作者：Benjamin Quintero

我们不时会看到有关记录电子游戏历史意义的文章。有些文章还督促行业保存电子游戏的源内容，以便下一代开发者和玩家能够理解和享受游戏。虽然我认为这是种值得采取的措施，但是随着游戏渐渐变成一种盈利性服务，我发现越发难以做到。游戏作为一种产品存在于当今世界中，只是为了承载各种服务和微交易盈利方式。

game preservation(from dzineblog.com)

开发商的不作为影响游戏资产保存

游戏资产能否真正得以保存？如果能够实现的话，哪些游戏应当存档下来？更为重要的是，什么是决定电子游戏存档运动成败的关键因素？

似乎我每个月都会偶然遇到某些发行商告诉玩家群体游戏将停止运营。这些玩家数年来支付了巨额订阅费用或在游戏中投入大量时间，但他们最终获得的只是游戏停止运营的声明。

如果让今日的发行商将已有20年历史的经典游戏重新发布，很可能无法获得当年的玩家数量。而且，许多游戏还需要通过解码器反向开发或通过模拟软件来编译还原。现在，发行商在游戏作品存档方面更加精明，但是这些信息仍然无法让公众看到。我们只能希望发行商们确实备份了这些游戏。

互联网开放性影响游戏资产保存

开放和免费网络的想法确实很棒，将软件作为服务的想法也正起源于此。这种新概念在某些情况下确实显得有利可图，但是它也使你创造出的产品贬值，产品的盈利性削弱了产品质量的重要性。

将软件作为服务的想法创造出一种生态系统，包括小群体的狂热粉丝（游戏邦注：也就是付费用户）和大量免费使用服务的用户。人们对互联网的普遍想法是，因为网页和用来浏览网页的浏览器都是免费的，所以我们看到的内容也应当是免费的。这种恶性循环造就了休闲游戏玩家的冷漠。

我们都希望看到，互联网以某种方式来消耗我们向它提供的数据，而这种简单的做法便足以保存我们的信息。作为开发者，我们中多数人都知道，信息可以被压缩成无数太字节通过服务器传输到世界各地。但数据可能会丢失，即便它们仍然存在，但随着时间流逝，用谷歌可能也难以搜到你的产品。

多人游戏必须使用专用服务器才能保留。现在，许多发行商都不愿意发布专用服务器，而且它也不容易被PC玩家所接纳。发行商可能担心盗版游戏会自行创建服务器，或者是这种做法会断了自己的财路。

玩家的不重视影响游戏资产保存

我很强烈地感觉到，多数玩家对游戏保留的话题并不关心，尤其是大量的休闲玩家。诚然，看到自己最喜欢的游戏消失会感到沮丧，但是这种沮丧的感觉不会很强烈。如果《愤怒的小鸟》及其源代码忽然丢失，这些休闲玩家会怎样呢？只需再花1美元购买其他应用就可以抹平他们的悲伤。

所以，问题依然存在，如果发行商、互联网和玩家都对游戏资产保存危机负有责任，那么我们应当向谁宣战呢？

两种保留措施

接下来，我将探讨两种不同类型的保留措施。

一种是保留源内容，这有助于在需要的时候重新制作出产品。这种保留较为困难，需要付出很多时间，而且很可能不会成功。大型发行商缺乏透明度等因素使这种保存的实现遥不可及。

第二种是形式是保留游戏体验，也就是督促开发商保留高质量的单人体验。仅支持多人模式的游戏和因DRM或账户激活而过分依赖私有服务器的游戏并不适合成为电子游戏保留内容。将游戏保留在玩家脑中，这是保持他们继续玩游戏的最简单方法。即便拥有IP的发行商已经遗忘了游戏，游戏粉丝依然将聚集在网页上，分享他们对游戏续作或扩展内容的期望。在此，互联网将成为强大的工具，而不是产品本身的限制因素。

软件确实能够成为服务，但只有在开发商注重为用户提供终身产品而不是短期服务时才能实现这种转变。（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）

What Killed Videogame Preservation?

