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发行商谈应对游戏资产保存危机的措施和挑战

作者:John Andersen

所有可以浏览互联网或阅读纸质杂志、电子游戏丛书的游戏发烧友都会看到有关游戏行业丢弃已创造产品的消息。电子游戏行业应当正视以下问题:电子游戏是否值得保留?作为开发商或发行商,你的公司是如何保留电子游戏以应对将来的需求?

我们将一份由4个问题组成的特别问卷发送给世界各地的开发商和发行商。这项问卷调查始于2009年,起初通过信件联系了世界各地的61家电子游戏开发商和发行商,随后在2009到2010年期间通过电子邮件与他们再次联系。对该问卷做出回应的视频游戏开发商和发行商共有14家。本文将阐述这14家电子游戏公司如何保留他们已经开发和发行的游戏。

有些电子游戏行业个人很热衷于参加此次调查,但有些完全拒绝发表意见,他们表示公司政策不允许透露开发事宜。这是个难以让行业公开讨论的话题。当我们看到开发商和发行商提交的答案和声明时,对于电子游戏行业已经丢失的东西,有些公司揭露了令人瞠目结舌的事实。当然,对于内容的保留,也有人分享了某些令人惊叹的故事。

主机制造商微软、任天堂和索尼分享了他们对游戏保留话题的看法。回复答案或声明已提供有关如何保留街机和主机游戏观点的电子游戏开发商包括:Capcom、Digital Leisure、Gearbox Software、Intellivision Productions、Irem Software Engineering、Jaleco、Mitchell Corporation、Namco Bandai Games、Sega Corporation、Taito和Throwback Entertainment。

位于Namco Bandai Games东京办公室的原版《吃豆人》街机(from gamasutra)

位于Namco Bandai Games东京办公室的原版《吃豆人》街机(from gamasutra)

微软游戏工作室的Ken Lobb透露了公司如何利用特别部门来存储所有的游戏软件和硬件。微软所发布的每款游戏的多个版本(游戏邦注:包括源代码和产品资料)都被存放在湿度和温度可控的环境中,这些存放点分布于公司办公地点内外。微软已经计划将2000年之前发布的游戏(游戏邦注:这些游戏都存储在较老的媒体上)运输到更加可靠地的存储地点。

Lobb说道:“对于那些2000年之后发布的游戏,它们的源代码和所有用来构建产品的资料都已经存储在高度可靠的现代存储媒体中,位于安全且温度和湿度可控的地点。寻找源代码甚至重新构建游戏是我们综合性业务延续和灾难恢复计划的一部分。”

公司开发了许多工具,用来保留微软游戏工作室的源代码。微软也愿意向电子游戏行业相关企业提供源代码保留的通用指导意见,但已声明不会分享“具体的加密与解密运算法则”。

任天堂公共关系总监Marc Franklin在公司声明中强调了游戏遗产在现代游戏发布过程中扮演的重要角色。他说道:“我们的许多游戏有着数十年的历史,许多角色现在仍然颇受玩家欢迎。而且,有些老游戏给游戏行业带来了现在看来很普通的题材、风格和技术突破。”

“正如我们在Iwata Asks系列访谈中强调的那样,任天堂留存了与以往游戏相关的资料,甚至包括原始设计架构和文件。这些游戏的保留使我们有机会将其重新呈现给新玩家,同时让老玩家回想起他们以往的光辉岁月。”

索尼北美电子娱乐公司分享了他们的IT和QA部门如何存档游戏源代码和内部开发的资产,不断将数据传输到现代存储媒体中。索尼每个地区的公司所使用的存储管理和方法各不相同。根据所签订合同的不同,外部开发游戏的存档也有所不同。

索尼电子娱乐概括了3种存档完整产品面临的具体挑战。随着硬件和软件产品发生改变,公司将面临以下挑战:

1、我们需要寻找储存带有硬件按键的PC硬件和软件产品的方法。BIOS期满将给PC硬件和开发工具的长期存储带来问题。我们需要评定如何才能维持和更新老芯片的BIOS。EPROM往往在10年左右的时间内便会过期。

