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This is a big day for me. Today the charity I founded four years ago, @GameHistoryOrg, is beginning an ambitious project to de-mystify video game source code and assets and make them available as educational tools and historical resources. Thread: https://gamehistory.org/video-game-source-project/
Raw video game source assets (we broadly define this as source code, art, documentation, etc.) are, as all you game dev friends know, really easily lost after a game ships. And even when they're kept, they're kept under strict lock and key, for a lot of legitimate reasons.
Unfortunately in the commercial industry there isn't really a "statute of limitations" on whether these materials can be seen by fans and researchers, so source for a game that hasn't been sold in 30 years is just as protected as something that just came out this week.
At @GameHistoryOrg we think there is no better way to study how a game was made than accessing its raw material, straight up. There is an incredible dearth of in-depth video game study out there, not nearly enough history books, and we think this secrecy plays a big part.
Think of all the books out there about films. How many books exist about the creation of Citizen Kane and Star Wars alone? And compare that to video games, a medium that has fans I'd say are even hungrier. What's the difference? Access to behind-the-scenes materials.
Traditional archaeological study of how an older game was made relies on crumbs. CRUMBS. Researchers have to data-mine retail games for clues, and when they do, all they're going to find are the pieces that HAPPEN to have been compiled into the game.
Access to the original surviving source material for influential games would, and this is no exaggeration, inspire entire books. It would change historical narratives, and give us a greater appreciation for how games were made. And it could revive interest in dead franchises.
But overcoming hurdles to provide access to this material is only a sliver of the problem. The sad truth is that we're pretty sure that source for the majority of older games is lost forever. There wasn't a real effort to keep company archives until "remasters" became the norm.
We want to normalize studying source, but it's going to be a long road to get there. We're starting in two ways:
1. Establishing an advisory board to collaborate on identifying and solving the problems
2. Publishing content that shows what historians can do with source
1. Establishing an advisory board to collaborate on identifying and solving the problems
2. Publishing content that shows what historians can do with source
