Authenticity in Game Emulation: Obsolescence and Open Issues Universiteit van Amsterdam Master’s Thesis in New Media and Digital Culture Student: Giovanni Carta Supervisor: mw. dr. Fiorella Foscarini Second Reader: dhr. dr. J.A.A. Simons Date: 30th June 2016 II Abstract This thesis addresses the digital preservation of complex digital objects such as video games, which require some specific preservation actions. Emulation currently is the accepted, even though problematic, approach for dealing with game preservation. By drawing on research from Digital Archiving and Digital Preservation, but also from Games Studies and New Media theories, this paper will try to answer the question of how emulation can guarantee the authentic preservation of video games. This work argues that emulation as a preservation strategy presents several issues that interfere with the correct retention of authentic gaming environments. 3 4 Table of Contents Introduction...................................................................................................................................7 1 Obsolescence.....................................................................................................................................9 2 Digital Preservation and Video Games............................................................................................13 2.1 Digital objects..........................................................................................................................14 2.2 Video games as complex digital objects..................................................................................15 2.2.1 Video game preservation..................................................................................................16 3 Emulation as a long-term preservation practice..............................................................................19 3.1 Emulation and migration.........................................................................................................19 3.2 Emulation strategies.................................................................................................................21 3.3 Open issues..............................................................................................................................23 4 Authenticity and significant properties...........................................................................................27 4.1 Authenticity.............................................................................................................................28 4.2 Significant properties...............................................................................................................30 4.2.1 Significant properties and users.......................................................................................32 5 Games, open issues and metadata...................................................................................................36 5.1 A metadata model approach.....................................................................................................38 5.1.1 Effectiveness of metadata within emulation....................................................................41 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................44 References...................................................................................................................................46 5 6 Introduction In 2009, Milleniata, an American digital start-up company, announced the sale of an optical medium called Millennial Disc – M-Disc – (Oliver). Unlike standard DVDs, M-Disc is made of inorganic stone-like materials which would resist better to heat, humidity, scratches and other deterioration factors. According to Milleniata, M-Disc can last for one thousand years. Whatever M- Disc’s effectiveness may be, it is appropriate to raise doubts about the actual long-term efficacy of this product. Specifically, are we sure that our future technologies will support these special DVDs in one thousand, or even fewer, years? Digital devices and digital objects (see ch. 2.1) cannot be preserved like any traditional, analogue items. Digital preservation, in theory, must protect the conditions that make a) devices and computers work; b) software applications and operating systems run; and c) files readable, usable and understandable. Digital preservation, though, is running a race against the clock. Due to the vicious circle of obsolescence, new media devices and new media technologies get old in a short time. This incessant mechanism affects the medium, as a informational carrier, and the information itself meant as software applications and file formats, but also, and more generally, all the digital information resulting from digital media. This thesis addresses the digital preservation of complex digital objects such as video games (see ch. 2.2), which require some specific preservation actions. Emulation currently is the accepted, even though problematic, approach for dealing with game preservation. By drawing on research from Digital Archiving and Digital Preservation, but also from Games Studies and New Media theories, this paper will try to answer the question of how emulation can guarantee the authentic preservation of video games. Authenticity is an important concept to assess the quality of preservation in relation not only to emulation, but also to other digital preservation approaches. Chapter 1 focuses on the problem of (digital) obsolescence, which is a condition that greatly influences the practices of preservation. Obsolescence is considered here as a complex condition mostly driven by economic factors and physical deterioration. Chapter 2 analyses the importance of and difficulties in preserving video games. In Chapter 3, emulation as a long-term preservation strategy is discussed, including its drawbacks and limitations. Chapter 4 examines the notion of authenticity in relation to digital fields such as digital archiving and digital preservation. The concept of significant properties is introduced here in order to better delineate the meaning of authenticity for video games. In Chapter 5, further issues related to obsolescence and authenticity concerning video games are presented. In addition, the need of a metadata emulation model that 7 preserves the authenticity of video games is analysed. 8 Obsolescence New Media are actually old media. It is rather self-evident: the universe itself along with inanimate elements and living creatures are influenced by the relentless effects of time. New media, then, as part of this global scenario, are no exception to this. Yet although ageing is not a specific peculiarity of them, new media are affected by a particular kind of degradation. Digital devices age fast and their functionalities decay in a short time not only because of their implicit materiality, but also because of their relationships with capitalistic and consumerism processes. These objects, in fact, might be considered old, even if they are not. Jonathan Sterne argues that new media are no longer new as their newness is not related to old media (18). Rather, new media “are new primarily with respect to themselves” (19). Sterne’s point is that behind this distorted idea of newness lies a practice of planned obsolescence that works cyclically in order to provide a constant replacement of devices. Industry and market themselves decide what is new and old by designing, producing and commercialising products with the sole purpose of replacing their predecessors, regardless of their actual state of decay. Although there is no univocal definition of planned obsolescence1, several authors (Boradkar; Hertz and Parikka; Slade) trace the origins of the term to Bernard London, an estate agent who wrote a pamphlet called Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence in 1932. Given that people had been “using everything that they own longer than was their custom before the depression” (n.pag.), London conceived an economic strategy that consisted in providing an expiry date to objects produced in the United States. Consumers would eventually return expired commodities to the government. Even though planned obsolescence can be understood as a practice that aim to “artificially limit the durability of a manufactured good in order to stimulate repetitive consumption” (Slade 5), scholars within new media studies, such as Sterne, Garnet Hertz and Jussi Parikka, argue that this process is defined by a set of industrial and marketing strategies which make new media less desirable and usable after every cycle. Sterne himself observes that “Until they are 'obsoleted,' many computers show no significant signs of wearing out” (26), while Hertz and Parikka note that obsolescence can be identified as a form of “micropolitical level of design” which supports “black box” devices (426). An example of this particular industrial model can be found in those digital devices whose 1 It should be noticed that planned obsolescence is an issue that can be tackled from many angles and therefore can be interpreted from different perspectives. While according to social critics such as Giles Slade, goods are “made to break” due to planned obsolescence, new media scholars such as Sterne and Parikka focus on the cyclic aspect of technological production, which is partially unlinked to the issue of physical durability. 9 internal components are not easily upgradable