2、部分音乐和视频源资源是以文件的形式遗留下来的,需要特定的硬件(游戏邦注:比如存储卡或其他周边设备),但这些设备目前已无法获得。我们需要寻找到能够解决这个问题的媒体公司。

3、开发套件和硬件工具必须同游戏数据一起存储在安全的防灾地点。

日本的开发商和发行商都承认,将他们的游戏数据和产品资料存储在防灾地点是很重要的。Jaleco强调,根本点在于将他们的游戏数据存放在免受火灾、自然灾害、危险气候灾害和其他安全问题威胁的地点。Jaleco和Taito都确保公司的做法符合ISO标准。Jaleco还特别提到了,他们的做法符合ISO27001标准。

Taito声称,保留旗下的电子游戏“至关重要”,公司对此采取“保护”和“培养”的政策。“保护”指确保游戏免遭版权侵害,“培养”指公司希望能够由此构建起所谓的“电子游戏文化”。Taitor认为保留和“保护”是相同的,包括将游戏重新发布到主机和手机平台以及其他非传统平台和媒体。

Taito透露,在“早期的电子游戏年代”并没有制定保留政策:“我们在重获游戏数据和它们的恰当保留方面遇到了很多问题。”

但是,现在Taito在其街机游戏的保留方面显得尤为突出,公司将硬件、ROM和印刷电路板都保存起来。

Taito还承认,尽管公司在扩展用户和客服支持时利用了图表和其他工程资料,但是许多电子游戏推广资料逐渐丢失。

正如Taito所透露的公司成立早期并没有制定保留政策,Capcom前制作人Ben Judd也强调了这一点,他表示日本许多电子游戏发行商直到20世纪90年代早期才制定存储和保留程序:

Judd说道:“Capcom确实拥有代码保留程序。但是,与许多日本发行商一样,这些程序直到16位时代才开始制定。事实上,我曾经见过大量包含游戏代码的点矩阵印刷纸。”

“我听说有些发行商丢失了老游戏ROM。刚听到这种消息时,我感到非常惊讶。但是,我发现行业内著名8位游戏代码丢失是普遍现象,这令我感到更为震惊。”

日本开发商Irem公开承认他们没有保留上世纪80年代所开发和发行游戏的完整源代码。Irem担心,连游戏ROM都处在危险之中:

Irem Software Engineering的Kenta Sakai说道:“尽管我们保留了几乎所有上世纪80年代游戏的ROM,但是部分可运行这些ROM的硬件已经损坏。硬件市场发生了剧烈改变,使得修复这些硬件变得愈发困难。部分零件从市场上消失,而且能够修理硬件的工程师也不断减少。”

日本电子游戏开发商Namco Bandai Games、Sega和Mitchell Corporation也都回应了这份问卷。这些公司都认为游戏的保留很重要,而且声称他们已将将许多老游戏传输到现代存储媒体中,将它们存放在安全和气候可控的环境中。

北美开发商Digital Leisure、Intellivision、Throwback和Gearbox Software探讨了保留游戏所面临的挑战以及如何应对各种技术挑战。

为处理《龙穴历险记》和《疯狗麦基利》等以光盘形式存储的游戏,Digital Leisure不得不从多个不同来源获取代码将游戏重新拼凑起来。管理制作人Paul Gold解释道:

“诸如《龙穴历险记》和《疯狗麦基利》等经典游戏的大量原创代码和源代码要么丢失,要么因为所存储媒体被丢弃而无法查看。我们与许多游戏玩家和粉丝配合,拼凑并制造出原游戏的可靠版本。”

“然而,这些游戏的源代码的相关性已经有所减弱。Dirk the Daring(游戏邦注:《龙穴历险记》中的主角)已经不需要像80年代那样用普通地图或顶点遮影器来刺激用户。”

Digital Leisure不仅处理源代码的相关事宜,它还计划将《龙穴历险记》动画重新制作成高清版本,给新发布游戏使用的是从影片库中获得的原始底片。Digital Leisure在重新制作和保留过程中付出了大量的精力,确保了未来开发商和发行商能够再次使用这些资料:

