Preserving Games

Archiving the Creation Processes of the Video Game Industry

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Tag: creation process

Book Review: Racing the Beam

12 February, 2010 (12:01) | Literature Review | By: walker

Montfort, N., & Bogost, I. (2009). Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. Platform Studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Just want to give a brief rundown on a really great read I’ve come across. MIT has started a “Platform Studies” series of books where the idea is to examine a platform and its technologies […]

Making the Water Move: Techno-Historic Limits in the Game Aesthetics of Myst and Doom

24 January, 2010 (14:22) | Literature Review | By: walker

Hutchison, A. (2008). Making the Water Move: Techno-Historic Limits in the Game Aesthetics of Myst and Doom. Game Studies, 8(1). Retrieved from http://gamestudies.org/0801/articles/hutch   This 2008 Games Studies article examines the effect technology (or the “techno-historic” context of a game work) has on game aesthetics. The author defines the “game aesthetics” as “the combination of the […]

Hardware gimmick or cultural innovation?

22 October, 2009 (21:40) | Literature Review | By: walker

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’s video […]

What Went Wrong? A Survey of Problems in Game Development

19 October, 2009 (20:48) | Literature Review | By: walker

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 authors analyze […]

Video Game “Extras”

6 April, 2009 (12:06) | News and Commentary | By: admin

In his article “Toward a Virtual Reenactment of History: Video Games and the Recreation of the Past,” Brian Rejack discusses the game Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 and its “extras.”  As the player progresses through the game, he or she can unlock bonus features that can be accessed from the main menu.  Similar […]

What Story? Reporting a MUD-Dev Thread from April – May 2000

23 January, 2009 (14:49) | News and Commentary | By: walker

From August 22, 1996 to the early October of 2004 the MUD-Dev mailing list housed a slew of earnest and lengthy discussions — technical, philosophical, design and otherwise — concerning the development and play of multi-user dungeons (MUDs).  MUDs were developed before graphics-capable computers, originating and remaining entirely text-based. Players type commands, role-play or just […]

The Power to Create

8 December, 2008 (14:49) | News and Commentary | By: admin

In a recent interview for the Wired blog, Blizzard’s Executive Vice President of Game Design Rob Pardo is asked about past Diablo games and their perceived “RAM dependency.”  The interviewer notes, “When Diablo II came out…I didn’t really feel like I got the full experience of the game running perfectly until I had something like 2GB […]

Beyond Video Game Preservation

7 November, 2008 (11:44) | News and Commentary | By: admin

Creating video games means establishing virtual worlds. The creation process involves stories, communications and networks – a series of actions that are much more complicated than meets the eye. In exploring and documenting this dynamic process, researchers must go beyond preservation and also consider the emotional and psychological aspects that went into designing a game. […]