#just. two very specific texts which both refer to a relation to gender I possess and by possess I mean haunt

[anglerflsh]

is this anything (Catullus 63 - I/Me/Myself)

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Reasons I believe in Polyamory

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not attractive enough to be able to have more than a single partner at once, but there is a reason for that, and really, the thesis of this wall of text below: heteronormative relationship standards in every culture have always been, and will continue to always be, more about possession than love in a post-imperialistic world.

Personally, I’m a huge proponent of engendered sexuality variance to the tone of males have a constant slow drip of libido and a female’s sex drive hits them like a freight train once a month (in mammalian bioepigenetics, this makes sense). I’m inclined to infer, because I’m not idyllically normatively attractive, only a fraction of a percentage of women will be attracted to me 24-27 days of any given month. As a cisgendered man who is regrettably straight, having the least attractive genoethnic identity intersection (South Asian Muslim) in Western culture, I’m never actually presented with the choices to act on a poly mindset (in fact, I would be ridiculed for it because people think it aligns with some other gross tribal stereotype when it couldn’t be further from the truth). In retrospect, I have everything to gain from interpreting the main benefit of an intimate relationship as ownership like heteronormative culture generally does yet I still think disavowing poly as a legitimate personal choice is immoral.

I know saying monogamous relationships are more about possession than love will offend lots of people, so before you throw hate at me for your emotionally defensive skepticism, hear me out. An unflinching, unyielding love is seen as the highest parameter in any type of romance. So why is it cheating is so much of a bigger problem than a dry spell specifically? Is it because it’s legitimately a breach of trust, or is it more about “if I can’t have you, no one can”? More importantly, does it go a step further and say “if I don’t want you, no one should”? To me, any sort of dry spell (whether physically, emotionally, mentally) signifies a much larger breach of trust than simply having been shared because it shows said commitment in the relationship was not unflinching, not unyielding. The monogamous lens looks at others like: I want to have the best partner, not just so that I’m happy, but no one else can receive the specific happiness I get. Doesn’t that whole mindset come off as brutish? Just me? Well, maybe your pitchforks will start coming down when you realize monogamy is a function of toxic patriarchy on both feminine and masculine ends.

There are bioevolutionary reasons for toxic femininity to value the possession aspect of a relationship over its substantive “quality of life” components, the birth-giving gender in any animalistic specie always had to be beheld to a provider they reproduce with. Does it not then represent a sense of feminine fragility when a single mother immediately demands a long-term relationship and nothing else? If I’m to believe said woman is capable of genuine lust in her system, having a child shouldn’t evaporate all carnal desires completely and, therefore, should leave room for compromise. Said stance also indicates she made some sort of error in judgment of her chosen reproductive mate and feels entitled another man ought remedy her strife even though, evolutionarily speaking, he has nothing to gain from helping to rear offspring not of his kin. Harsh, to be sure, but it does show in the obnoxiousness of the connotation of becoming a stepdad being a positive one and becoming a stepmom assumes the motivation of some gain in status (wealth, fame, power, etc.) which I would argue is negative. Where does toxic masculinity come into play? Desire for possession on the part of a male promotes the viability and exclusivity of his own children with his most desirable partner. While that’s damn near nowhere as compelling, it has to be stated because there are always two benefactors to patriarchy. Patriarchy is not a zero sum game, patriarchy seeks to concentrate all familial social benefits in the monogamously-driven, heteronormative genus, away from those who deviate from the ideal picture of stereotypical gender roles. The ill effects of patriarchal standards exist in every human civilization, but the ontological root to the specific brand of patriarchy that oppresses all genders today was spread by a culture that uniquely preached monogamy.

Polygamy, in a historical sense, was a testament to the more status a person of the provider gender could achieve, the more their genetics would proliferate. Many cultures globally practiced this, the issue is, the ones that didn’t were the ones who, often violently, “conquered” the ones that did. Christian fundamentalism is in every fiber of international morality, whether the nation in question believes in Christianity or not is often irrelevant. Monogamy is enforced, anything outside of that is deemed as necessarily being deviant (whether choosing to be alone or choosing more connections than a monocule). Fetishization of the step relation is eluding to this deviance in a not-so-subtle way because it’s something where its allure is derived from its forbiddenness moreso than its convenience, every one of these scenarios has a subtext of implicit gain, not loss, in engagement. Meaning, the idea is planted because a hot person is there not because a person in general is there and can satiate an urge. Tl;dr - we believe polyamory is a morally negative act because the Holy Roman Empire did and every nation that spawned from it spread, imparted, and coerced that ideal on every culture it came into contact with. Before the Holy Roman Empire, no historical documents made distinctions to behest multiple lovers as desanctifying of life itself, not even the coalescing of nations that made up the Holy Roman Empire before its inception.