“当我们意识到《龙穴历险记》系列将是最适合重置成HD形式的游戏时,我们联系了Don Bluth Films。和多数工作室一样,他们的影片库中存储了逾20年的原始底片。从1983年起,这个底片就从未被人使用过。我们决心将重制这款游戏,而他们正是合适的人选。”

“每款游戏所使用的颜色都要进行修改,这样才不会产生矛盾,这也是至关重要的。事实上,在HD版本游戏发布时,粉丝们或许会为颜色的丰富性感到惊讶,因为视频效果看上去比原街机版本游戏要好得多。”

Gold还透露,Digital Leisure现在很难将其他光盘游戏重新发布,原因包括原创源资料已丢失和其他资料的所有者无法找到。

Intellivision Productions联合创始人兼总裁Keith Robinson会议了自己在恢复Intellivision游戏源代码时抢救代码的过程,他不得不跟踪寻找公司前所有者Mattel已经通过拍卖售出的老硬件。

“当Mattel于1984年1月关闭游戏制作部门时,程序员Mike Minkoff和Mike Breen留在公司,用1到2个月的时间将所有已完成的游戏和正处在开发过程中的游戏存档。这样做不是为了将游戏留给后代,而是Mattel希望能够通过这种方式给Intellivision找到买家。源代码备份到了8英寸软盘中。”

“INTV Corp购买公司后,获得了这些软盘。INTV让另一个程序员Dave Warhol完成某些未制成的游戏,所以他需要将这些源代码从8英寸软盘传输到PC可读的5.25英寸软盘。他雇我来完成这项工作。”

“问题在于,Mattel Electronics软盘驱动使用的是非标准间断格式。Mattel Electronics关闭已1年,这些软盘中的内容无法读取。我联系了Mattel Inc.,跟踪原驱动器的流向:它们被拍卖给位于圣费尔南多谷北部的一家公司。”

“经过询问,该公司已经更换了驱动中的控制卡,使其能够与其他8英寸驱动兼容。但是,他们保留了那些老的电路板,并且愿意将电路板安装到一台驱动上。但是,安装后仍然无法运转,直到我通过电路板制造商获取了板上跳跃器的正确配置方式。”

1991年街机游戏《Drift Out》被存储在Mitchell Corporation东京办公室的一个电路板中(from gamasutra)

1991年街机游戏《Drift Out》被存储在Mitchell Corporation东京办公室的一个电路板中(from gamasutra)

“这样,我们才成功地保留了Intellivision的源代码。当Intellivision Productions于1997年购买版权时,我们从Dave处获得了5.25英寸软盘。随后,我们将内容传输至3.5英寸PC盘,随后转为CD。”

Throwback Entertainment首席执行官Robert Maduri面临过同样的技术挑战,情况发生在Throwback从破产的Acclaim Entertainment处收购了大量游戏时。无数的Acclaim资产堆积在公司之前位于纽约格伦科夫的办公室,必须进行分类和组织。

“Acclaim在被收购后关闭,给Throwback留下了大量工作,需要整理分散在280个产品SKU、大量硬件平台和废弃存储设备中的数据。”

“坦诚地说,这项工作简直是个噩梦。我们发现,尽管他们创造了充足的备份,但是并没有随本地环境的改变而修改使用技术和更新文件。对于这种被时代淘汰的产品,我们还值得付出精力来整理吗?”

