gains. </p>
<p>Thus, a tension arises between the financial desires of the companies within the industry and the creative desires of the individuals working in those companies.  In order to appease these creative needs and also differentiate their products, each video game development studio allows for what Tschang calls &#8220;incremental innovation, which involves minor changes to the products&#8217; components.&#8221;  As in the film industry, these incremental innovations are frequently made within a particular genre.  For example, games like Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3-D were part of a radical innovation in computer gaming that resulted in the formation of a gaming genre called &#8220;first-person shooters.&#8221;  In the years following this initial innovation, various studios have developed incremental innovations of this genre with games like Goldeneye, Half-Life, and Halo, which introduce new weapon ideas, creature types, and landscapes but are ultimately unwilling to stray too far from the basic gameplay forms and visual styles that made previous entries in the genre so successful.</p>
<p>Clearly, such a development strategy does not permit radically creative thinking.  Each development studio recognizes a certain number of genres as being consistently successful and requires its creative branches to work within those genres, cutting off the potential for wholly unique ideas from the very beginning.  Then, while creating games that fall within one of these genres, game designers are only allowed, at best, to develop one or two major gameplay innovations, just enough to assure consumers that they are buying a new experience but not revolutionary enough to scare those consumers away.   </p>
<p>As Tschang notes, these tendencies make important the creation and acquisition of intellectual property.  In particular, two kinds of intellectual property are highly sought after in an industry reliant upon incremental innovation: (1) a coveted game engine or other piece of often-used technology and (2) a license for the use of a pre-sold property (popular film, tv, or book franchises, for example).  Because incremental innovation does not allow for the creation of a new graphics engine for each new game, each genre has essentially settled upon a proven piece of technology for use in most games.  Returning to the first-person shooter genre, Epic Games&#8217; Unreal Engine, after wowing developers and consumers in the original Unreal games for which it was made, other studios began to use the engine in their own games.  Thus, while the development of game engines remains stagnant within each genre, Epic, through its ownership of a frequently used engine, enjoys continued financial gain.  A license for the rights to a pre-sold franchise also has proven to be one of the easiest ways to differentiate a particular products from others in its genre without requiring major innovation.  A studio can make essentially the same game it has made before, but this time with characters from Harry Potter or Spider-man, and market it as an entirely new product.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this industry tendency toward incremental innovation means that the products independent game studios, working outside of the profit-driven rationalization of the major studios, are absolutely crucial if the industry is to continue making major creative innovations.  With the major studios having hit upon &#8220;what works&#8221; and choosing to focus entirely on those genres and gameplay elements, it is left to the independent studios to drive industry creativity forward.  As Tschang notes, individuals who feel their creativity is being stifled within the major studios frequently branch off to form their own, independent studios, where fresh gameplay ideas can perhaps result in the creation of an entirely new video game genre, which will then be picked up and expanded through incremental innovation by the major studios.</p>
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		<title>Mark Methenitis&#8217;s &#8220;Copymark&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/mark-methenitiss-copymark/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/mark-methenitiss-copymark/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:55:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TimA</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=254</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mark Methenitis is a practicing lawyer in Dallas and he rights a blog called Law of the Game in which he talks about various legal issues as they relate to videogames and the gaming industry in general.  Not surprisingly, he writes extensively about the complex nature of copyright law as applied to videogames and other [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Mark Methenitis is a practicing lawyer in Dallas and he rights a blog called <a href="http://lawofthegame.blogspot.com/">Law of the Game</a> in which he talks about various legal issues as they relate to videogames and the gaming industry in general.  Not surprisingly, he writes extensively about the complex nature of copyright law as applied to videogames and other software.  Recently, Methenitis has started a series titled &#8220;Intellectual Property 2.0&#8243; in which he discusses instances in which &#8220;the law has lagged behind the practicality of intellectual property management,&#8221; and he suggests possible solutions to these issues.</p>
<p>In the &#8220;Intellectual Property 2.0&#8243; series on May 14th of this year, Methenitis posted an entry titled &#8220;<a href="http://lawofthegame.blogspot.com/2009/04/intellectual-property-20-convergence-of.html">Convergence of Copyright and Trademark</a>.&#8221;  Essentially, as the title suggests, Methenitis proposes that we fuse together the rights of copyright and trademark into a &#8220;copymark.&#8221;   The age old problem that Methenitis is trying to address is that the date for release of copyrighted material into the public domain stands at 1923 and will probably continue to do so while Disney has the requisite funds to lobby Congress to keep Mickey Mouse from going into the public domain.  Underlying this problem is that although Mickey Mouse is a trademark of the Disney Corporation, the trademark will expire in the event that Steamboat Willie (the first appearance of Mickey Mouse) is no longer protected under copyright.  So extending copyright is all well and good for Disney and for other corporations who would like their money-making brands to stay out of the public domain, however 86 years of history are in danger of being lost forever because no one has access to certain copyrighted materials.</p>
<p>There has been a lot of talk about how the copyright system is broken and about how we need to revise our system of protecting peoples&#8217; rights over their works while at the same time ensuring public access.  The idea of copymark is so simple that I&#8217;m surprised I&#8217;ve never heard of this idea before.  Essentially, under a copymark provision, a company would forego their traditional rights to trademark and copyright over a given expression.   Under copymark, however, they would retain the same rights they would normally have to trademark and copyright, but they would have to renew the copymark periodically.  If they failed to renew, then the work would automatically be released into the public domain regardless of the 70 years after the life of the author provision as it currently stands under copyright law.</p>