We are now in an era when women have access to full reproductive control, yet we still see men lust more than women, e.g. archetypal lesbian tendencies versus archetypal gay male tendencies. Do we not question why this is the case? All lifeforms are hardwired with a desire to survive and reproduce, so why does that drive not reach equity when risk does? There are two answers, and it could even be both: women are only socially conditioned to have sex via patriarchal pressures and don’t have as much inherent desire to reproduce OR sex is a means-to-an-end to exclusively possess a desired provider, whatever said person provides. If said person has a trait valuable enough to want to possess, is it not self-contrived to keep that quality to oneself, not share it with the world where it can provide more utility? Heteronormative relationships, in a sense, are anti-altruistic at their very core. As facetious as this sounds, either of these trains of thought are validated by men being more willing to engage in polyamory than women, not because men are somehow any less loyal than women. On its own, I feel this line of reasoning is enough to justify a vehement disgust of polyamory as immoral, but I want to conclude on the most pivotal facet to this conversation and not just heavily imply monogamy encroachment on moral turpitude is problematic at best.

As I mentioned a few times, I am likely to be a spoke on a polycule, not a member with multiple connections. Exclusive possession is something I probably stand more to gain from than any woman, logically and realistically, given the current social climate and general global beauty standards. My advocacy of polyamory stems from me accepting I may not be enough to be the full extent of happiness my romantic interest desires. That doesn’t even come from a place of insecurity, it comes from a place knowing I could never be perfect even if its pursuit is a righteous cause. I see real insecurity as a fear of loss when the rules of engagement you put into place were exclusivity: you don’t want your partner looking at anyone else because it’s disadvantageous to you, meaning you’re not fixated on their best interest and looking at relationships in said manner is deliberately selfish. To me, the best frame of reference to morality in interpersonal social connections is altruism. Yeah, self-love is important and knowing your own boundaries is beneficial but everyone else’s boundaries don’t have to match yours. I’m not anti-monogamist, really. I’m more anti-polyamorist discontent.

Not having thought this deeply isn’t an excuse, either.

[theorynexus]

52 is a great number!  It is also the number we’re at, now.

What, you want to go through a mental battle for predomination with the force of nature that subsumed fricking Caliborn?  I mean, sure, he wasn’t influenced by human culture, so that version was bound to be different, but I’m pretty sure much of the horribly irksome traits that made him him came from his heart, not from his upbringing.

It is beautiful that Alt!Calliope feels it necessary to note exactly why Jade has a clear expression visible to others. There’s just a whole lot of subtle humor packed into that revelation.   Additionally, it’s nice to see that Alt!Calliope recognizes the important distinction that they are the two different versions of Jade, despite their Heartfelt connection. It is very interesting to see that Jade’s first thoughts are about what the other Jade had just been through. It’s nice to see the symmetry with what the Jade who drifted into the black hole had been thinking of, before her mind gravitated to Alt!Calliope’s siren song.

Yaaayyy, echoes reaching out across timelines and instances, flowing into and affecting beings seemingly disconnected, yet who both at different times had primacy of Relevance!   (I am here obviously ignoring the fact that the Jade who died was split off before Game Over: she was from the Game Over side of the Retcon, regardless, and the Collide side of canon has been split into two different versions of herself who have similar levels of importance too, so it’s not like there isn’t a parallel level of distance from “primacy”.    These things are relative. The important part is their proximity to the two archetypal “main” versions of the Kid, and that they act as representatives of these sides.)

A relatively sound argument, Narrator 1, but you seem to have been outmaneuvered. 

Yes!  Most excellent, o’ Muse!   I am curious why you need to (partially?) possess Jade’s body in order to accomplish that, but I am willing to accept this as a necessary sacrifice, potentially. Jade does still seem to be in there, and I trust that you, as subtle as you can be, will not impede her own will too terribly badly?

