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Can Games Survive History?
Multi-User Dungeon games are text-based realtime virtual worlds that accommodate multiple players, the forerunners of the MMOG. MUD communities are still alive and kicking, if somewhat smaller than in their ’80s heyday, and were recently sparked into action when the Wikipedia article on Threshold, a game that’s been running for 13 years, was proposed for deletion.
“Threshold didn’t have a means of defending itself,” says Richard Bartle, the co-creator of MUDs, “because the sources that are authoritative about it don’t fall under the ‘valid sources’ for Wikipedia.”
There were plenty of sources that verified the game existed, that it is of note within the MUD genre, and talked about its content. But none of them, bar a cursory mention in a now-defunct print magazine, qualified as reliable sources under Wikipedia’s guidelines.
“I mean, is MUDdev [a mailing list about MUD design] acceptable? It’s one that major figures contributed to, used, and if you were going to do any kind of serious research into MUDs you would need access to that. Some of the articles that have been written about MUDs are riddled with errors, yet they’re valid sources, and the kind of oral tradition that exists is considered invalid.”
There’s a key point about multiplayer and massively multiplayer games in particular here. How can anyone hope to understand them after the event without first-hand, contemporary accounts?
“When it comes to MUDs, how can you recapture what a MUD was like?” asks Bartle. “All you can do is look at the evidence of the time, the archaeology, and in essence you’re undertaking some kind of anthropological research. People reminisce about things that happen in games.”
“I read one today from someone playing PernMUSH, itself a piece of fan-fiction in the sense it was based on Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders Of Pern books, a kind of tribute. Describing what’s going on can’t be done after the event – what was life like in the 1980s? When confronted with a film or video of the 1980s you say: ‘Look at the hair! The clothes! The cars! Were we really like that?’ You remember things selectively.”
The simple fact is that the hundreds of players of Threshold know about Threshold, but no ‘reliable’ videogame media have ever mentioned the game, let alone played it – yet are considered as the only possible authoritative source for information concerning the game. It’s particularly notable that The Mud Connector and Top Mud Sites, the two main websites servicing the MUD community, are considered unreliable – both containing content written, again, by the community.
It has to be said that, by modern standards of web design and collaborative networks, they’re both simplistic at best, but this hardly invalidates the content. In short, a videogame deserves an entry in and of itself but, outside of a short ‘Reception’ section in certain articles which focuses on professional criticism, that game’s players are considered irrelevant.
So Threshold had to go. Naturally, as soon as it was removed another Threshold article was created on Wikipedia, the edit wars started again and intensified throughout January.
It’s an example that illustrates the inherent problems in trying to document videogame history with, arguably, the only plausible approach: large-scale involvement of communities.
“I think that Wikipedia in general is trying to become that sort of repository,” says Matt ‘KieferSkunk’ Kellner, a Wikipedia administrator whose editing history includes countless videogame articles.
“But its main problem is a ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ syndrome – you have recognised and highly qualified industry experts working alongside fans and novice editors who often have completely different views on what constitutes a good article. This lack of agreement is the biggest reason that Wikipedia in general is not taken seriously.”
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Culture is older than the internet too though. Even a lot of what's written on the internet only covers more recent games, or is done in such a way that the history behind video games is ignored in the first place.
"Projects such as the Internet Archive are either extraordinarily selective – type ‘Wipeout’ into the search function and you’ll get just one video match for the first game – or require a detailed knowledge of what existed in the past to search stored http addresses directly."
The Internet Archive generally lacks searchability. I'd really love to be able to do keyword searches on the web archive, but it doesn't do that. However, without a whole lot more computing power being added to their server farm, it's not going to happen - the site already feels very slow. This means the Archive isn't really a good judge of how accessible something is... so what it needs is some _current_ site (like Wikipedia or a Wikia) to have a direct link to the Archive, which would then make that content accessible.
I have had an idea for a couple of years now to do a website that would offer what this article wants, however, I've fallen down on the technical know how of how to actually produce such a site.
Time is also an issue, since i would want something that like Wikipedia, anyone could contribute to, but unlike Wikipedia, would have to go past an editor first.
As another Wikipedian who works on video games, I feel a bit honored and shamed by this article. Honored that the video game work done on Wikipedia is considered one of the better sources for video game history, and shamed at the inherent flaws in the system.
Yes an article about an old video game was deleted, and I can certainly see how that would frustrate those involved in its creation. However, Wikipedia was not meant to be the ultimate repository of video game knowledge. It does a decent job at it, but that's not it's only job and certainly not it's primary one. I believe it's hard to really fault Wikipedia for Threshold getting deleted when that is take that into account.