Benjamin Quintero

Every now and then we come across an article about why it is so important to document and catalog our history in videogames. Some go as far as to urge the preservation of the source content for the sake of prosperity for future generations of developers and gamers to understand and enjoy. As much as I’d like to believe in the process, I find it difficult to support when games are slowing becoming monetized services. The game’s existence as a product is only to facilitate the need for the service and the slew of fees and micro-transactions that follow. But what happens when the service is inevitably shutdown?

Publishers Killed Videogame Preservation

Can videogames truly be preserved, and if so, which games are entitled to be archived for future generations? More importantly, what might be the nail in the coffin for videogame archive movements?

It seems like at least once a month I stumble across some publisher who is giving the last call to a group of gamers who paid substantial subscription fees over the years or simply invested an immeasurable amount of their lives in a game. Their time is eventually rewarded with an announcement that they have 30 days to pack their crap and make sure the door doesn’t hit them on the way out.

If publishers were asked today to bring back some of the classic games from a little as 20 years ago, it’s likely that many of those games do not exist in their original form. Many of them would need to be reverse engineered through decompilers or simply interpreted through emulation software. These days, publishers are getting much smarter about archiving their personal works, but that information is still kept behind a lock and key. Let’s hope they are keeping backups of those backups, because we’ve all been there before.

The Internet Killed Videogame Preservation

The idea of an open and free internet is wonderful but it also gave rise to this idea of software as a service. This novel concept can be very profitable in some instances, but it also serves to devalue the product that you have created. What becomes more important than the product is the promise that it will get better with time, provided you pay for it.

Software as a service cultivates an ecosystem of a small group of zealot (paying) fans next to a larger mass of people who are fine with using what is freely accessible. The general idea that people have about the internet is that, since the web is free and the browser used to access the web is free, the content we find should be free as well. This vicious cycle is one that can breed apathy on the part of casual gamers; more on this later.

We’d all like to think that the internet somehow consumes the data we give it and that simple action is enough to preserve our information. Most of us as developers know that the magical cloud of endless terabytes boils down to a bunch of servers spread across the globe; nothing magical about it. Data can be lost, even if it’s still there, and all it takes is for Google to forget you and your product existed.

To further the argument against the internet, Multi-player cannot be preserved without dedicated servers. Many publishers are shying away from releasing dedicated servers these days and its not sitting well with PC gamers. Perhaps it is out of fear that pirated games can create their own servers, or maybe it is is out of fear that another method of pinching a few more pennies out of rabid fans could not be exploited. Whatever the reason, it is also a major part in reducing the relevance of archiving something that amounts to thousands of lines of unusable code.

Gamers Killed Videogame Preservation

I get a strong feeling that most gamers, especially the larger market of casual gamers could care less about preserving games. Sure, they’d be sad to see their favorite game disappear but probably about as sad as losing the last slice of layered cake to a mischievous family pet. They’ll just go out and buy a different cake and put it on a higher counter next time. How upset would your average casual player be if Angry Birds suddenly was lost and the source content was lost as well? They would be disappointed just enough to go buy another $1 App to ease their suffering.

So the question remains, if publishers killed preservation, and the internet killed preservation, and gamers killed preservation, who are we fighting to protect? What purpose does preservation hold if there seems to be a larger concern over the next great hype than what stepping stones led to that great new idea.

Two Kinds of Preservation

If you haven’t noticed yet, I am referring to two distinct kinds of preservation.

One is the preservation of the source content, the ability to reproduce the product if the need arises. This is the difficult one, the effort that may take time and frankly may never happen. With the lack of transparency from larger publishers and a diminished presence of a single trusted voice, the thought of an archive consortium feels very much out of reach.

The second form that I am referring to is the preservation of the experience. Yes, this was all a thinly veiled plot to urge developers to keep a quality single-player experience in mind. Games that are exclusively multi-player, or games that rely heavily on private servers for the sake of DRM or account validation are not good for videogame preservation. The simplest way to keep games in the minds of those who play them is to allow them to continue playing those games. Long after publishers have forgotten that they even own said IP, fans of the game will continue to congregate on the web and share their hopes for a sequel or expansion to that unforgettable experience. The web can still be a powerful tool to facilitate the community as a service rather than limiting the product itself out of fear of pirates.

Software as a service has its place, but when it is at the sacrifice of my experience I look to those developers who trust me as a buyer of lifelong goods, not short-lived services. (Source: Gamasutra)