Hehehehe... HAAAA HAHAHAHAHA!!!      Indeed, indeed!  I am glad you see things in a manner congruent to my own understanding, o’ Muse. I suppose I might, perhaps, even be able to cease referring to him as “Narrator” altogether, rather than simply adding the demeaning “1,” at this point. Curious, I am, though, what precisely is referred to by “my horizon.”   There are multiple possible things which I think could satisfy this, from a spatial, temporal, or metaphorical (thus metaphysical) level: It could refer specifically to the meta-temporal conditions that are considered “after the destruction of the Green Sun,”  It could refer to the white void beyond the darkness of the Furthest Ring, which appears to have always been there, rather than to have been created as a result of the devastation the Green Sun Black Hole’s emergence/creation/completion caused, or It could refer to all areas beyond the realm of Canon. There are other potential interpretations, as well, but these seem like the ones most likely to be the actual antecedent idea which her verbiage referred to.

Vagueblogging?    As for the other matter:   Hmm. That sets a condition to a potential reversal, after which Calliope loses her grip.   I wonder how things will develop, and if it’s just that she intends to inundate the narrative with her text, or if the smaller font there is indicative that she’s actually clamping down on his ability to produce any of his own at all. Oh, and... I guess maybe this suggests that Jade’s personality may be suppressed for some time. Given there are ending conditions to it, the sacrifice may be even less than I thought it might be, so I will in fact continue to accept this.

I am really, really glad that Calliope can sense Alt!Calliope, and that we have received such a rich description of the friction between sides of the narrative divide! <3

It’s also somewhat nice that Alt!Calliope is aware of and/or instantly capable of properly using the gender/lack thereof(?) they (both Calliope and Roxy) identify with. ‘T’is very intriguing that the information was already there, and there were no hickups which Dirk might have mocked Alt!Calliope with.

Hmmmmm-hmm!~   Okay, thanks for clarifying the conditions of the possession.

Hy-po-crite.  Disgusting.  Particularly considering his interference in the narrative is treating others’ lives like playthings, and resulting in great harm--  just like Caliborn.  I suppose this is yet another reason that they had the same Denizen. (Related: I am reminded of the fact that Dirk was the only one of the Alpha Kids that actually bonded with Caliborn, and who that Cherub seemed to consider as a friend.)

The point Dirk made would actually be pretty good, if it weren’t for the fact that her Muse powers almost certainly (as she demonstrates) kept her in constant contact with the world, over the course of the ages. Also:  He’d better go get some aloe or something--- that burn looks painful.

Fool, the point is that it’s so sharp that any motion at all over its surface will bring about a cut-- gravity, wind pressure, and the flow of the silk in any vector other than directly downward or perhaps perpendicular to the blade would naturally give a potential frictional force, which the blade geometry naturally would amplify via wedge-based simple machine mechanics!     No lever action is necessarily needed!          ... Not that he’s not correct to suggest that the flowing motion of the swordplay is not the normal reason for a katana making a cut.

This is very, very true. Also how Debate works. I appreciate both such realities.

This... is just absolutely beautiful. The above paragraph is too. So much so that I shall not repost it here, but rather, shall urge all those who view my text to journey to Meat 27 and experience it for yourselves. Magnifique. (It also reminds me of the impotent rage which Caliborn vented toward Calliope before his false predomination in the distant future of this very universe he foolishly claimed that he, presumably alone, had created for the other Jade.)   ... Post Script Edit:   I feel bad for Callie, feeling like they had to run away like that~

[curlybraceactual]

I was reminded of something I wrote a long while ago, like in January.  I wrote it in one go, and I enjoyed every second of it.  In my opinion it’s pretty good, so with some minor editing I might as well post it for the public.

https://bit.ly/2H9Y6LF Link version due to potential difficulty with reading it on my own blog.

“Please.  Come in.”

A door shuts loudly as a brunette woman, with glassy teal eyes that look almost moon-eyed, and her hair tied into two pigtails by two pastel yellow ties.  She is greeted by a man, old but not frail, sitting in a chair with documents pertaining to this particular woman.

He shoots a command at her.  “Go, sit down and we’ll start.”  The woman does so, tossing away the dangling, worn yellow fabric tied around her neck to it wouldn’t be crushed under her as she sat on the plush, red couch.

Her scarf, her most prized possession.  She had made many scarves like it; Some red, some blue, some that, due to their yarn, oozed, but never a yellow scarf.  She had just one.  It had since lost it’s vibrant canary yellow colour from almost 20 years of being worn, tossed into water, and being accidentally dirtied and then cleaned.

This, was her scarf.  She was never seen without it.

“Should we continue where we left off?”  Asked the man.  “No, sir.”  The woman denied, in a hushed tone, like she was telling a secret.  “I’ve told you everything I remember from those years.”

