National Videogame Archive Dataset

• software

Title
National Videogame Archive - Games for public exhibition.

Description
Collection of computer and console games that form part of the National Videogame Archive. Dataset includes records of games where copyright has been cleared to exhibit the games within the public Games Lounge gallery at the National Media Museum, Bradford.

Dataset includes descriptive information, game platform, controller interface and links to emulation ROMs. 

Licensing
Copyright of the software belongs to the game publisher (Atari, Sega, Nintendo etc). Museum has only cleared copyright to exhibit the games in a free, public gallery for non-commercial use. License of the different emulator software belongs to the software developers.  

Owner
National Media Museum, part of the Science Museum Group.

Dataset Location
NVA_games.xls

Dataset Champion
Tom Woolley

Issues brainstorm

Prerequisites

• Requirement to prove that old software is 'near death':
  • drives for media unavailable or can not be connected to current systems, or
  • the media still can be read but not executed or rendered in a meaningful way in current systems, or
  • the medium or the object itself is secured by some DRM method which prevents proper execution or rendering
  • the online service backing a game/online application is about to go down (or went down already)

Data extraction

• Original data needs to be extracted from portable media urgently (as old media degrades to a state being unreadable)
• Difference between extracted ROMs and original carrier data
• Online services need to be replicated and game runtime data (e.g. of virtual worlds) needs to be preserved

Preservation

• What additional metadata is required? Operating instructions, controller inputs, unique variables etc.
• What additional systems might be required to re-run a certain game or online world

Access

• Virtualisation of operating system for flexible environment (would e.g. help to send around, use in different places prepared original environments)
• How to make an automated, easy to use system for the Museum visitor (or for a scientist researching the topic in different ways) - takes away the complexity of running separate emulators. 

List of Issues
A list of links to detailed Issue pages relevant to this Dataset. When you've added an Issue page, return to this page and add a link to it.