<p>This would create a situation, of course, in which Disney could continually renew the copymark over Mickey Mouse indefinitely, however the alternative is that Disney and other corporations continually lobby Congress so that nothing that was created after 1923 <em>ever</em> goes into the public domain.  Methenitis also points out that something which is copymarked would still have fair use provisions.  So copies of copymarked material would still be available in libraries and archives.</p>
<p>For the most part, I think that this is a fascinating idea.  One major potential flaw that I see in a &#8220;copymark revolution&#8221; is &#8211; to whom do we allow the right to copymark materials?  If we allow it to everyone, then everyone could potentially copymark everything they create and then nothing would ever be public.  The solution, then, is to charge a fee which would be steep enough so that only those who are making significant amounts of money off of their copymarked material would have the incentive to renew their copymark.  This would potentially create a kind of heirarchy in which only industries could maintain a copymark, however if traditional trademark and copyright laws were to remain intact, I&#8217;m not sure that this would be a problem for individuals.  Disney could also, of course, balk at the requirement to pay to copymark their intellectual property, but they&#8217;re essentially doing the same right now by paying (who knows how much?) to lobby Congress.</p>
<p>At the very least, I think Methenitis has proposed an interesting idea, and it is ideas like these which need to start circulating if we are ever going to have public access to the history of the generations which are alive today.</p>
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		<title>Hardware gimmick or cultural innovation?</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/hardware-gimmick-or-cultural-innovation/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/hardware-gimmick-or-cultural-innovation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:40:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>walker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=234</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Y. Aoyama and H. Izushi, “Hardware gimmick or cultural innovation? Technological, cultural, and social foundations of the Japanese video game industry,” Research Policy 32, no. 3 (2003): 423–444. 

This 2002 article (written 2001) looks at the success of the Japanese video game industry and attempts to illuminate the unique factors behind its success. Japan&#8217;s video [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Y. Aoyama and H. Izushi, “Hardware gimmick or cultural innovation? Technological, cultural, and social foundations of the Japanese video game industry,” <span style="font-style: italic">Research Policy</span> 32, no. 3 (2003): 423–444. </strong><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=Hardware%20gimmick%20or%20cultural%20innovation%3F%20Technological%2C%20cultural%2C%20and%20social%20foundations%20of%20the%20Japanese%20video%20game%20industry&amp;rft.jtitle=Research%20Policy&amp;rft.volume=32&amp;rft.issue=3&amp;rft.aufirst=Y.&amp;rft.aulast=Aoyama&amp;rft.au=Y.%20Aoyama&amp;rft.au=H.%20Izushi&amp;rft.date=2003&amp;rft.pages=423%E2%80%93444"><br />
</span></p>
<p>This 2002 article (written 2001) looks at the success of the Japanese video game industry and attempts to illuminate the unique factors behind its success. Japan&#8217;s video game industry is especially remarkable given the dominance of &#8220;English language-based exportable cultural products&#8221; and the origin of the video game industry, which began in the US with Steve Russell&#8217;s programming of <em>Space War</em> for the PDP-10 and Nolan Bushnell&#8217;s subsequent creation of Atari to market and sell such arcade games.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 204px"><img src="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/mega-man.png" alt="Mega Man, hero of the early NES platformers. The design has characteristics of the &lt;i&gt;manga&lt;/i&gt; style. " width="194" height="207" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Mega Man, hero of the early NES platformers. His design has characteristics of the manga style. </p></div>
<p>The authors give a history of the industry and observe Nintendo&#8217;s very early interest and involvement with electronic toy games. This began as early as the 1960s with the emerging popularity of shooting games with optical sensors. Nintendo was able to recruit technical expertise from consumer electronics and provided them with early successes like <a title="wikipedia article" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_&amp;_Watch">Game and Watch</a> and<a title="wikipedia link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_TV_Game"> Color TV Game</a> (totally cool old ad at <a title="Color TV Game ad" href="http://gameads.gamepressure.com/tv_game_commercial.asp?ID=8140">gamepressure</a>). But Nintendo&#8217;s historic rise in the console market with both the Famicon and NES was due in no small part to its attention to quality software; the company made sure to foster in-studio works (<em>Donkey Kong</em>, <em>Super Mario Brothers</em>) and hold alliances with outside game developers.</p>
<p>After the mid 90s Nintendo falters by retaining cartridges for their games rather than the CD-ROM; this among other factors allows Sony to rise in the market. The authors continue the brief history up to the approximate time of the article, but one main point  can be drawn from the narrative: hardware and software are intricately linked and related; success frequently hinges on a deep synchronicity between the two engineering pursuits. The authors go on to elaborate this point, emphasizing Nintendo&#8217;s early collaboration with domestic electronic consumer goods firms.</p>
<p>The article describes three types of software publishers:</p>
<ul>
<li>in-house publishers of platform developers (e.g. Nintendo)</li>
<li>comprehensive software publishers with in-house capability for most development (e.g. Square)</li>
<li>publishers that act as producer/coordinator and outsource most functions (e.g. Enix)</li>
</ul>
<p><span id="more-234"></span></p>
<p>The types are distinguished by varying levels of intimacy with the platform developers. Platform developers can provide all sorts of guidance and information to game-makers: early prototypes of the platform, guidance on formats, and provisioning of development tools and platform operating systems. It&#8217;s clear then that hardware naturally informs software and that game development projects can benefit immensely from an intimate knowledge of the hardware.</p>