‘Those Years’ were where her deeply hidden away memories were, of the Old Planet, the one where was born and raised with her faintly remembered parents until she was the age of 7 and where she would be swiftly removed from her parents, all for a quest to protect and transport her people’s most valuable resource; The Poligens.

The Poligens, their name a portmanteau of ‘Polygon’ and ‘Generator’, were large, but not big enough to be held with one hand, round gachapon-esque containers, containing a mysterious, swirling grey fluid, dense but watery.  The liquids were made of what some call ‘the essence of reality’, titled after their bizarre qualities to organic matter if handled improperly or broken.

But these liquids were soon deemed very useful, becoming a major source of energy by the time of their discovery, but at the cost of their qualities slowly affecting the nature of the populous, where in which they could soon hear, see, and even touch things that normal creatures wouldn’t.  Some would call this Eldritch Sight, but their people would call this natural if anything else.

“Oh?”  The man continued, flipping through the papers before going to speak again.  “Alright then, how about you talk of the years afterwards?  When you went on a trip transporting the Poligens and to the New Planet?”  The woman flinched, reminding herself of that trip.  A dark time, as she had remembered…

The man comforted her, and reminded her she could start at any time, and soon, she did.

“Around the age of 8 my parents entrusted me with a ship that was originally meant for them, but due to sudden problems they were forced to sacrifice themselves.  So, the ship was stocked with everything a 8-year-old, especially me, would enjoy; dolls, drawing utensils and paper, and plenty of plush pillows to hop around in, but also a notebook to record my journey.”

“I know that.  When we first started, I received it by mail.  It was a very odd… read, especially due to childish handwriting and what appears to be a very dramatic descent into madness.  If I were to publish it, it might be held as a very good horror book by the press-”

The woman snapped at him, enraged by his matter-of-fact talk of a serious event in her life and banging her fist on the coffee table next to the couch, shaking a glass vase filled with fake daffodils and nearly tossing it to the ground.  “Don’t you DARE refer to my notebook as a ‘dramatic descent into madness’.  Do you understand how ignorant you sound?”

“Ma’am, please, calm yourself.”  Replied the man.  “Your younger self was filled with so much hysterics and self-hatred that she could be considered, medically, psychotic.  By the age of 9, going on 10, you attempted to do... something, by drinking the fluids inside of Poligen.  We even have documentation of you doing so, with a sample of, ahem, ‘your accident’ on a large amount of stained carpeting that you shamefully just covered up with a arguably tacky rug.”

The woman, by this recalling of the most infamous of ship captain accidents, tucked herself near the soft pillows on the couch away from the table, and placed one on her lap where she began to cuddle it.  The ‘accident’ briefly played in her mind, a sea of red and intense pain pillaring down from her mouth and eyes flashed back, as she cringed from it.  Her own cries for help and comfort rang out in her head, as she grew cold and weak.  But, as evidenced by the present, she had survived.  

An attempt to visit her parents, as she secretly had planned it, failed.  The woman, since then, had grown fearful of the day she would be forced to do so anyway.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am.  Would you like to continue, or would you like to continue another day?”

“No… no, this fine.”  And she continued.

“I was not informed that this would be the last day I would see my parents, when I was finally loaded onto the ship.  I thought they would be coming with me, on a seperate ship, but I would soon figure this out that, that wouldn’t be the case at all.  So, when I said my last goodbyes, I wasn’t filled with sorrow, as any normal person should be, but with glee.  I was going on a neat interstellar trip, like the stuff on television!  No, no, the stuff my parents did!  I was so, so happy.

“But I soon figured it out through piecing together clues in letters my parents left me.  Kids are smart, you know, you just don’t give them enough credit.  And that, well, it started a severe tilt in how I acted.”

“Age 9, quarter into the year, correct?  Your notebook suggests so.”

“You… are correct, I think.  And then… that whole thing happened, and I just started not sleeping.  Everytime I would attempt to, I would be met with a nightmare, or something utterly horrifying relating to that event.  Of course I still had to, I just dreaded doing so.  I started feeling empty, tired, and a tiny bit worthless.”

“Ah, clinical depression.  I have seen many women over the course of my career be striked with this poor disease-”

“Disorder, sir.”  The woman corrected him.

