[-empyre-] the performance of history / rom-hacking the museum

[Jerome McDonough]

On Dec 16, 2010, at 9:28 AM, Gabriel Menotti wrote:

> Meanwhile, Rafael Trindade has shown that emulation, a practice
> sometimes necessary for the maintenance of gaming systems (if not of
> games themselves), has many different reasons behind it. The kinds of
> enjoyment people get through emulation are not related to a
> transparent mode of playing; they are always self-conscious of other
> levels of engagement with gaming systems and their historical
> character.
>
> In that sense, I’d ask if emulation really is a "static thing". If we
> understand preservation as the maintenance of access to videogame
> systems and their actual ongoing performance (more than the
> preservation of the stable conditions for that performance), a simple
> practice such as translation becomes extremely crucial. From a certain
> perspective, translation seems able to turn canons inside-out,
> bringing newer (but paradoxically older) references to a certain
> gaming tradition – for instance, many important JRPGs (such as Mother
> 3) that were brought to the west years after their original release.
>

Even if we just consider the basic technical level, from the point of  
view of a preservationist emulation isn't static, and moreover, it  
*can't* be static if it's going to work as a preservation strategy.   
Emulators are also software, and subject to the same problems of  
digital preservation as the games themselves.   Emulators are going to  
require on-going development and as the socio-technical world around  
them changes, they'll need to be modified to adjust to that new  
environment.  And I don't see that happening unless there are people   
who care about keeping them running.

> Therefore, should romhacking be considered the ultimate way of
> performing videogame history and keeping it alive? Wouldn’t it be the
> strongest form of preservation?
>

Mmm, in some cases, yes.  But not all.  In cases where the source code  
for a game has become available (e.g., Adventure, Doom's engine)  
migration may be a more effective means of keeping a game around than  
creating a media dump file to work with an emulator.  It's sort of  
unfortunate from a preservationist point of view, as it would be  
desirable to try to minimize the number of strategies employed to  
preserve games, but at this point I don't think there's a one-size- 
fits-all strategy for keeping games alive.

Jerome McDonough, Asst. Professor
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
501 E. Daniel Street, Room 202
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 244-5916
jmcdonou at uiuc.edu





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