<p>The authors next examine the cultural landscape of Japan and how this informed its massively successful video game industry. A robust cartoons and animation industry (<em>manga</em>) with broad acceptance allowed the game industry to draw artistic creativity from a domestic source. The authors note that it is Japan that introduced human and animal characters into video games, a dramatic break from the war (<em>Space War</em>) and ball (<em>Pong</em>) games in the US, and that it was a Shigern Miyamoto, influenced by the landmark cartoonist Osamu Tezuka (the &#8220;god of <em>manga</em>&#8220;), who was inspired to create characters like a rampant pet gorilla (Donkey Kong), a blue-collar construction worker (Mario), and a captured girlfriend (Princess Toadstool). The cultural legitimacy and artistic breadth of cartoons in Japan facilitated effective cultural crossover into the video game industry. This is compared to the comics and cartoons industries of the US, which could not claim such pervasive influence.</p>
<p>The authors conclude:</p>
<blockquote><p>The developmental trajectory of the video games industry revealed a complex interplay between hardware and software technologies from its origin, and more recent trends represent a transition from hardware, engineering-driven to increasingly software-centered industry supported by artistic creativity drawn from cartoon and animation film industries.</p></blockquote>
<p>I think this trajectory is accurate, but it&#8217;s important to note that the power balance between hardware and software is always subject to change. The iPhone has emerged as an extremely capable, popular and even innovative gaming platform, and Apple has chosen to retain full control over the game software available for it.</p>
<p>Regardless however of the power dynamic between the two disciplines, they are always and inextricably related. Any game should be understood with an understanding of the hardware it was developed for and on. Narrowing the scope from industry to a single game, I think it would be interesting to understand more about how specific projects were informed by the hardware constraints of the time.</p>
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		<title>What Went Wrong? A Survey of Problems in Game Development</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/what-went-wrong-a-survey-of-problems-in-game-development/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/10/what-went-wrong-a-survey-of-problems-in-game-development/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:48:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>walker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[complexity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[creation process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[creative limitations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[difficulty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[videogame]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=204</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fábio Petrillo et al., “What went wrong? A survey of problems in game development,” Computers in Entertainment 7, no. 1 (2, 2009): 1-22.  
 
This February 2009 article from the Computer in Entertainment magazine of ACM takes a look at the game industry and compares its difficulties to the larger software industry. Specifically the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Fábio Petrillo et al., “What went wrong? A survey of problems in game development,” <span style="font-style: italic">Computers in Entertainment</span> 7, no. 1 (2, 2009): 1-22.</strong> <span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info%3Adoi/10.1145/1486508.1486521&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=What%20went%20wrong%3F%20A%20survey%20of%20problems%20in%20game%20development&amp;rft.jtitle=Computers%20in%20Entertainment&amp;rft.stitle=%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3EComput.%20Entertain.%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E%0A%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3ECIE%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E&amp;rft.volume=7&amp;rft.issue=1&amp;rft.aufirst=F%C3%A1bio&amp;rft.aulast=Petrillo&amp;rft.au=F%C3%A1bio%20Petrillo&amp;rft.au=Marcelo%20Pimenta&amp;rft.au=Francisco%20Trindade&amp;rft.au=Carlos%20Dietrich&amp;rft.date=2009&amp;rft.pages=22&amp;rft.issn=15443574"> </span></p>
<p><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info%3Adoi/10.1145/1486508.1486521&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=What%20went%20wrong%3F%20A%20survey%20of%20problems%20in%20game%20development&amp;rft.jtitle=Computers%20in%20Entertainment&amp;rft.stitle=%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3EComput.%20Entertain.%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E%0A%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3ECIE%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E&amp;rft.volume=7&amp;rft.issue=1&amp;rft.aufirst=F%C3%A1bio&amp;rft.aulast=Petrillo&amp;rft.au=F%C3%A1bio%20Petrillo&amp;rft.au=Marcelo%20Pimenta&amp;rft.au=Francisco%20Trindade&amp;rft.au=Carlos%20Dietrich&amp;rft.date=2009&amp;rft.pages=1&amp;rft.issn=15443574"> </span></p>
<p><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info%3Adoi/10.1145/1486508.1486521&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=What%20went%20wrong%3F%20A%20survey%20of%20problems%20in%20game%20development&amp;rft.jtitle=Computers%20in%20Entertainment&amp;rft.stitle=%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3EComput.%20Entertain.%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E%0A%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3ECIE%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E&amp;rft.volume=7&amp;rft.issue=1&amp;rft.aufirst=F%C3%A1bio&amp;rft.aulast=Petrillo&amp;rft.au=F%C3%A1bio%20Petrillo&amp;rft.au=Marcelo%20Pimenta&amp;rft.au=Francisco%20Trindade&amp;rft.au=Carlos%20Dietrich&amp;rft.date=2009&amp;rft.pages=1&amp;rft.issn=15443574">This February 2009 article from the <em>Computer in Entertainment </em>magazine of ACM takes a look at the game industry and compares its difficulties to the larger software industry. Specifically the authors analyze twenty <em>postmortems </em>from the archives of <a title="Gamasutra" href="http://www.gamasutra.com">Gamasutra.com</a> to characterize the problems that plague game development. I believe Gamasutra has discontinued this series but postmortems are still published by </span>sister publication <a title="Game Developer magazine" href="http://www.gdmag.com/"><em>Game Developer</em></a>.</p>