“-With this poor ‘disorder’, but never a young child, especially one that was 9 years old when it began.”  The man tapped his teeth with his pen, thinking.  “...You know, I recently started rereading your notebook.  By the tone of your writing, it was less ‘empty’ and more ‘pessimistically cheerful’ than anything else.”  The woman grumbled aggressively at him, almost like a growl.  “Buuut if that’s what you say it was like, then that’s what it was like.  You may continue”

“And then, months that felt like years later, I found… ‘Earth’.  There is where I found the place that has mystified the populous for years, and it was just as odd, bizarre, and scary as some writers made it out to be.”

“This is where you met the mysterious, but ‘alluring’ girl known only to you as ‘Beard Girl’, correct?”

“And many of my other friends I haven’t seen for many years- wait, did you say ‘alluring’?  Oh, for cripes sake, sir..!”

He continued on.  “There are theories in the market about you and this ‘Beard Girl’, you know.  I’m wondering if you could answer them so I may publish them, specifically if you had any ho-”

The woman screeched loudly in protest.  “I NEVER had any FEELINGS towards BEARD!  Even if those TEXTS suggest OTHERWISE, I was a FOOL back then and I will never be TRICKED by that blonde, megalomaniac AGAIN!”

“Miss, please, calm down!  I was only making a tiny joke!  I highly doubt a child at that age could develop a strange fascination towards another of the same gender the same an adult would.”  The man chuckled anxiously while watching the woman completely and utterly lose her shit towards him, screaming loudly into the pillow that she was originally cuddling.

---

The herbal aroma spread around the room as tea was being passed around the two persons.  The woman had since calmed down from her tantrum, and was enjoying the drink.  Peppermint, no less.  “So, I suppose you’d like to continue?”

“Of course.  As I was saying, before you interrupted me with that, I did meet Beard here, along with others, but first Beard.”

“Describe her.  Did she break your heart after you denied her the Poligen, like you stated?”  The woman groaned, growling out a pained ‘please!’ at the man.

Before long, she continued.  “...She was a blonde girl, dressed in a red hood and coat, with yellow, shiny buttons, and underneath the coat was a black dress with a little slit at the side, and deep purple leggings, with black snow shoes, the ones with the little fluffy pom-poms.  Mysteriously, at the time anyway, luxurious items, I’ll say that.  Her hair was banged, and two long parts on the sides came out from under the hood and stuck out, adorned with a green bead, one on each side.  But what was mysterious about her was both her orange-yellow eyes, and her bit of, well, facial hair.  She had, true to her name, a long, blonde beard with a mustache as well, fashionably adored and cared for.  And I’ll tell you this, she had… quite an accent, I think?  It was rough, and gruff, and… gyrrrr!”  She attempted to copy the exact tone, unbesnowing to the both of them that ‘Beard’ had a semi-thick Russian accent.

“Are you sure she was a girl?  Or just a bizarre crossdresser?”  The Man laughed, but noted that she was extremely offended by the comment.

“Ahem.  She was apart of a gang, remember that I am currently a young heavily depressed girl hanging out with some bearded girl because I needed to go recollect the Poligens, as some goon went to steal them from me as ‘payment’, so that I may leave, and this gang was called the ‘Beard Gang’ where everyone was, I kid you not, required to wear beards.  She was the leader of this but never really did anything with them.  Well, until she got dethroned by a man known to me as the ‘Main Artiste’, where in which when I came around and defeated him, unknowing of the problems I would soon face, he was apparently murdered by Beard and stuffed his innards into a jar.”

The man appeared to be sucking in every detail she was saying with a face of pure confusion.  “Pardon, pardon, could… could you go back to what Mr. ‘Main Artiste’ did to warrant this?”

She sighed.  “He was an artist, who hated beards, so he made the gang not only shave their beards but also do arts and crafts.  But because he dethroned Beard, she went and killed him after I defeated him.  With an umbrella, no less.”  The woman seemed incredibly proud as she said it.

The man tapped the pen on his teeth once more, recollecting the known information he was given.  “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“Yes?”

“Could you, perhaps, tell your entire adventure to me?  Every little detail would be nice.”

“That wasn’t enough?  Well, alright, I guess.  I’ll start from the beginning, where the goon went and broke the window…”

[itchy-archive]

Digital Games Preservation

Summary

This text serves as introduction into complexity of digital games preservation. At first it introduces digital games as cultural artifact researched by established academic sciences. It stress endangerment and extinction of digital heritage. It explores wider concept than software/platform preservation. It tries to familiarize reader with complexity of preservation in wider context of games, with importance of preserving developing documentation, interviews, different version games, advertisements etc. I chose this approach in sense of concept of new movie historians who explore medium in complex production and perception dynamics. Therefore necessity of keeping preservation scale as wide as possible is priority for not yet established researches in future. Text also deals with problematic of hardware obsolescence, degradation and emulation.