“当我们收购库时,担心自己收购的只是毫无用处的传统库。我们将本地文件格式、光盘媒介和文件系统分类。它采用了逾25年来的计算机技术。为了导入文件,我们尝试了多种应用程序和硬件系统,于是找到了处理问题的最佳方法,那就是创建同样堆积过去25年技术的数据中心。”

“在这个层面上,eBay帮了我们很大的忙。许多被视为废物的东西很快便展示出它的价值。电脑、网络系统、开发硬件和外部驱动被出售到世界各地,这成了经常在公司发生的事情。那些老设备很快就发挥出新的用途。”

“只要我们能够在他们的本地环境中查看、分类和操作数据,剩下的过程就会变得很简单。”

Gearbox Software首席信息官Michael Athey表示,所有的Gearbox雇员都在为每日保留游戏内容做出贡献,这是公司文化的一部分,保留的内容包括营销和产品支持资料、初始游戏设计资料和推广印刷道具。在真正的游戏数据保留方面,Athey透露了Gearbox如何利用多个地点来完成这项工作的方法:

“几乎所有东西都数字化存储在我们的本地SAN中,同时复制到Gearbox的内部和外部站点。我们甚至设立了多个储存点来存放游戏的事物SKU道具。所有这些工作都是出于怀旧的目的和商业延续。”

“到现在,所有的Gearbox数据都存放在额外的D2D中,公司内外都利用的D2D的分离复制技术,这样我们就不需要在公司外的存储中做大量的投入。数年之前,我们在获取已存放多年的老游戏、源代码和支持资产时遇到了问题。”

“从那时起,我们就花时间将数据取出整合,然后将它们转换成现在的存储技术。我们本可以将数据用原先的方法存储,但是公司觉得为存储制定可持续计划会显得更好。”

许多电子游戏开发商一致认为,整个行业应当合作来研究保存方法,可以通过GDC这样的盛会和游戏行业相关组织分享信息。同时,各游戏公司还担心开发软件和硬件的生命周期会持续对游戏数据保留构成威胁。

少数公司透露,版权和商标问题也是需要克服的障碍。有些发行商认为,电子游戏保存最终将成为所有开发商和发行商的责任。

当问及游戏行业整体是否应当致力于研究游戏保留解决方案时,许多问卷调查者做出了回应,Gearbox Software的Michael Athey总结了他们的观点和看法:

“如果整个行业能够合作,至少制定出如何存档电子游戏的源资产和代码及最终产品的框架,那么必将使行业及其向用户提供的服务获益。这有利于延长游戏寿命、重新构建知识产权以及通过第3方开发来实现ROI的延续。或许,过去的游戏也能够在将来因新技术而重现生机。”

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2011年3月10日,所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis, Part 3

John Andersen

Any video game enthusiast can browse the internet or track down a print magazine or video game book to read quips or unconfirmed rumors about how the game industry has lost the very material it created. Parts one and two of Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis provided just a few of these anecdotes from its interview subjects, ranging from Atari Corporation source code being given away in an office equipment sale, to Sega source code being lost, but then found in an ex-staffer’s garage.

The decision was made to reach out to the video game industry directly and formally ask: does video game preservation matter? As a developer or publisher, how is your organization preserving its video games for the future?

A special questionnaire made up of four questions was sent to developers and publishers worldwide. The developers and publishers that were sent a questionnaire were also given the option to submit one whole statement that sums up their stance on game preservation in lieu of answering the four questions.

Certain developers and publisher were asked extra questions related to their titles being rereleased on retail compilations and via gaming subscription services.

61 video game developers and publishers worldwide were contacted via postal mail beginning in 2009, and then contacted once again via email throughout 2009-2010. A total of 14 video game developers and publishers responded. In the final part of this article these 14 video game companies reveal just how they’re preserving the games they’ve developed and published, games that have provided immense entertainment over the past three decades.

The final part of this article reveals their answers and statements in a condensed presentation, while their complete answers and statements can be read in their entirety here.

Some video game industry personnel were very enthusiastic to participate, while some declined to participate entirely, citing company policy in disclosing development matters. It’s presumed that in some cases, our questionnaire may have ended up being lost in the mail, trashed in the spam folder, or set aside altogether due to time constraints.

As mentioned in part one of this article, this was a very difficult subject for the industry to openly discuss. This became apparent when final answers and statements were submitted for this article, some of which revealed startling realities of what’s already been lost in the video game industry. Fascinating stories of what’s been saved were also shared.