<p><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info%3Adoi/10.1145/1486508.1486521&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=What%20went%20wrong%3F%20A%20survey%20of%20problems%20in%20game%20development&amp;rft.jtitle=Computers%20in%20Entertainment&amp;rft.stitle=%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3EComput.%20Entertain.%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E%0A%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3ECIE%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E&amp;rft.volume=7&amp;rft.issue=1&amp;rft.aufirst=F%C3%A1bio&amp;rft.aulast=Petrillo&amp;rft.au=F%C3%A1bio%20Petrillo&amp;rft.au=Marcelo%20Pimenta&amp;rft.au=Francisco%20Trindade&amp;rft.au=Carlos%20Dietrich&amp;rft.date=2009&amp;rft.pages=1&amp;rft.issn=15443574">A postmortem &#8220;</span>designates a document that summarizes the project development experience, with a strong emphasis on the positive and negative aspects of the development cycle.&#8221; After reviewing the literature discussing problems present in the software industry, the authors begin to analyze the problems described in the postmortems. The games covered and the problems identified and quantified are in a table that describes the number of occurrences and overall frequency (click for larger image). <em>Note:</em> sometime in the future (the Web 2.0 future?) I would provide a link to the actual dataset rather than a .PNG  showing you a picture of the dataset.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 540px"><a href="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/wentWrongTable.png"><img class="      " src="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/wentWrongTable.png" alt="=Occurrence of Problems in the Projects" width="530" height="276" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Occurrence of Problems in the Projects</p></div>
<p><span title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info%3Adoi/10.1145/1486508.1486521&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=What%20went%20wrong%3F%20A%20survey%20of%20problems%20in%20game%20development&amp;rft.jtitle=Computers%20in%20Entertainment&amp;rft.stitle=%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3EComput.%20Entertain.%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E%0A%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3ECIE%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E&amp;rft.volume=7&amp;rft.issue=1&amp;rft.aufirst=F%C3%A1bio&amp;rft.aulast=Petrillo&amp;rft.au=F%C3%A1bio%20Petrillo&amp;rft.au=Marcelo%20Pimenta&amp;rft.au=Francisco%20Trindade&amp;rft.au=Carlos%20Dietrich&amp;rft.date=2009&amp;rft.pages=1&amp;rft.issn=15443574">The authors&#8217; categories provide a helpful navigation to the issues that arise in a game development project. As they note, this study sees the most cited problems as <em>unreal or ambitious scope</em> and <em>features creep</em>, both constituting 75% of all problems described. Notable for game archivists is a 40% frequency for the <em>lack of documentation</em> problem as well. The authors note low occurrences for <em>crunch time </em>and <em>over budget</em> (25%), both &#8220;said to be &#8216;universal.&#8217;&#8221; It&#8217;s difficult however to draw expansive conclusions from a small dataset. Moreover postmortems were not team projects or collaboratively written, rather a single participant is responsible for the postmortem. The authors usefully provide other limitations to put the data in context.</span></p>
<p><span title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info%3Adoi/10.1145/1486508.1486521&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=What%20went%20wrong%3F%20A%20survey%20of%20problems%20in%20game%20development&amp;rft.jtitle=Computers%20in%20Entertainment&amp;rft.stitle=%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3EComput.%20Entertain.%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E%0A%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3ECIE%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E&amp;rft.volume=7&amp;rft.issue=1&amp;rft.aufirst=F%C3%A1bio&amp;rft.aulast=Petrillo&amp;rft.au=F%C3%A1bio%20Petrillo&amp;rft.au=Marcelo%20Pimenta&amp;rft.au=Francisco%20Trindade&amp;rft.au=Carlos%20Dietrich&amp;rft.date=2009&amp;rft.pages=1&amp;rft.issn=15443574">The authors conclude that the electronic games industry does indeed suffer from problems in the larger software industry (overly ambitious plans and poor requirements analysis) as well as woes peculiar to itself: the first to experiment with new technologies, tool problems, and collaboration between disparate professionals, among others. </span></p>
<p><span title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info%3Adoi/10.1145/1486508.1486521&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.genre=article&amp;rft.atitle=What%20went%20wrong%3F%20A%20survey%20of%20problems%20in%20game%20development&amp;rft.jtitle=Computers%20in%20Entertainment&amp;rft.stitle=%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3EComput.%20Entertain.%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E%0A%3Cabbrev_title%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.0%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crossref.org%2Fxschema%2F1.1%22%20xmlns%3Axsi%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema-instance%22%3ECIE%3C%2Fabbrev_title%3E&amp;rft.volume=7&amp;rft.issue=1&amp;rft.aufirst=F%C3%A1bio&amp;rft.aulast=Petrillo&amp;rft.au=F%C3%A1bio%20Petrillo&amp;rft.au=Marcelo%20Pimenta&amp;rft.au=Francisco%20Trindade&amp;rft.au=Carlos%20Dietrich&amp;rft.date=2009&amp;rft.pages=1&amp;rft.issn=15443574">On a final note, the postmortems are still available at Gamasutra, and they are really fascinating reads. It really becomes clear just how young an engineering and creative discipline digital game-making is, and how much fluctuation there is in how a game turns out. There are some great examples and stories there; the authors of this article cite quite a few of them.<br />
</span></p>
<p><img src="///Users/user/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/moz-screenshot.png" alt="" /></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Space Invaders</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/06/space-invaders/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/06/space-invaders/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:01:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>walker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arcadeGame]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[emulation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ROM]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spaceInvaders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[videogame]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=147</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[

Space Invaders is iconic. You need only look at UT&#8217;s own Videogame Archive logo to get a feel for the pervasiveness of its visuals and the sort of shorthand it&#8217;s become for videogames in general. Back in 1977 game developer Toshihiro Nishikado began work on Space Invaders, creating by hand the hardware necessary to programming the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="center;"><a href="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/invaders.png"><br />
</a></p>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 302px"><a href="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/invaders.png"><img src="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/invaders.png" alt="" width="292" height="89" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Space Invaders unit decoration, and an early example of inaccurate promotional art for videogames (space werewolves not present in-game). </p></div>
