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Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

embracergamesarchive.com

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Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#81

Post by DocTomoe »

johnnyjeans wrote: post #73
EA-3167 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is that a picture of a book is not a book, a copy of a game is the same game. Barring people with excellent and well-adjusted monitors looking at uncompressed images, the pics we see are (potentially excellent, but still) approximations of the original. With software the notion of an original is meaningless though.

A picture of every page of a book combined in a collection is a copy of that book, and for all intents and purposes is the same book. This is because the overwhelming majority of books, the text is what matters. Gravity's Rainbow is still Gravity's Rainbow whether it's in a PDF or the very first printed copy. To extend that to games, it doesn't matter if you're playing the MS-DOS version of X-COM or OpenXcom. And for…

> To extend that to games, it doesn't matter if you're playing the MS-DOS version of X-COM or OpenXcom.

Oh boy, are you mistaken. The 1990s version of XCOM was a mess. If it wasn't enough that it was hard as a nail, it also was buggy beyond belief. To many of us, X-COM (and to a lesser extend the reskin 'Terror from the deep') was what started the 'compulsively save the game after every move' trend. OpenXcom in comparison is a lot more forgiving.

> The whimsy of the Mona Lisa in person isn't actually all that deep.

That is in large parts because you never get to experience the original as you are the copies. You always have a thousand tourists around you, all loud, all pushing to get a glimpse of the real painting once in their lives. They do not understand art needs time to work, impressions do not come between a hotdog and a trip to a café - that is why in most galleries, you see little benches that invite you to sit down and immerse yourself in a picture.

Similarly ... just giving the games to anyone without context will lead to people pushing and prodding, getting bored or frustrated easily, and eventually losing interest. For those people, it doesn't matter if you give them a masterpiece like Ultima III or junk. They consume, they move on. Abandonware sites exist for them. A scholarly archive of gaming history, not generally available to the public, still is useful.

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#82

Post by DocTomoe »

danparsonson wrote: post #77
ixtli wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t how most serious archives work. Archiving media is sensitive, careful work which takes time and space. Providing tours is at very least expensive and at worst a serious risk to the collection.

You think maybe someone might knock their copy of Captain Comic off its pedastal and break it?

See, here's the thing: Archives do not have pedestals - they use archival storage. This may come in different forms, but to the uninitiated eye, it often looks a lot like narrow pathways between storage shelves, with labeled cardboard boxes, which may contain, in acid-free paper, sometimes with foam inlays - objects.

Archives exist to preserve what is there, not to show it off. Sometimes, that's for future scientific research. And sometimes, they may participate in museal work as well, lending off objects.

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#83

Post by Barrin92 »

tough wrote: post #56
kmoser wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An archive of physical media serves a very different purpose from a bunch of computers loaded with the games from those media that are available to be played. It's kind of like a film vault that stores original movie film, vs. a place like YouTube that lets you play copies of those movies. And playing the game is not the same as examining and handling the original media (CD/tape/cartridge/manual/inserts/box). Sure, a…

why not process digital backups and allow anyone donating to the archive to request those digitally?

it's a video game archive. Virtually no video game due to the young age of the medium is in the public domain, so both creating digital backups, let alone making them available is a pretty good way to find yourself in a court with the rightsholders.

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#85

Post by tmtvl »

Barrin92 wrote: post #83
tough wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not process digital backups and allow anyone donating to the archive to request those digitally?

it's a video game archive. Virtually no video game due to the young age of the medium is in the public domain, so both creating digital backups, let alone making them available is a pretty good way to find yourself in a court with the rightsholders.

I don't think anyone would ever get in trouble for creating digital backups, but yeah: making video games available to the public without permission from the copyright owner is a good way to get at the very least ceased-and-desisted.

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#86

Post by tumsfestival »

ixtli wrote: post #76
mzajc wrote: post #23

From their FAQ > Can I visit the archive? > The archive is for everyone, and we welcome all inquiries. However, we prioritize requests that support gaming culture, gaming history, and the games industry. /../ While the archive is not open to the public, we hope /../ The archive is for everyone, but it's only for these groups of people, and it's also not open to the public... Yikes. I'd much rather support initiatives…

This isn’t how most serious archives work. Archiving media is sensitive, careful work which takes time and space. Providing tours is at very least expensive and at worst a serious risk to the collection.