Introduction

Discussion about video game as art form is still quite common in mainstream media. Topic is usually connected with discussion about influence of games to their users.[1] Question behind this discussions in context of this text is: are games worth of preservation? I do not think that answer is in accepting or rejecting game as art form. It will bring no relieve in thinking about games. Also there is no need to comparing games to other preservation efforts. From my pragmatical point of view games are worth of preservation because there is already huge research base dealing with games from many perspectives. Games are already perceived by academics as omnipresent cultural artifacts of this era. Human sciences like sociology, economy[2], culture studies, gender studies, psychology etc. are dealing with games in their own perspectives.[3] “Pragmatic rethinking of games as social artifacts in their own right that are always in the process of becoming. This view both better accords with the experience of games by participants cross-culturally and bears the weight of the new questions being asked about games and about society.” [4] Therefore necessity of preservation arise not only from player's demand but also from established academy environment.

Endangering of digital games heritage is well stated in International Game Developer Association's A Digital Game Preservation White Paper: “Digital games have a shockingly short life span due to the natural decay of the original materials and the rapid obsolescence of older media forms, as well as the failure and obsolescence of the hardware necessary to run them. Many digital games that are only a few decades old are already at-risk and require immediate preservation attention. As a result of obsolescence, it is imperative that we preserve the hardware and software environments that are required to run the games we wish to preserve: without the platforms to run them, the games themselves are useless. Unfortunately, the maintenance of old hardware and software environments is ultimately not feasible for long-term preservation due to the high costs of maintenance and inevitable failure of computer components. [5] Libraries and archives around the world have only just begun to pay serious attention to digital games, yet they already face the immediate problem of working together. If no concerted action is taken to save these games before they disappear forever, we will have lost the foundation of our industry's history. It will not be enough simply to hand the problem over to libraries and archives that are beginning to collect digital games – these repositories lack the expertise and funding to solve the many problems of digital preservation. They will also need the industry to help, because preservation methods are further complicated through current business practices of digital rights and distribution.“[6]

Promising initiative is coming from Library of Congress's project Preserving Virtual Worlds which is collaboration with University of Illinois, Maryland, Stanford, Rochester and industry partner Linden Lab. Project explore methods for preserving digital games. Major activities including developing basic standards for metadata and content representation and conducting a series of archiving case studies for games and multi-user games. Very promising is exploring FRBR and OAIS model in experimental case studies. It also stress necessity of industry cooperation mainly in sense of digital rights constrains. Although project is in development it rise hopes for systematic game preservation.[7]

Last initiative is coming from game community alone, by which I mean players and reviewers.  Arcade machines emulation project like MAME, gathering and obtaining Commodore tape images by C64tapes.org, community based database of digital games on Moby games and even illegal activities such abandonware site http://thehomeofunderdogs.net gathering scanned manuals of games or cartridge possession of review versions of unreleased games.[8] This community based approach based on network spreading a volunteering could lack of standardization, but maintain health spirit, common sense, knowledge and skills necessary for preservation. Collaboration of all three interested groups would benefit game preservation, but complications in keeping digital rights and fear of piracy does not create seamless environment. Each group could also diverse in perspective on exact goals of preservation, but common ground could be created.

For terms clarification purposes I am adding this note into text. Term digital game have roots in binary electronic system and term video game is coming from raster display.[9] In this text I treat both terms digital game and video game as equal synonyms. I also use term virtual world in same synonymous fashion. Sole term is describing shared multi-user environment or user's immersion into game's text,[10] but both refers to the game. This approach is common in literature I studied. One exception is term interactive fiction which is usually presented in conjunction with video game like two entities. But in my point of view interactive fiction is just another game genre. Essentially all mentioned terms are describing game from different perspectives, common preservation methodology is shared among them. Therefore I use simple term game in sense of above mentioned terms for stylistic and shortening purposes.

Preserve game and it's contexts

Preserving a running code and a platform or at least emulation serves for keeping experience of game alive. But gaming experience is only one of many fields of research. Proper research of cultural artifact is dealing with questions of how, when and where are games producing and how, when and where are games perceived.[11] Complexity of such approach deals with economical and social contexts demanding preservation of many sources related to the game. Manuals, PR kits, beta versions, review versions, presentation versions, demos, updates, localized versions, user modifications, gold editions, trailers, advertisements, interviews, reviews, discussions, artworks, project and design documents, production details, source codes and source artworks are pieces which feed research. Heterogeneous nature of digital and physical entities and complexities between related objects like different versions of one game demands describing of relationships between entities.

