{"id":89941,"date":"2019-03-22T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/339207"},"modified":"2019-03-22T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T23:00:00","slug":"game-source-code-is-a-teaching-tool-not-a-trade-secret-argues-vghf-founder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/03\/22\/game-source-code-is-a-teaching-tool-not-a-trade-secret-argues-vghf-founder\/","title":{"rendered":"Game source code is a teaching tool, not a trade secret, argues VGHF founder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today at GDC Digital Eclipse’s Frank Cifaldi, founder of the Video Game History Foundation<\/a>, hopped onstage to talk a bit about the challenges facing game historians — and how devs can continue helping to preserve game history.<\/p>\n

It was something of a follow-up to his GDC 2016 talk<\/a>, in which he pointed out (among other things) that the game industry is far worse than others when it comes to preserving and understanding its own history.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery very few of our notable games from the past are available commercially,\u201d he said today, reminding attendees that when you look at two big works of the late \u201880s, the DuckTales <\/em>video game and the John Candy film Uncle Buck, only the latter is readily (and legally) available today.<\/p>\n

“I think for a lot of games, it’s just too late now”<\/strong><\/p>\n

This despite the fact that according to Cifaldi, \u201cno video game emulator challenged in court has ever been ruled illegal.”<\/p>\n

“But because we demonized it, instead of embracing it…I think two things happened,” he continued. “Old games became the domain of the pirates…and we also, I think, by not getting ahead of it and getting these games back into print through emulation, I think for a lot of games, it\u2019s just too late now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think we can stop the bleeding a little bit of we embrace the emulator loudly,\u201d he said. \u201cEmulation is king.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a quick recap of the highs and lows of game preservation over the past three years, Cifaldi shouted out Sony specifically for using an open-source emulator, PCSX ReARMed, in its PlayStation Classic mini-console.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me this was huge,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was Sony saying an emulator written by the community was good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last few years Digital Eclipse has also put out some of its own remasters, The Disney Afternoon Collection <\/em>and The SNK 40th Anniversary Collection<\/em>, and Cifaldi says that\u2019s spurred the studio to think more deeply about who buys these remastered old games and why.<\/p>\n

He suggests there are three very broad, over-generalized categories of customers for old games: parents who want to show their kids what they grew up with, collectors, and hardcore retronauts<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardcore play hard,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cWe can do so many things without the industry interacting with us at all. We can download every game ever; it\u2019s so easy to go download a MAME set and have every arcade game ever made playable in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

An entire industry has sprung up around these hardcore fans, ensuring that there are now a ton of ways to load stacks and stacks of games onto a cartridge to play on original hardware, or hack old CRTs to play games in the most vibrant way possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody\u2019s died yet, but god please be careful,\u201d Cifaldi cautioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t even need the commercial games,\u201d he added. \u201cWe can translate games that nobody did, and damn well should have,\u201d like Mother 3<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Cifaldi also gave a shoutout to Roll-Chan<\/em>, a ROM hack of the original Mega Man<\/em> which swaps in Roll as the main character, and noted that while he tried to contact the author to get the game included in the Mega Man Legacy Collection<\/em>, it didn\u2019t work out; \u201cprobably because he didn\u2019t believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n

If releasing, re-releasing, remastering, or doing anything commercial with old games is part of your business, Cifaldi argues that you should be thinking about how to do it in the best way possible. You\u2019re part of preserving game history, and you\u2019re making money doing it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And hey, if you happen to be working on a game like this and have access to anyone who worked on the original game, talk to them! They can give you valuable insight into where it came from, how it was made, and how to preserve and showcase it for future generations.<\/p>\n

“It’s what I like to call a playable documentary”<\/strong><\/p>\n

As an example he brought the SNK 40th <\/em>collection back up, highlighting how it’s less of a straight pack of remasters and more of a “playable documentary”.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what I like to call a playable documentary of what I think is a little strange and wonderful developer from the \u201880s,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cInstead of remastering the game, we approached things a little bit differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

To give fellow devs some insight into how these kinds of decisions happen, Cifaldi broke down why Digital Eclipse took on the SNK project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re kind of known for our extra material on these games,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cIn SNK\u2019s case, they made like 60 games in the \u201880s, and we\u2019d still be working on this project if we did all 60 games.\u201d<\/p>\n

So while there are less than 60 playable in the package, Cifaldi says the team worked extremely hard to track down all sorts of promotional materials, screenshots, and more assets from all of SNK\u2019s games. They also put in some historical notes, sourced in part from folks who worked on the original games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was important because a lot of this history hasn\u2019t been talked about, even by SNK,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cA lot of these guys aren\u2019t getting any younger, so we wanted to educate consumers about who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called special attention to the game\u2019s special \u201cjump in and play\u201d feature, which lets players watch a well-played run of every game and then pause at any time to jump in and take control.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all pixel-perfect because this isn\u2019t video; it\u2019s actually button playback of the game,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cThat\u2019s how we\u2019re able to scrub through it\u2026.and you can just start playing, because that\u2019s the save state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cifaldi suggests this is almost like flipping through a book, pitching it as a great way to let players who maybe aren\u2019t very good at an old game check out high-level play and later levels for themselves.<\/p>\n