<p><em>Space Invaders</em> is iconic. You need only look at UT&#8217;s own Videogame Archive logo to get a feel for the pervasiveness of its visuals and the sort of shorthand it&#8217;s become for videogames in general. Back in 1977 game developer Toshihiro Nishikado began work on <em>Space Invaders</em>, creating by hand the hardware necessary to programming the game. What happened after its release in 1978 is now gaming history, so I decided to take some time to find and play the most &#8220;original&#8221; version of <em>Space Invaders</em> I could find.</p>
<p>Of course here we enter shaky grounds. The most original version might be a Japanese black-and-white cocktail table unit with woodgrain sides, largely unadorned, with a two-way joystick for control. Or you might consider an upright unit with movement buttons and two cellophane strips (for coloring sections of the screen) to be original enough for your purposes. A bibliography of Space Invaders&#8217; complete gamut of ports, bootlegs and revisions would be a very considerable undertaking.</p>
<p>For the curious person not willing to seek out original units, emulation is the natural way to go. The best general site I&#8217;ve located for getting a handle on the multiple versions of the game is <a title="Catalogue of Arcade Emulation Software - the Absolute Reference" href="http://caesar.logiqx.com/" target="_self">CAESAR</a>, which will often sport all kinds of image captures (logos, units, screenshots) of various versions of a game. The best general emulator for arcade games is <a title="Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator" href="http://mamedev.org/" target="_self">MAME</a>. Though presently only a 0.131 release, it&#8217;s very functional and well-polished, and is available for Windows and Linux users. I used an OS X port of the project, <a title="MAME OS X" href="http://mameosx.sourceforge.net/">MAME OS X</a>.</p>
<p>The other bit of shaky ground are the disk images, or ROMs, themselves. ROMs are full data captures of read-only memory chips, in our case arcade memory chips. Theses files are what the emulators read to generate a copy of the game on a personal computer. Arcade ROMs are available at many sites like <a title="ROM World" href="http://www.rom-world.com/" target="_self">ROM World</a>, but it should be noted that copyright restrictions are still in affect for some properties. </p>
<p>To sum up: search for the ROM you want at ROM World or a similar site, run MAME and load this ROM, and if you like, go to CAESAR to try and determine exactly which version you&#8217;re playing.</p>
<p>A word of caution: playing ROMs with emulators is presently in the realm of the hobbyist, and as such all the kinks are not ironed out. You may run into problems trying to play certain ROMs. Your ROM, which contains several different files, may be missing some critical ones needed by the emulator. This is because another version of the game, or another game entirely that uses some of the same instructions as the ROM you&#8217;re attempting to load, will have those files instead. In that case you&#8217;ll need to download those files as well. If you encounter this problem you may consider downloading all the versions of the game, or go to an emulation forum to try and determine which ROM package will have the files you need. <a title="Aracade@Home" href="http://www.arcadeathome.com/">Aracde@Home</a>, an excellent resource itself, has very active <a title="Arcade@Home forums" href="http://www.arcadeathome.com/forums/" target="_self">forums</a>.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 254px"><a href="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/spaceInvadersLogitec.jpg"><img src="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/spaceInvadersLogitec.jpg" alt="Logitecs bootleg of Space Invaders" width="244" height="319" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Logitec&#39;s bootleg of Space Invaders</p></div>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 259px"><a href="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/spaceInvadersCV.jpg"><img src="http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~walker/spaceInvadersCV.jpg" alt="" width="249" height="319" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">CV&#39;s version of Space Invaders</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
On to <em>Space Invaders</em>. I played two different versions: Logitec’s 1978 bootleg of the title, and the “CV” version (though I still haven’t found what that stands for), also 1978. Both versions use actually-colored pixels to emulate the cellophane-colored screens of the original units, and as you can see, the CV version emulates more strips of cellophane than the bootleg, though I prefer Logitec’s sparser color scheme. I imagine it to be closer to the real thing.</p>
<p>Gameplay has been described as simplistic by today&#8217;s standard, though I don’t find this to be entirely true. While Space Invaders certainly features simple dynamics and play, these aren’t necessarily any simpler than other shoot ‘em ups today. There&#8217;s strategic use of cover, nimble placement of your fighter to hit the sides of the invaders rather than the center (opposing shots cancel each other), and careful picking off of invaders at the extreme left and right to increase across-screen travel time for the invaders.</p>
<p>It’s rather the (slightly) slower pace and lower visual stimulation, as well as the less frequent positive reinforcement <em>Space Invaders</em> provides that elicits the simplistic descriptor. Witness the debilitating addiction afforded by PopCap&#8217;s recent release <em>Plants vs. Zombies</em> to see how keenly some game developers understand the elemental appeal of well-polished and finely honed reward systems.</p>
<p>But along with the pleasant explosion-graphic of the somewhat aquatic-looking aliens, <em>Space Invaders</em> has the high score reward, the only indication you have that you were ever there, and the only way to &#8220;win&#8221; the game. Space Invaders tugs at what must be a basic need to hold out as long as possible against impossible odds. The story ends the same way every time: the space invasion is a success, and you&#8217;re dead. But for the few seconds that Space Invaders captures your attention and you&#8217;re still alive, you are wholly in its web.</p>