It was an absolute honor to hear from the companies that responded — their time and effort providing answers or statements was very much appreciated. For those in the video game industry that missed on our initial game preservation questionnaire, they are invited to send their answers or statements to the author directly. Instructions to submit answers or provide a statement are provided at the end of this article, and any answers or statements received may be used in a potential Gamasutra industry-focused follow-up to this feature.

Console manufacturers Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony were gracious enough to share their views on the subject of game preservation. Capcom, Digital Leisure, Gearbox Software, Intellivision Productions, Irem Software Engineering, Jaleco, Mitchell Corporation, Namco Bandai Games, Sega Corporation, Taito, and Throwback Entertainment (majority owners of the Acclaim Entertainment library) were the video game developers that also submitted answers or statements providing their stance on how they’re preserving their arcade and console titles.

Ken Lobb of Microsoft Game Studios revealed how the company utilizes special departments to store all game software and hardware. Multiple copies of each game published by Microsoft (making up source code and production materials) are stored in humidity- and temperature-controlled environments in both onsite and offsite locations. Microsoft has plans to transfer games published prior to the year 2000, (stored on older media) to a more reliable storage solution.

“The source code and all the materials used to build the products for the games released after 2000 are already stored on highly reliable present-day storage media, in secure, temperature & humidity controlled locations. Retrieving the source code and even rebuilding the games is a part of our comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) program,” says Lobb.

Many of the tools used to preserve Microsoft Game Studio source code were developed within the company. Microsoft is open to provide “general guidance” on its best practices for source code preservation to video game-related industry organizations, while making it clear that it would not be able to share “specific encryption/decryption algorithms”.

Marc Franklin, public relations director of Nintendo, highlights in a statement how its legacy has played an important part in its present-day game releases: “Our games reach back decades and star dozens of characters who are still going strong today. Plus some of these older games introduced genres, styles, and technological breakthroughs that are now commonplace.”

“As we highlight in our Iwata Asks [interview] series, Nintendo keeps a wealth of materials related to its past games, up to and including even original design sketches and documents. Preserving these games lets us reintroduce them to new players while giving older gamers a chance to relive their glory days.”

Sony Computer Entertainment of America disclosed how both its IT and QA groups each play a role in archiving game source code and assets developed internally, continually transferring data to current storage media. Sony’s storage management and methods vary per region. Archiving externally developed game titles also varies depending on contracts.

Sony Computer Entertainment did outline three specific challenges of archiving completed products, challenges it will face as hardware and production software changes stating:

We need to find a way to archive PC hardware and software products that have hardware keys. BIOS expiry can cause problems with long-term storage of PC hardware and by inference development tools.

We need to assess how we can maintain or reflash BIOS revisions for older chipsets. EPROMs often expire within 10 years or so.

Legacy music and video source materials may be in file versions that require specific hardware (cards or other peripherals) which are no longer available. We need to identify how media companies that manage archives deal with this.

Devkits and hardware tools need to be stored alongside game data in a secure disaster-proof physical location.

Developers and publishers from Japan also affirmed the importance of storing their game data and production materials in disaster proof locations. Jaleco highlighted fundamental points of protecting their game data in locations that are safe from fire, natural disasters, dangerous climates and other security threats. Jaleco, as well as Taito, ensure that its operations meet ISO standards. (Jaleco specifically mentioned they meet the ISO27001 standard.)

Taito stated that preserving its video games is “vitally important”, and that it follows a “protection” and “foster” policy. By “protection” it intends to guard its games against copyright infringement, and by “foster” the company wishes to build up what it calls a “sound video game culture”. Taito views preservation and “protection” as the same, which encompasses rereleasing its games onto console compilations and mobile platforms as well as other non-traditional platforms and media.

Taito disclosed that no preservation policy ever existed in the “early video game age”: “We have problems for the recouping the game data and their proper preservation.”

Taito does, however, maintain that for its arcade games in particular, it keeps the hardware itself together with the ROM and printed circuit boards.

Taito also admits that even though it utilizes diagrams and other engineering materials that are needed for extended user/customer support, many of their video game promotional materials have been lost over time.

