New York School Wants Ultimate Videogame Collection

[Tom Goldman]

New York School Wants Ultimate Videogame Collection

If there are games out there that people should know about, Stony Brook University wants them.

Stony Brook University, located in Long Island, New York, is hoping to preserve the history of the videogame industry by collecting an archive of everything from systems to scans of strategy guides. The effort, led by cultural studies professor Raiford Guins, will start small and grow as funding and donations allow.

The beginnings of the William A. Higinbotham Video and Computer Game Archive, named after the creator of 1958's Tennis for Two, will include an Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64 that are planned to be playable in the university's library. Smash Bros. in the library anyone? An online database is also planned which will include 15,000 artifacts at launch such as strategy guides, box art, and early video game magazines from the 1980s.

The project's budget is small, but Guins hopes that donations from gamers will eventually lead to the addition of other systems like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. More funding could possibly be secured as the university uses the archive to help educate students on topics such as the depiction of women in videogames or how to perfect M. Bison with Ryu. Unlike other videogame archives [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/85777-New-Study-Examines-The-Preservation-Of-Digital-Worlds], Stony Brook University's intention is to collect physical pieces of hardware and software.

This really is about education to Guins, who believes students have a "desire to learn about games in more astute ways," and he plans to first use the archive in a videogame history class coming up in the summer. I know my library used to have an archive of VHS tapes that included Godzilla movies, so why not videogames too?

Source: GamePolitics [http://www.sbindependent.org/node/4090]

Image via Stony Brook Independent

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[zombie711]

you know someone will be playing games on the computer in there now, and when their caught, they will say its educational.

 

[Gigaguy64]

Wow, this is so cool!

Hopefully they will have a good collection of 2D Fighting Games and Classic JRPG's.

 

[Bretty]

Sounds more like the guy wants to play the PS3 or XBOX360 at work... and wants gamers to pay for it 8)

 

[agrandstudent]

I'm confused on how I go to this school and am trying to get a degree in computer science with a video game development focus and this is the first time I have heard of this. Oh well, yay for me. I've been trying to get into the video game history classes but they don't seem to be offered in the fall semester.

 

[Notthatbright]

While I can understand the draw of being able to play these machines and experience the early generation consoles for one's self, I can't help but be alarmed at the physical toll this type of access could bring on a rare and unique item.

Couldn't they set up emulators? Since its for educational purposes, it would fall under the fair use doctrine, right?

 

[Jared]

IS about time we had a gaming museum of such! Its become so large and...huge now it deserves to be looked after and preserved for the future

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Wow, this is so cool!

Hopefully they will have a good collection of 2D Fighting Games and Classic JRPG's.

Ahhh, classic JRPGs.... MMMMM.... Nostalgia....

 

[Gigaguy64]

Wow, this is so cool!

Hopefully they will have a good collection of 2D Fighting Games and Classic JRPG's.

Ahhh, classic JRPGs.... MMMMM.... Nostalgia....

SNIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Feels good doesn't it?
:3

 

[Gigaguy64]

What if their video game collection got stolen?

Now museum, now you don't.

Hahahahah.
that was pretty funny.
nice one.

 

[Tharticus]

Cool, this is even better since it's one of the SUNY schools too.

 

[Mr. Mike]

If they really want to have the ultimate video game collection, then good luck prying some of those rare SNES and NES games off those collectors.

 

[WorkerMurphey]

I applaud this effort to recognize video games as a valuable intellectual medium. I am amused that a school in the struggling SUNY system can afford to fund this sort of thing. (I'm a recent SUNY Alum).

 

[EmeraldGreen]

While I can understand the draw of being able to play these machines and experience the early generation consoles for one's self, I can't help but be alarmed at the physical toll this type of access could bring on a rare and unique item.

Couldn't they set up emulators? Since its for educational purposes, it would fall under the fair use doctrine, right?

Playing a game on an emulator is really not the same as playing it on the original hardware. Take the Atari 2600, for instance. Playing a joystick-controlled game with the keyboard (or even a modern joystick) or a paddle-controlled game with the mouse feels totally different to playing it with the original controllers. If you want to get a real sense of the game as it would have been played, you need to play it on the hardware it was designed for.

I think so, anyway.

Physical damage to items will be a problem, of course. But access to rare or delicate items could be restricted to people who can demonstrate that it's relevant to their research, and guidelines put in place for using them so as to minimise damage. Much the same way as rare, fragile books etc. are treated.

 

[The Random One]

While I can understand the draw of being able to play these machines and experience the early generation consoles for one's self, I can't help but be alarmed at the physical toll this type of access could bring on a rare and unique item.

Couldn't they set up emulators? Since its for educational purposes, it would fall under the fair use doctrine, right?

Playing a game on an emulator is really not the same as playing it on the original hardware. Take the Atari 2600, for instance. Playing a joystick-controlled game with the keyboard (or even a modern joystick) or a paddle-controlled game with the mouse feels totally different to playing it with the original controllers. If you want to get a real sense of the game as it would have been played, you need to play it on the hardware it was designed for.

I think so, anyway.

Physical damage to items will be a problem, of course. But access to rare or delicate items could be restricted to people who can demonstrate that it's relevant to their research, and guidelines put in place for using them so as to minimise damage. Much the same way as rare, fragile books etc. are treated.

Hopefully as donations come they'll be able to reproduce faithful emulators with similar controls, so this won't be an issue. Rare books are rare, but if you just want the content you can copy it elsewhere. Such isn't the case with games.

I'm happy about this. I heard somewhere that CDs and DVDs start to lose their data after fifty years. That means that all of the things we hold dear to our (sub)culture are a timebomb. Any effort to preserve them is welcome.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Fuck that. I'm applying to this university.

 

[GodKlown]

I'm a little offended to think that the systems I had growing up are now in a museum. Makes me feel pretty damn old now, thanks Stony Brook.

If they could get their hands on two versions of the consoles, one working and one a cut-away so students could see and examine the inner workings and technology behind the machines, I could certainly see the educational aspects of that. A few physical examples of games for each system is certainly understandable, but I agree that they could use emulators as more of a everyday method of letting students get a chance to experiment with the games instead of risking breaking or ruining the old tech. I wonder how much they would charge for a class about all this?