<p>Developer Harvey Smith noted in a talk that the arcade genre distills games to the most basic and demanding mechanics. In place of compelling characters, story, writing, acting, and perhaps graphics as well, are the fundamental draws of satisfying character control and incentives. An arcade game&#8217;s world, its limitations and the role the player has within it must be intuitively grasped. <em>Space Invaders</em> still succeeds on all these points, and its 30+ year-old mechanics are still solid, cohesive and rewarding. I can only imagine how much more entertaining the game would be with a joystick and big red fire button.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Are Videogames Art?</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/04/are-videogames-art/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/04/are-videogames-art/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:41:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TimA</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[art]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[videogame]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=135</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John Lancaster recently published an essay in &#8220;The London Review of Books&#8221; titled &#8220;Is it Art?&#8221;.  The essay considers the position of videogames in global culture and asks the question: should videogames, which have surpassed music and video sales in the United Kingdom, be considered a form of art?  This is a huge and difficult [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>John Lancaster recently published an essay in &#8220;The London Review of Books&#8221; titled <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/lanc01_.html">&#8220;Is it Art?&#8221;</a>.  The essay considers the position of videogames in global culture and asks the question: should videogames, which have surpassed music and video sales in the United Kingdom, be considered a form of art?  This is a huge and difficult question, and in order to answer it, one would have to consider that other overwhelming question -&#8221;what is art?&#8221;  Finding an answer to that question is beyond the scope of this humble blog post, but in reading Lancaster&#8217;s essay, I have derived five things-to-think-about in regards to the status of the videogame as an art form.  In no particular order, they are:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>The level of creativity and agency the videogame grants to the player.</strong> Lancaster states that most videogames &#8220;offer a model of play which is oppressively close to work&#8221; and that gameplay in most games is &#8220;repetitive, quantified, and structured.&#8221;  Recently, however, games like LittleBigPlanet and Neverwinter Nights have bucked the trend as they allow users to create their own game content.  Other games such as the Grand Theft Auto and Elder Scrolls series have what Lancaster calls &#8220;sandbox potential&#8221; in that they allow players to ignore certain tasks and wander about the game world freely.  While one could make the argument that a videogame which only allows the player to go through a series of predetermined motions has little artistic potential, art is by nature a creative endeavor.  If a videogame allows the player to create their own content and/or narrative, that sounds pretty artistic to me.</li>
<li><strong>The visual aspects.<em> </em></strong>This should require no explanation.  Human-made visual imagery has been considered art for centuries, and I would argue that the art direction and cinematography of videogames has reached a parity level with that of film and television.</li>
<li><strong>The artist vs. the corporation</strong>.   This is an inevitable struggle in all forms of media, however because the technology needed to create videogames is prohibitively expensive, it is difficult to find successful independent game design studios who do not have to dance to the tune of Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo.  As in most corporate ventures,  the corporation considers only the bottom line.  Lancaster points to the &#8220;proliferation of sequels&#8221; as evidence that corporate interest takes precendence in the production of most games.  So, unless the price of gaming technology decreases (which isn&#8217;t likely, considering that newer technology is generated regularly) independent game designers may never be able to get a significant slice of the market.</li>
<li><strong>Better content writing!!! </strong>I think most gamers will know what I&#8217;m talking about.  While the quality of the visual aspects of videogames are on par with other forms of visual media, the writing is generally cliche and sophomoric.</li>
<li><strong>The degree of difficulty.</strong> Does degree of difficulty matter artistically?  I think it&#8217;s fair to say that most people would consider that both the creation and comprehension of any art form requires a certain level of skill.  Videogames certainly require skill.  Someone who has never played a videogame  would be hard-pressed to master Left for Dead or Fallout 3. However, as Lancaster states, &#8220;one of the most common complaints regular gamers make in reviewing new offerings is that they are too easy.&#8221; Here we have to think, again, of the role of the corporation and their desire to appeal to the bottom line in order to sell as many games as possible.  If a game is too difficult then players might get frustrated and not recommend the game.  Of course, the game can also be too easy and therefore a waste of time and money.  It has been stated in this blog previously that older games tend to have a higher degree of difficulty.  It is sad to think that the future of videogames might be an endless stream of &#8220;hollywood blockbuster&#8221; style games which are created to appeal to the widest possible audience and therefore require little skill to master.  Lancaster states, however, &#8220;if I had to name one high-cultural notion that had died in my adult lifetime, it would be the idea that difficulty is artistically desireable.&#8221;  Such is the state of modern life.</li>
</ol>
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		<title>Video Game &#8220;Extras&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/04/video-game-extras/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/04/video-game-extras/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:06:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>StephenJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[archive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[creation process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[preservation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=133</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In his article &#8220;Toward a Virtual Reenactment of History: Video Games and the Recreation of the Past,&#8221; Brian Rejack discusses the game Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 and its &#8220;extras.&#8221;  As the player progresses through the game, he or she can unlock bonus features that can be accessed from the main menu.  Similar [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In his article &#8220;Toward a Virtual Reenactment of History: Video Games and the Recreation of the Past,&#8221; Brian Rejack discusses the game <em>Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 </em>and its &#8220;extras.&#8221;  As the player progresses through the game, he or she can unlock bonus features that can be accessed from the main menu.  Similar to the extras that accompany films on DVD, these extras take gamers behind the scenes to see how the game was made. </p>
<p>In the case of <em>Brothers in Arms</em>, the game developers provide side-by-side comparisons of World War II photographs showing, for example, soldiers standing next to a tank with the corresponding image from the game in order to strengthen the game&#8217;s claim to authenticity.  However, the player only has full access to these extras once he or she has completed the game.  Thus, Rejack argues, only when the player plays through the game a second time will he or she recognize those parts of the game that are based on historical truths.</p>