Just as Taito disclosed that no such preservation policies existed early in its company history, Former Capcom producer Ben Judd emphasized this very point, as he learned that many Japanese video game publishers did not institute storage and preservation procedures until the early 1990s:

“Capcom does have a procedure for preserving their code. However, these procedures, like many other Japanese publishers, were not instituted until around the 16 bit days. I have actually seen massive stacks of dot-matrix printer paper that contained game code on them.”

“On a side note, I’ve heard of incidents of old game ROMs from other publishers that have disappeared and are forever lost. I was quite surprised to initially hear this, but I was even more shocked when I found out that it is quite common for code for a lot of big name 8-bit titles from other publishers to be gone,” says Judd.

Irem is one Japanese developer that openly admits they have no intact source code from games developed and published in the 1980s. Irem expressed concerns that even the game ROMs themselves are in danger:

“Although we keep almost all ROMs from 1980s, some of the hardware for these ROMs is broken down. Since the hardware has been drastically changed, it is very hard to repair the hardware (not only are the parts missing but also the repair engineer is missing),” comments Kenta Sakai of Irem Software Engineering.

Namco Bandai Games, Sega, Mitchell Corporation (along with Capcom and Irem) were among the other Japanese video game developers that also responded to this questionnaire. Each company shared the belief that preservation of its games is important, and stated that they have transferred many of their older game titles to present-day storage media, and store them in safe, secure, climate-controlled environments.

Digital Leisure, Intellivision, Throwback, and Gearbox Software were among the North American developers that discussed the challenges of maintaining their games while dealing with numerous technical challenges.

Digital Leisure, in handling the laserdisc format of games including Dragon’s Lair and Mad Dog McCree had to intricately put their games back together using a number of different sources, as Digitial Leisure’s supervising producer Paul Gold explains:

“Much of the original code source code for our classic IP like Dragon’s Lair and Mad Dog McCree was either lost or not accessible due to obsolescence of the media it was stored on. We worked with a variety of people and fans of the series to properly piece back together how the original games played to create arcade authentic versions of the games.”

“However, the source code for these titles isn’t as relevant, as the actual video which no matter the format can be transferred in a digital world with ease. Dirk the Daring doesn’t need a normal map or a vertex shader to thrill audiences like he did in the ’80s.”

Not only was Digital Leisure dealing with source code, it also had to produce an HD re-master of the Dragon’s Lair animation using original negatives retrieved from film vaults for new rereleases of the game. The efforts that Digital Leisure put forth in the remastering and preservation process have ensured that future developers and publisher could reuse the material:

“When we decided that the Dragon’s Lair series would be a great title to remaster for HD formats, we contacted Don Bluth Films who, like most studios, had been storing the original negative in a film vault for over 20 years. The negative hadn’t been handled since 1983 and was in such a delicate state that we decided it would be best to create an all new inter-positive from the master, so should someone wish to release it in the latest format of the day 20 years from now — they can.”

“It was also incredibly important that the color for each of the games was properly corrected so there were no inconsistencies. In fact upon release of the HD version, fans could not believe how rich the colors really were, as the video looked better than what was originally on the arcade machine!”

Gold also discloses that Digital Leisure has been unable to obtain the rights to rerelease other laserdisc games due both to the fact the original source material no longer exists, and ownership rights of other material are unknown.

Keith Robinson, president and co-founder of Intellivision Productions recalls how he had to go into rescue mode when retrieving the source code of Intellivision games, having to track down old hardware that former corporate owner Mattel had sold at auction.

“When Mattel shut down game production in January 1984, two of the programmers, Mike Minkoff and Mike Breen, were kept on for a month or two to archive all of the finished games and games in progress. This wasn’t for posterity; Mattel hoped to find a buyer for Intellivision. The source code was backed up onto 8-inch floppy disks.”

“When INTV Corp purchased the rights, it got the disks. INTV contracted another of the programmers, Dave Warhol, to complete some of the unfinished games, so he needed the source code transferred from the 8-inch floppies to PC-readable 5 ¼-inch floppies. He hired me to do that job.”