Reconstructing development process with decisions of involved people and budget, market researches, unimplemented or censored ideas are necessary for process analysis. Code studies are dealing with development of source codes and it's cultural contexts.[12] Original artworks allow researchers or developers to explore roots and ideas which constituted final appearance. General idea behind this approach is keeping as much context information as possible for future research interests, because aspects we are considering as important could change with new paradigms. We should consider such scope as ideal, its realization would be quite extensive and could be achieved only with cooperation of game's industry, game community and scholars.

Bit preservation

Basic and most important approach to digital games preservation is bit preservation. Ultimate goal is to preserve data of game storage formats and appearance of medias' artwork. „The greatest threat to the longevity of digital games is media decay, also known as bit rot. Bit rot is the gradual and natural decay of digital information and storage media over time, resulting in eventual unreadability. Bit rot affects different storage formats at different rates depending on the format's durability.“[13] As time goes on, reading of data from media becomes unreliable. These data bits cannot be recovered (and likely only partially) without extremely expensive hardware and significant analysis. Eventually the data is completely lost.[14] Another aspect is that we should confirm if we dumped data from media correctly. Because of heterogeneity of platforms specific hardware and software is necessary for data testing. Without correct image of digital game data, we couldn't consider game as preserved.[15]

Interesting aspect is existence of cracked or pirated version of games often accompanied with intro from demoscene. These artifacts of pirate community was not only presentations of programming skills but cultural artifacts conducted from sounds and visuals. Interesting connection between demoscence culture and games industry emerged with skilled individuals from demoscene moving into game business in roles of programmers, artists and musicians. Fortunately competitive attitude of scene tried to bring community created data into shared competitive environment. Demoscene quite effectively preserved and shared own artifacts firstly on pre-internet BBSes and later on scene web sites. But huge deal of work lays in categorization and crediting of artifacts, relating authors, individual groups and industry companies together.[16]

Hardware preservation and emulation

Excellent text dealing with hardware preservation has been made by Guttenbrunner in Digital Preservation of Console Video Games. It stress emulation as primary approach arguing with inevitability of hardware obsolescence and extreme upkeep cost of hardware long term preservation and sole impossibility when hardware production stops, it can not be usually replaced once broken. “The term Emulation refers to the capability of a device or software to replicate the behavior of a different device or software. It is possible to use hardware to emulate hardware or to use software to emulate software. An emulator is a program that runs on one computer (the emulator's `host' system) and thereby virtually recreates a different computer (the emulator's `target' system). The concept of using emulation for digital preservation is to keep the data in its original, unaltered form and keep using the software originally used to display the data. This software has to be run on the operating system and the operating system on the hardware it was developed for. To keep this chain alive, an emulator for the original hardware is produced. " Only one emulator solution has been developed commercially. Other solutions has been made in community driven projects. Mostly they are developed with preservation on mind and playing abilities is only coincidence. [17]

Recreating original game experience depends on proper hardware inner workings. But access to important information is limited in some cases which we need for reconstruction. “Unlike personal computers or early home computers the exact specifications of console video game systems and development documentation for game developers are usually confidential. The exact details about timing or accurate functionality of system components are often only known to the system manufacturer. They can get lost if a manufacturer goes out of business or decides not to keep this documentation any longer. Getting information about these systems usually means either to get restricted development documentation or to reverse engineer the system. For digitally preserving games for console systems it is necessary to know details about how to get video game code of the original media and information about how this code was interpreted on the original machine. Without the manufacturer it can be difficult to preserve a video game of a particular system.”[18]

Special problematic is individual games' unique hardware. Today's examples of musical games with controllers in form of guitars, drum kits or mixing controllers. In history light guns or special controller overlays were most commonly used. Such devices are tightly connected with game experience and without them games experience will at least crippled. Controller feedback in any way is also not supported by the tested emulators, which in experience for games that rely on force feedback to for example give the player information about getting hit. “The recreation of special controllers is not solved satisfying in current emulators. This is getting a pressing issue with console video game systems of the last two generations as lots of games are using purpose-built controllers to separate the console video games from games on personal computers or resemble games known from arcades. With the success of the motion sensitive controls developed for the Nintendo Wii as standard controller, the trend away from ordinary joysticks could continue. A strategy will have to be developed how to recreate the gaming experience of these special controllers.”[19]