<p>In the months following the publication of Rejack&#8217;s article in September 2007, though, many games have provided these extras immediately to the player as DVDs do.  In fact, a large number of major video game releases are now offered in a &#8220;collector&#8217;s edition&#8221; package that includes a bonus DVD disc containing behind-the-scenes footage.  In these instances, the back of the game box, in addition to describing the game itself, will point out that the game includes bonus features; the Platinum Edition release of <em>Call of Duty 3</em>, for example, notes that a bonus disc includes the &#8220;Making of <em>Call of Duty 3</em>&#8221; feature.</p>
<p>With these bonus features becoming increasingly prevalent, we ought to consider how these videos should be treated with regard to archival video game preservation.  As we have discovered with our own project, many major developers are naturally unwilling to provide behind-the-scenes access to their programming innovations or their artistic creations, worried that competitors might steal their ideas or that their designs might become known to the public too early.  Thus, in our understanding of the creation process for a game like <em>Gears of War</em>, we may be limited  to the official &#8220;making of&#8221; features that the developers provide in these collector&#8217;s edition game packages.</p>
<p>So, should we be preserving these features in our video game archives?  When the developer is so hesitant to contribute the material creations that would normally be considered primary sources of research, do these documentary features then become our primary sources, or the closest thing to primary sources that we can obtain?  How will the archives be affected if game developers continue to commodify information?</p>
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		<title>Spawn Labs and Mobile Gaming</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/04/spawn-labs-and-mobile-gaming/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/04/spawn-labs-and-mobile-gaming/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:25:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>walker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[consoleGames]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobileGaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[preservation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=118</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When I think of mobile gaming, whether it&#8217;s on a laptop, iPhone or other device, I think of games sensitive to the processing constraints of those platforms: web-based items like Bejeweled or Tower Defense, a retro-graphics piece like Battle for Wesnoth, etc. The latest games on the PS3, 360 or Wii do not come to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span>When I think of mobile gaming, whether it&#8217;s on a laptop, iPhone or other device, I think of games sensitive to the processing constraints of those platforms: web-based items like <em>Bejeweled</em> or <em>Tower Defense</em>, a retro-graphics piece like <em>Battle for Wesnoth</em>, etc. The latest games on the PS3, 360 or Wii do not come to mind. </span></p>
<p><span>Peter Walker of <a title="Spawn Labs" href="http://www.spawnlabs.com" target="_self">Spawn Labs</a> and <a title="Vircion, Inc." href="http://www.vircion.com/" target="_self">Vircion Inc</a>., based out of Austin, gave a talk last week for the <a title="Texas Advanced Computing Center" href="http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/" target="_self">Texas Advanced Computing Center</a> that explained the company’s plan to break this mold in the realm of console gaming. Their ambition is to allow gamers to play their console games on any computer at any location. The central idea behind this technology is that remote servers will handle the processor-intensive rendering of graphics and other game computation, sending an audio/video stream of the processed results to the user’s computer. That would allow the client’s computer to strictly handle those AV streams, rather than be responsible for the serious number-crunching. Gamers would essentially be playing the AV streams of the processed results, which would be dictated by whatever input the player sent to the server.</span></p>
<p><span>Walker identified some trends in gaming: gigabyte requirements increase, as do CPU and GPU processing requirements. <a title="Moore's Law" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law" target="_self">Moore’s Law</a> seems to be in full effect. But Walker points out that cooling power can’t keep up. Already an increasing percent of battery power is spent just cooling the processing chips. As a result mobile platforms like laptops simply cannot pack the cooling power necessary to run resource-intensive games (at least not without burning your lap). Walker points out the success of smaller-scale games, but notes that these are a different kind of gaming experience, casual and less time-intensive than the likes of <em>Call of Duty 4</em> or <em>Mass Effect</em>, and constitute a gaming experience of a different order. Spawn’s research is aimed at bringing the gaming experience of the most graphically intense console works to a mobile community. </span></p>
<p><span>This is achieved through utilizing the increasing pervasiveness of broadband and the efficiency of audio and video codecs, specifically the <a title="H.264" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264" target="_self">H.264</a> standard. Key to this standard is the <a title="SVC" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Video_Coding" target="_self">Scalable Video Codec</a>. This would allow the client computer to select whichever particular bitstream it was set up to decode, among the many a gaming server would offer. That allows a gaming server to only encode and transmit once and simultaneously support a range of client machines with different codec-decoding capabilities. </span></p>
<p><span>So what could all this mean for game preservation? Well, in a certain sense it will make the job much more challenging. Technology like this continues the trend of client computers handling less and less of of the actual content. In this model, gamers are essentially reacting to, and playing in, a movie (the AV stream) that their input incurs. Very little of the game’s actual binary content resides on the gamer’s computer. Compare this to a classic like <em>Ultima 4</em>, where a considerable preservation step is accomplished by possessing uncorrupted copies of the original 3.5” or 5.25” disks. Move ahead to <em>World of Warcaft</em>: the client side CD contains a lot of code and information, but a very large part of the game itself is not to be found there. In the model being developed here, gamers could possess even less of the binary makeup of the game, and might simply purchase a license to play the game. That leaves the individual’s personal game material as a minor component of preservation. </span></p>