“The problem was that the Mattel Electronics disk drives used a non-standard discontinued format. A year after Mattel Electronics closed, no one could read the disks. I contacted Mattel Inc. and tracked down the original drives: they had been sold at auction to a company in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley.”

“It turns out that they had replaced the controller cards in the drives to make them compatible with other 8-inch drives. But they still had the old circuit boards in their attic and were willing to put one back into one of the drives. It didn’t work until I called the manufacturer and got the correct configuration for the jumpers on the board.”

“So we successfully saved the Intellivision source code. When Intellivision Productions bought the rights in 1997, we got the 5 1/4-inch disks from Dave. We then transferred them to 3 1/2-inch PC disks and later to CDs.”

Robert Maduri, CEO of Throwback Entertainment, faced the same technical challenges when Throwback acquired a vast majority of game titles from bankrupted Acclaim Entertainment. Countless Acclaim assets that accumulated at the company’s former Glen Cove, New York office had to be sorted and organized.

“Upon the closure of the Acclaim acquisition, Throwback faced a pretty daunting task of assembling data that spanned over 280 product SKUs, dozens of hardware platforms and mass quantities of data stored on obsolete storage devices. For a library that generated over $3 billion in revenue, every piece of data was critical.”

“Quite honestly, it was a logistical nightmare. We found that as long as sufficient backups were created, not a lot of thought was put in to the progression of technology and updating the files as the native environments changed. Prior to this past generation of consoles, what was the point of doing so for the bulk of the industry?”

“When we acquired the library, it was eerily similar to acquiring a traditional library. We had differing native file formats, disk mediums, and file systems that required tending to. It literally spanned over 25 years of computer technology. After trying various applications and hardware systems with the intent to import the files, we quickly learned that the best way to tackle the problem was to create a data center that was also an accumulation of the past 25 years.”

“eBay was a life saver in this regard. Everything that would be considered obsolete quickly proved its value ten times over. Computers, networking systems, development hardware and external drives being shipped from around the world became the norm. What was old quickly became new again.”

“Once we were able to view, catalogue, and manipulate the data in their native environment, the rest of the process became that much easier.”

Michael Athey, chief information officer of Gearbox Software, notes that all Gearbox employees contribute to day-to-day preservation efforts in saving everything in its corporate culture, from marketing and product support materials, to preliminary game designs and promotional print items. When it comes to actual game data preservation, Athey reveals how Gearbox utilizes multiple locations to accomplish this feat:

“Most everything is stored digitally on our local SAN and replicated to sites both internal and external to Gearbox. We even have multiple locations storing physical SKU items of our titles. All of this is done for both nostalgia purposes and business continuity.”

“As of now, all of Gearbox’s data is on redundant D2D solutions, both on and offsite utilizing D2D de-duplication technology, so that we don’t have a heavy investment in offsite storage. We had a bit of a headache a few years ago getting our older titles, source, and support assets off legacy tape media that they had been stored on for years prior.”

“We took the time to pull the data off, verify integrity, and then move them permanently to our current storage technology. We could have left the data on the tapes but felt it better to have a consistent plan for storage and retrieval of all data.”

Many video game developers agreed that the industry should work together in researching preservation methods through events such as GDC and sharing information via game-related industry organizations. Meanwhile, companies are concerned about the expiring lifecycles of development software and hardware that poses a constant threat to preservation.

A few companies did reveal that copyright and trademark issues (locating game copyright owners and resolving ownership disputes) are among other obstacles that also need to be overcome. Some publishers did feel that the responsibility of video game preservation ultimately lies with each individual developer and publisher.

Michael Athey of Gearbox Software sums up a viewpoint that many questionnaire respondents expressed when asked if the industry as a whole should work towards researching game preservation solutions:

“It would be in the best interest of the industry and its service to the customers and fans if we worked together to at least have a framework on how to archive video game titles, both its raw assets and code, and final product. This is good for longevity of the titles, rebranding of intellectual property, and possible continuation of ROI through third party exploitation. Who knows what title from the past may show up on some piece of fancy new technology in the future?” (Source: Gamasutra)


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