He went through a few other tricks Digital Eclipse pulled to get classic games like Ikari Warriors<\/em> playable on modern controllers before seguing into a conversation about how much devs can learn from the good work going into projects like MAME.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree years ago I said we should maybe start using MAME,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cI don\u2019t think any studios have done that, including us. But here’s the thing…we\u2019re all using MAME.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he means is, devs can and are learning a ton about how to best emulate old games and adapt them to modern hardware by studying the work that’s being done on emulators, even as the work itself is actively unacknowldged by most of the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should stop doing this nudge-wink thing in the industry that we\u2019ve been doing forever,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is volunteer work that we\u2019ve been exploiting for decades, in secrecy, like we\u2019re ashamed of it. But we shouldn\u2019t be ashamed of the MAME project.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should be proud,\u201d he added. \u201cI think we should be shouting out MAME in the credits, and I\u2019m calling myself out and everyone else on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, \u201csometimes MAME is wrong,\u201d he admitted. The team at Digital Eclipse discovered a few mistakes in MAME\u2019s code while building out the SNK 40th<\/em> collection (see slide above), and they also found that even when MAME runs a game without any issues, it doesn’t always display it in the best possible light for modern screens.<\/p>\n

In closing, Cifaldi encouraged devs to think about rereleasing old games as an educational effort, one that can and should sit alongside work like documentaries and historical works.<\/p>\n

\u201cW emake documentaries you play with a controller,\u201d said Cifalidi. \u201cOr if you prefer, we make coffee table books you play on a video game platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s so much more the game industry can be doing, argues Cifaldi, to revitalize old games and present them to the world with well-established vectors for selling and distributing critical deconstruction of creative work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can make a game about making the game,\u201d he added. Referencing Scott McCloud\u2019s comic book about the art of comic books, \u201cUnderstanding Comics<\/a>\u201d, he suggests devs should be thinking about ways not just to bring back old games, but to showcase the history and art of game development within the games themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually when we talk about game preservation,I think the notion people have is taking the binary data and making sure its online, safe, or accessible,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cUsually what I say to that is: no, the pirates took care of that, we\u2019re fine. But actually, we\u2019ve already lost some games.\u201d<\/p>\n

He calls out SNK\u2019s first game Micon Kit<\/em> as a great example. Released in the late ’70s, it\u2019s the game that gave the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection<\/em> its name, in a sense, but despite loads of work Digital Eclipse couldn\u2019t find a copy of the game\u2019s code.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A shot of <\/em>Micon Kit 1, <\/em>SNK’s first game (courtesy of Cifaldi’s Twitter account<\/a>)<\/em> <\/p>\n

\u201cEven with the commercial support to make this historical document about this company\u2019s roots, we don\u2019t have its actual roots,\u201d he said. \u201cThey seem to be gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that Digital Eclipse sent someone to scour Japan for the game code and other SNK historical artifacts, and its only because of the dedicated efforts of collectors and preservationists that the game was able to include so much historical material.<\/p>\n

\u201cSNK actually paid him to work with us,\u201d said Cifaldi at one point, referring to a dedicated Japanese collector who helped scan portions of his collection for inclusion in the game. \u201cThat should be a standing ovation, but we\u2019re running out of time, so thank you SNK.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Steal from work and put it in a box”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBut scariest of all, to me, is source [code],\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cI\u2019m not shaming companies when I say it\u2019s just the reality: we didn\u2019t hang on to a lot of the source code, and that\u2019s terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cifaldi doesn’t have a lot of new advice on this front: he suggested everyone go back and watch the game preservation talks given by Laine Nooney<\/a> and Jason Scott<\/a> at prior GDCs, then get busy taking game preservation into their own ahnds.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteal from work and put it in a box,” he shouted. “I don\u2019t care if you put the box at work or you bring the stuff you stole home and put it in a box, but do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cifaldi called on devs to not just steal from work and save it, but to ship it to video game preservationists at places like The Strong Museum of Play, the National Videogame Museum, the Internet Archive, and (of course) the Video Game History Foundation.<\/p>\n

Also, \u201cthe Library of Congress we don\u2019t normally talk about, but they do have an archive in Culpeper,\u201d he added \u201cIt\u2019s actually for film, but they also accept code…I\u2019ve talked to them about it and they\u2019re like \u2018yeah we\u2019ll take source code, we\u2019ll keep it safe.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, he added that the Video Game History Foundation will be opening a video game history reference library in the near future. \u201cIt may be the first library dedicated to that, but if I\u2019m wrong, if there\u2019s another library dedicated to referencing this stuff, let me know — I\u2019d like to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of our best functions in the world is to provide an impartial voice for efforts like this,\u201d said Cifaldi. \u201cSo if you have some video game material and you don\u2019t know what to do with it, I\u2019ll help you go through it and talk through your options.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe industry sees source material as a trade secret,\u201d he concluded. \u201cWe think it\u2019s an educational tool…it\u2019s kind of a new concept, source code as an educational resource. We\u2019re trying to figure it out, but it\u2019s all brand new and we\u2019re figuring out how to do it as we go.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today at GDC Digital Eclipse’s Frank Cifaldi, founder of the Video Game History Foundation, hopped onstage to talk a bit about the challenges facing game historians — and how devs can continue helping to preserve game history. It was something of a follow-up to his GDC 2016 talk, in which he pointed out (among other things) that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}