<p><span>At the same time, it’s a fascinating model for more flexible, platform-agnostic gaming, and it could point the way to interesting methods of preserving games. After all, if gamers could be happy interacting with a dynamic video stream, perhaps a preservation effort could employ a similar approach. If nothing else, the success of a model like this might open up the possibility of remote access to actively preserved games.<br />
</span></p>
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		<title>Not-So-Sensible World of Soccer</title>
		<link>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/02/not-so-sensible-world-of-soccer/</link>
		<comments>http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/2009/02/not-so-sensible-world-of-soccer/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:43:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>StephenJ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[complexity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[playability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[videogame]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ibiblio.org/winget/?p=110</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My experiences playing Warcraft reminded me of a time when games were simpler, and I enjoyed reliving those memories.  Sensible World of Soccer, on the other hand, reminded me that, when it comes to sports games, added complexity is a necessity that is sometimes taken for granted by younger players like myself.  To get right [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>My experiences playing Warcraft reminded me of a time when games were simpler, and I enjoyed reliving those memories.  <a href="http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/910/Sensible+World+of+Soccer.html">Sensible World of Soccer</a>, on the other hand, reminded me that, when it comes to sports games, added complexity is a necessity that is sometimes taken for granted by younger players like myself.  To get right to the point, I find SWoS to be almost unplayable.</p>
<p>But before I address how the gameplay in sports games has, thankfully, advanced over the years, I will note that my issues with SWoS began with the speed of the game itself.  When I began playing the game on DOSBox (see previous posts for information on how to obtain and use DOSBox), the little soccer players were zooming around the screen.  Before I could hit escape and catch my breath, it seemed that five goals had already been scored against my team.  No matter much I tried to slow the game&#8217;s movement through DOSBox&#8217;s options menu, the game never seemed to calm down.  Filled with frustration, I downloaded the recent re-release of the game from XBOX 360&#8217;s online marketplace.  To my surprise, though the game was slowed considerably, it was still blazing at a speed entirely incompatible with the actual game of soccer.  Can this really be the default speed?</p>
<p>This was the first of many complaints about the ways in which SWoS presents the game of soccer to video game players.  Soccer is known throughout the world as the &#8220;beautiful game,&#8221; due to the grace and intricacy required to truly compete in the sport.  Soccer is not the kind of hyperkinetic sport that basketball is, or that SWoS would have you believe soccer is.  It is more like an athletic chess match; players are constantly scanning the field, looking for their best option before making a move.  The speed of SWoS makes this kind of thought and strategy impossible, robbing the sport of its great uniqueness.  In modern soccer video games like EA Sports&#8217;s FIFA series, the game allows the player to take his time; indeed, acting or moving too quickly will likely result in defeat.  This is the pace that a soccer video game demands, the pace of the sport itself.</p>
<p>Another glaring issue is the one-button control scheme.  You use the same button to pass the ball and to shoot the ball.  This requires you to use your movement buttons to both move your player and to guide the ball so that, when you press the &#8220;kick ball&#8221; button, the ball is sent toward a teammate for a pass or toward the goal for a shot attempt.  There is not enough room here to elaborate on how incompatible this button scheme is to soccer movement and strategy, but I can simply say that soccer players often find themselves running in one direction and kicking the ball in another direction.  A player running towards the goal may have an open teammate to his left; good luck trying to kick the ball to your left while continuing to move play forward in SWoS.  In modern games, the player is given a shoot button, a normal pass button, a lob/cross pass button, and a through pass button, and all of them are necessary if the player really wishes to recreate the sport itself.  Considering these options in addition to the advanced buttons that a player can now use in modern games to turn a normal shot into a chip shot or an exceptionally powerful line drive, one recognizes how important the new complexities of modern soccer games are.  These control options are not simply added in for innovation&#8217;s sake; they are, in fact, finally allowing the soccer video game to be what it ought to be.</p>
<p>Obviously, I am not suggesting that SWoS was a failed attempt in its time.  I imagine, in the mid-1990s, that soccer fans were happy for any soccer video game they could find, and SWoS certainly broke some important ground that continues to benefit soccer gamers today, most importantly the incredible depth of its leagues, player rosters and career modes.  The <a href="http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/swos/manual3.htm">manual</a> for the game claims to have &#8220;practically every professional team, league, and cup competition in the world,&#8221; and after perusing the team select menus, I am inclined to agree.  Also, the game not only features 26,000+ real life players but also includes &#8220;accurate personal statistics,&#8221; so the better players in real life will perform better in the game.  These inclusions provided SWoS with an off-the-field depth that was ahead of its time and set a high standard for games to come.  Not to mention that the game now serves as a delightful history lesson; for someone like myself who only recently became a fan of world soccer, it is quite interesting to see who was playing for all the teams I know and who were the best players in the mid-1990s.</p>
<p>With that said, I could not wait to turn SWoS off and return to my beloved FIFA &#8216;08.  I have come to expect from soccer video games the ability to guide the players that I know and love via advanced control schemes at a thoughtful and strategic pace, and it is astonishing to see what gamers had to settle for just over a decade ago.  Many of the classic video games that have been deemed important and influential have aged well, continuing to be enjoyable and entertaining to new players even as the graphics increasingly show the game&#8217;s age.  However, SWoS, I would argue, will be better served in my generation by remembering than by replaying.</p>
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