While many may find it easier to fault Wikipedia for such articles getting deleted, those active on the site will tell you it is very difficult to find suitable sources for older video games. The truth of the matter is that all Wikipedians are at the mercy of reliable sources; if they don't exist or you can't find them, then you can't write about the topic. Thankfully, I stumbled across your magazine—among a few other UK ones—some time ago, and was very pleased to find some excellent articles detailing some of the information I was looking for.
In short, if the gaming press is unhappy about the lack of video game history on Wikipedia, the best thing that can be done is to run more articles about it. Of course, contemporary topics are where the money is for gaming magazines and websites, but I believe retro topics would still be well received. And I guarantee there editors on Wikipedia that could use the extra sources.
Emulators?
As a Wikipedia administrator who worked in gaming articles for quite a long time, I am saddened by this article. Not because it is inaccurate, but because there is some true. I personally play MUDs still (and even polished its article, as much as I could do), and indeed, there is a lack of documentation about that era.
Nowadays I try to keep (along with several others) the list of best-selling video games and the list of best-selling video game franchises up to date. And while information about new games is easily found, information about old games is pretty different. Finding reliable sources is extremely hard for such old games that we need to "bend" rules to accept certain references that may not be very reliable.
What 4thVariety says is true as well: there are so many lost films, masterpieces that have been lost because of, for example, studios destroyed them to make storage room for new movies. The gaming industry is very young, and forgetting to record information is still happening (how many times we have heard that certain developers cannot port certain games because they have lost the source code?). Or in the case of Okami, the source code was incomplete until someone in Japan discovered a hard drive with the missing resources?
As a wikipedian, though, I feel Wikipedia is being misjudged here too. The policies and guidelines exist to give it a certain scope, otherwise people could create articles about their family members, games they have written, or restaurants they have visited. These rules (some of which are unfair, I agree, but that is another discussion) tend to favor "visibility" instead of importance. For example, someone participating in an American Idol reality has its own article, because it is covered by the media, making it notable by our own definition. However, something important like the discovery of a new drug that heals cancer won't be accepted until it is covered by reliable media. We are slaves of what the reliable sources do or don't. If they prefer covering Britney Spears instead of the first MUD ever created, it is not our fault.
Personal experience: the list of best-selling video game franchises currently have a threshold of 5 million units. Any series selling more than that and referenced with a reliable source can be added. Some companies like Ubisoft and Capcom boast list of series sales, which we can use. However others like don't do. For example, how about the Tiger Woods franchise? It surely sold more than 5 million, but the media never covered nor Electronic Arts published that information. Or Smash Bros, the last game of the franchise sold more than 5 million alone, but we have never heard Nintendo or any other media claiming how much they have sold. So, it is missing from the list (and from time to time we are asked why we don't add it). The example that hurts the most is Pac-Man. Only the Atari version sold more than 5 million units, but it is virtually impossible to obtain even an approximate number, much less in a reliable media. Namco pumps the fact that it was played a couple of billion times, but other than that, no sales number. In ten years, people will search for the history of video games, which games have sold the most, and will be missing one of the most important games ever created.
Regardless of missing entries, we are pretty proud that both lists are usually mentioned or used as source in articles from gaming sites to newspapers. And ends up giving the reason to the Edge Staff in that we are usually the first place to look for that information.
This is exactly why the responsibility falls on the fans. It's up to us to ensure that we keep a record of the games we love, or love to hate.
Wikipedia might be the wrong database, though wikis are a great tool. Wikia Gaming (www.gaming.wikia.com) was founded by J. Wales, with the same vision of Wikipedia, but more concerned with enabling rather than limiting the knowledge base. If Wikipedia is the encyclopedia, Wikia is the rest of the library.
With a wealth of information available online, it's easy to get lost and buried; communities however can sort through the information, document it, and share their passion with others. And there are thousands of such communities building content that won't be lost on both new and old titles. Games like Fallout (http://fallout.wikia.com) have a great community and a wealth of information on the franchise, even Mario (http://mario.wikia.com) and Zelda (http://zelda.wikia.com) will cheat death with an active community. Not to mention the MUD wiki is now at Wikia (http://mud.wikia.com/wiki/MUD).
The tools are there, the passion is there, the movement just needs a leader...or a historian :)
www.wikia.com
The thing with games is that they still aren't considered as art by a large number of people. Those people think there is nothing about them worth saving.
I remember back in the days of next-generation.com when the site splintered. As a Saturn fan (www.brianwoods.com/?p=382), my fav area was Saturn World. For years now, that has all been gone.
At least we have people like Jason Scott (http://www.getlamp.com/) working on things and trying to get them documented.
Brian
www.brianwoods.com
Early movies, many lost.
Early recordings, many lost.
Early writing, lost lost lost.
Early paintings, many lost.
Early sculptures, lost lost lost.
And that's only while looking at other "arts". If you compare games to other commercial products, then the outlook is even worse. If it sticks it sticks, if it doesn't it will get replaced and we will never remember that there was something predating it. Pretty much the same way most religions went.