Curation

Representations can never fully express the many trajectories that any one player could experience in playing a video game. When we envision reaching the goal of having digitally preserved a video game, it is that the video game, above all else, is capable of being played.

A video game is a cohesive object, with a host of operational and environmental dependencies, an activity, and an immersive individualized experience. There is an inherent duality to video games, they are both an object and an activity. Nylund describes video games as “complex things… made of information that will not last” and asks “Are we supposed to save playable games or the act and context of playing these games?” (Nylund, p.55). 

In Abbott, Jones, and Ross’ 2009 article on digital performing arts, they highlight the importance of curating representations of performance despite the fact they “are often discounted as inadequate and unfaithful…[and] offer a very narrow perspective” (Abbott, Jones, & Ross, 2009). They argue it is important to “multiply rather than close down the points of access…by creating and curating records of different kinds” (ibid). The more representations that can be gathered, the richer and more nuanced a representation of the original emerges.

Nylund encourages us to consider gathering recordings of gameplay, known as ‘walkthroughs’ and ‘Let’s Plays’, as an “intrinsically gamist” method of video game curation. While the value of representative images of gameplay, and footage of walkthroughs, and Let’s Plays, are no match for the actual gameplay experience, they do provide valuable contextual information about the gameplay.

Curating images of a video game, as well as walkthroughs and Let’s plays of gameplay, are part of a proactive preservation strategy to memorialize, if not one day more fully support any rebuilding effort. The representations of a video game serve a role in characterizing, defining, and describing the video game. To overlook the archival value of representations of gameplay would be a disservice both to potential and actual communities of video game content users.

Each semester EAE hosts an Open House to showcase the students’ games. Thesis games are shown at multiple Open Houses, which provides us the opportunity to collect development footage (i.e. photos or videos of gameplay at the Open House). Additionally, the capstone faculty will play thesis games throughout their development and stream them on Twitch (if the students allow them). The recordings of the faculty playing and providing feedback about the thesis game can be another venue of portraying the development process of a thesis game. This development-related scholarship may be useful for future students and researchers.

The value proposition for curating, archiving, and preserving EAE’s video games varies, depending on the stakeholder:

• For student authors it is having their original works recorded, catalogued, archived, and preserved; discoverable to the extent they wish it to be shared.
• For the EAE program, the value is in having the output of the program integrated into library collections and archives, that it may not only attract future students, but memorialize the work of past students.
• For our library and institutional repository, the value is in having scholarship produced on campus represented in library collections, archives, and repositories.
• For the University, the value lies in the evidence of scholarship generated within the university is cataloged, organized, accessible, and disseminated.
• For future researchers, the value is in providing a multitude of opportunities to access and examine video game materials critically and analytically.
• For the public and Public Good, it is access to what was deemed worth saving, especially content that is rare, unique, and of cultural and historical value.

Abbott, D., Jones, S., & Ross, S. (2008). Theoretical Discussions on Digital Representations of Performance. Capturing the Essence of Performance: The Challenges of Intangible Heritage, 81-88.

Boss, K., & Broussard, M. (2017). Challenges of archiving and preserving born-digital news applications. IFLA Journal, 43(2), 150-157. doi:10.1177/0340035216686355

Boutard, G. (2015). Towards mixed methods digital curation: facing specific adaptation in the artistic domain. Archival Science, 15(2), 1769-1189.

Broussard, M. (2015). Preserving news apps present huge challenges. Newspaper Research Journal, 36(3), 299-313. doi:10.1177/0739532915600742

Chassanoff, A. (2017). Building a model for software curation: an introductory post. Retrieved from https://informatics.mit.edu/blog/guest-post-alex-chassanoff-software-curation

Nylund, N. (2015). Walkthrough and Let’s play: Evaluating preservation methods for digital games. Paper presented at the ACADEMICMINDTREK 2015 – Proceedings of the 19th International Academic Mindtrek Conference.

Rinehart, R. (2007). The Media Art Notation System: Documenting and Preserving Digital/Media Art. Leonardo, 40(2), 181-187. doi:10.1162/leon.2007.40.2.181

Sköld, O. (2018). Understanding the “expanded notion” of videogames as archival objects: A review of priorities, methods, and conceptions. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 69(1), 134-145. doi:10.1002/asi.23875