«

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by crushinator

Specifically, I’m writing about how hobbyist creators of emulators and ROMs preserve video games. I’ll be comparing the work that hobbyists do to the work of professionals. The goal is to start building a professional model that can be used to preserve video games using emulators. A lot of the work will involve me observing what goes on in online communities that make emulators or deal in Abandonware. I’ll be looking at what kind of games get preserved, what kind of information/metadata gets attached to these games, how they’re distributed online, and how people get access to them. The most important part of the project, though, will be talking to the people who actually create ROMs and emulators.

Hmm, while you seem to be more interested in console/non-IBM PC-platform games, maybe the following websites could be of interest to you as well:

Demu.org/Classic PC Games
RGB Classic Games
dosgames.com
DOS Games Archive

All of those only preserve legally distributable copies of games (shareware, demo versions and liberated games) for DOS and Windows platforms. No idea if they would fall into "professional" or "amateur" groups in your classification but the admins of those sites would be happy to share their experience I think. I can tell them about your project if you want me to. Swizzle, the maintainer of Demu.org, is from the US, DOSGuy from RGB Classic Games and Emmzee from dosgames.com are Canadians (then again, you said that you could make the scope of your research broader).

At any rate, good luck with your project!

[crushinator]

I'm happy to interview anyone from around the world at this time.

Originally Posted by MrFlibble

I can tell them about your project if you want me to. Swizzle, the maintainer of Demu.org, is from the US, DOSGuy from RGB Classic Games and Emmzee from dosgames.com are Canadians (then again, you said that you could make the scope of your research broader).

At any rate, good luck with your project!

Yes, that would be very helpful! I absolutely do want to talk to people about any kind of emulation work they do, whether it's console or DOS games or what.

Thank you so much, everyone! You are superb.