So what is the point of spending money and effort to preserve video games if nobody can play them? Seems like a waste of time and resources, especially for something so trivial as games.

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#87

Post by EA-3167 »

johnnyjeans wrote: post #73
EA-3167 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is that a picture of a book is not a book, a copy of a game is the same game. Barring people with excellent and well-adjusted monitors looking at uncompressed images, the pics we see are (potentially excellent, but still) approximations of the original. With software the notion of an original is meaningless though.

A picture of every page of a book combined in a collection is a copy of that book, and for all intents and purposes is the same book. This is because the overwhelming majority of books, the text is what matters. Gravity's Rainbow is still Gravity's Rainbow whether it's in a PDF or the very first printed copy. To extend that to games, it doesn't matter if you're playing the MS-DOS version of X-COM or OpenXcom. And for…

For many books that's true, for the book in this example (The Book of Kells) it isn't. Having seen it in pictures and then in person, the difference is notable, partly because of the difference between a camera and a human eye, and partly because what you get in person isn't a 2D map of a 3D object.

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#88

Post by EA-3167 »

duskwuff wrote: post #69
EA-3167 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is that a picture of a book is not a book, a copy of a game is the same game. Barring people with excellent and well-adjusted monitors looking at uncompressed images, the pics we see are (potentially excellent, but still) approximations of the original. With software the notion of an original is meaningless though.

> The issue here is that a picture of a book is not a book, a copy of a game is the same game. That... depends. A lot of older games shipped with physical artifacts which were an important part of the game: manuals, code wheels, custom controllers, "feelies" in Infocom games, etc. You can't easily make a copy of those. (And preserving them isn't just a matter of throwing a copy on a hard disk.)

This is a good point that I overlooked, thanks for the correction.

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#89

Post by tough »

tmtvl wrote: post #85
Barrin92 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a video game archive. Virtually no video game due to the young age of the medium is in the public domain, so both creating digital backups, let alone making them available is a pretty good way to find yourself in a court with the rightsholders.

I don't think anyone would ever get in trouble for creating digital backups, but yeah: making video games available to the public without permission from the copyright owner is a good way to get at the very least ceased-and-desisted.

isn't technically speaking -a small private group of donors- not exactly -the general public- ?

Re: Embracer Games Archive is preserving 75000 video games and needs contributions

#90

Post by smcin »

smcin wrote: post #78
awkwardpotato wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they're also currently $2 billion dollars in debt and are attempting to split into 3 separate companies. "Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends" - The legal successor to Embracer. For their triple A studios and major ip rights (they currently own the rights to LOTR-based games) "Coffee Stain & Friends" - For their indie studios. (Named after their most successful indie studio, the people behind Goat Simulator and S…

Embracer acquired Asmodee 12/2021, made a spree of other debt-funded accquisitions packaged and prepped to sell the whole company to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund in 2022, but that deal fell through in 2023 and Embracer reportedly incurred €2 billion losses, laid off 8% of 17,000 Asmodee employees, then subsequently spun Asmodee out (now the board and card game unit) saddled with €900m Euro debt to pay off Embracer…

Here's more coverage of these events and user reactions from Reddit r/boardgames and citing industry insider articles; I was slightly wrong that the 2023 layoffs were from the other parts of Embracer Group not Asmodee:

"What the Asmodee debt deal means for the board game industry (a deeper dive)" (2024/5) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1cht230/what_th...

"Can anyone explain what exactly is going on with Asmodee games?" (ObiWahnKenobi, 2024/5) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1crau93/can_any...

"Asmodee spun out of Embracer Group, to become a standalone publicly traded company" (2024/4) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/1ca8wdv/asmodee...

"Board game giant Asmodee’s corporate owner allegedly loses $2bn deal with Saudi Arabian partner | Dicebreaker" (2023/8) https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/15yd0g7/board_g...

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