Legal Constrains

Game industry is aware of complications with digital preservation when dealing with digital rights. Emulation, copying and sometimes copy protection overcoming are mostly illegal. Therefore industrial support is necessary. IGDA's white paper on preservation is explaining situation pretty well. ”The history of the game industry cannot be saved without support from its creators. Currently, there is no single institution within the game industry or in any government that is responsible for archiving digital games. Only various independent efforts made by libraries and archives throughout the world, and there are few industry-operated archives for the preservation and documentation of a company's history. Because preserving digital game history requires methods such as migration and emulation, support from the industry is required to overcome the many legal and technical barriers that currently prevent the preservation of its own history.

The first line of support that game companies can give libraries and archives is legal support. Digital Rights Management (DRM) licensing and copyright laws present barriers to the long-term preservation of digital games. While these laws were created to protect the intellectual property of the industry, they prevent the only viable techniques of long-term preservation: migration and emulation.

In order for digital media to survive decay and obsolescence, the information must be transferred, or migrated, from one storage format to another, which involves creating a copy. Sometimes, copy protection schemes prevent this process and must be overridden to secure a copy of the data, and often the physical act of simply copying the data may violate contract agreements and copyright laws. Additionally, the software and hardware platforms must be emulated, which can conflict with copyright laws governing hardware and software environments.

For long-term preservation to occur, exceptions must be given to libraries and archives so these tasks can be performed. It may well be that game companies and owners of game-related intellectual property do not object to game preservation by these institutions, but protocols for assigning these rights have yet to be worked out in a clear manner.

Additional legal support involves tracking ownership of copyrights and intellectual property rights for games that need to be preserved as well as verifying the existence of "lost" or missing games. Often, little information is known about older titles, making it difficult to determine ownership. The establishment of clearinghouses for such information, perhaps by trusted academic institutions or repositories, would benefit the industry as well as game preservation activities.””[20]

IGDS's text also deals with considerable problems of modern game distribution networks. We could not rely on longevity of such remote storage services. Other streaming digital distribution services do not even allow the creation of local copies. Industry attention is therefore required in order to ensure the long-term preservation of digitally distributed games because preservation efforts will ultimately depend on distributor. Installation licenses and encryption keys verification tools are effectively complicating preservation. “These practices ultimately tie copies of a game to a particular computer that is prone to failure and obsolescence rather than to a particular user, who has greater permanence. Moreover, encryption key verification tools often run on company servers whose lifespans may be limited to decades or, more likely, years. These services may not be operational in the future; when a validation service fails or is dissolved, games associated with it can no longer be verified and almost certainly cannot be run. Overcoming both problems will ultimately require industry support, because companies create, own, and operate these services.”[21]

Conclusion

Preservation of digital games requires collecting game data, platforms and unique controllers. Platforms and controllers will inevitably broke in long term perspective, therefore emulation and documentation is necessary for proper reconstruction of game experience. For purposes of future research is important to think about contextual situation of games. Therefore collecting as much documents as possible dealing with process of production and perception of game is necessary for purposes of future research. Legal issues have to be resolved with industry support and in cooperation with preservation institutions. Important part of preservation is community based approach developing emulators and using networks for gathering of game images and collecting information.

References

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[1]            Kral, 2000; Smurts, 2005; Smutný, 2009

[2]             Guðmundsson, 2007; Seiler, 2008

[3]             O'Donnell, 2009

[4]             Malaby, 2007: 95

[5]             Lowood, 2009: 6

[6]             Lowood, 2009: 3

[7]             Library of Congress, 2008; McDonough, 2008

[8]             Cifaldi, no date

[9]             Baer, 1977; Goldsmith, 1947

[10]             Begault, 1994; Brown, 2004; Cook, 2009; Cherbakov, 2009;

[11]             Thein, 2005: 151

[12]             Critical Code Studies, 2007; Jerz, 2007

[13]             Lowood, 2009: 4

[14]             Software Preservation Society: http://www.softpres.org/glossary:bit_rot

[15]             c64tapes.org: http://c64tapes.org/

[16]             Borzyskowski, 2005; Burger, 2002; Defacto2.net, 2004; Demoscene, no date.; Tasajarvi, 2003

[17]             Guttenbrunner, 2007: 34

[18]             Ibid: 38

[19]             Ibid: 86

[20]             Lowood, 2009: 6

[21]             Ibid, 2009: 7