Video Game Preservation: Past, Present, and Future

Kayla Wilson

LIS 671
 From the text-based adventures of early computing to the most modern next

generation consoles playing games in 4K, video games are a prevalent part of the past,

present, and future of the digital world. They represent not only technological progress,

but also a kind of cultural revolution that led to e-sports and other modern day

entertainment such as live-streaming a video game or interacting directly with an

audience through online gameplay. As the world progresses further into the future,

some key questions surrounding video game preservation are “why?”, “what?”, “how?”,

and “who?”. Why should video games be preserved? What are the most important parts

that need to be preserved? How will that be achieved? Who is the person or

organization who gets to make those decisions?

Digital preservation is already a tumultuous field for simple digital objects, let

alone more complex objects like video games that hold multiple files in different formats

that often require specific hardware or hardware adaptations to play. Digital objects, and

specifically video games, face various issues including media obsolescence, fixity and

migration problems, and questions of authenticity. While there are common solutions to

these issues, there is very little consensus within the video game preservation

community about what actions should ultimately be taken. This paper will discuss the

past of video game preservation, current issues and the strategies being utilized to help

mitigate those issues, where the field might be headed in the future, and finally why

these ideas on video game preservation are important for digital curators and archivists

to consider.
 Video Game Preservation History

Long before most cultural heritage institutions recognized the value and

importance of preserving video games, there were gamers and fans working on doing it

themselves. Through the work of both individuals and gaming communities, fans

worked to assemble collections of games and documentation with the intent to preserve

the games and possibly develop emulation solutions if needed (Swalwell & Stuckey,

2017, p. 213). Like many of the technologies that came before, video game preservation

and study was given little support within academic circles until it was too late and

archivists had already lost access to significant cultural works (Lee, et al., 2020). The

Library of Congress estimates that only 25% of feature films created during the silent

era still exist in a complete form (Murphy, 2015). This is at least partially due to a lack of

understanding of the technology on a preservation level, and also because the

archivists of the past did not know how important it was until it was too late. This shares

a similar story with video game preservation and other emergent technologies.

Interestingly, things did not get much easier once cultural institutions became involved

in the process of video game preservation.

Video games provide unique challenges for historical preservation and long term

research, such as phasing out media, limited physical and digital lifespans, and deciding

what parts of a video game are the most important to preserve (Guay-Bélanger, 2022).

Even if a video game does manage to be preserved for long term storage, research,

and use, the actual game and cartridge are just one part of a much larger story. There

are other artifacts such as game design documents (GDDs), technical design

documents (TDDs), art bibles, style guides, musical scores, test builds, voice-over
auditions, and marketing material that are often overlooked and left out of the video

game preservation process (Lee, et al., 2020). This is not even an exhaustive list of the

objects that are used or developed from the creation of a video game. These relevant

artifacts are often born-digital, which comes with similar preservation issues to video

games including file formats, migration, fixity, stable storage, and bit degradation. Due

to the lack of preservation preparation and institutional support in the early years of

video game development, issues with media obsolescence, authenticity, and related

digital objects persist into the present day.

The Present of Video Game Preservation

The present day field of video game preservation does not look a whole lot

different from the past, especially considering the relatively short amount of time since

the invention of what is currently thought of as a video game and the industry that

supports their creation. Even museums and other cultural institutions with video game

exhibits seem to have dramatically different goals and strategies when it comes to

preservation and display (Nylund, 2018). Curators and archivists still have not perfected

solutions to the issues that are prevalent with preserving digital media, and specifically

video games. One of the main problems with preserving software, like video games, is

that it is complex. There are code based objects and media based objects that together

make up a video game (Guay-Bélanger, 2022). This can mean that only taking one

approach to preservation doesn’t properly preserve the entire object. However, with this

complexity comes new solutions and innovations that will hopefully be able to help just a

little bit more than before, and most importantly do no harm to what already exists.
Current Ideas and Theories

There are two basic theories when it comes to current day video game

preservation. The first focuses on playability, which means the video game is preserved

in a playable and accessible way. Playability can have a larger focus on more traditional

preservation theories like authenticity, fixity, and intent. Authenticity is a topic that comes

up often in video game preservation literature when discussing preserved and playable

solutions. This theory can be seen in personal and museum level gaming collections

and exhibits, emulation projects, software preservation, retro-computing, and platform

conservation (Olgado, 2019).

The second theory seems to almost completely reject the first. This theory

focuses specifically on gameplay, and much less on the actual game itself. Basically, the

idea is that the game doesn’t need to be in a playable form to be preserved. Some

examples of video game preservation based on gameplay are making and archiving

gameplay videos, collecting commercial and published documentation, and expressions

of fandom (Olgado, 2019). Focusing on gameplay often means treating video games

more as objects than accessible experiences, which is easier to preserve in some ways

but also comes with its own set of problems. These two theories focus on different

aspects of video game preservation and produce differing results, but it is up to digital

curators and preservationists to decide what strategy is right for their purposes.

Playability and the Video Game Experience

When it comes to preserving playability, there are two main strategies that are

ideal for preservation. The first strategy is maintaining hardware and the migration of

files over time to combat bit rot. Migration refers to the conversion of video game data
into a more storage friendly or playable format and creating an exact bit-for-bit copy of

the original game (Lee, 2018). However, this kind of preservation can be difficult due to

the complexity of video games and often leads to issues with authenticity and integrity

(Carta, 2017). This is especially true for older games that are already prone to issues

such as bit rot. The video game industry is always churning out new releases and

next-generation consoles in order to turn a profit, often at the expense of older titles and

hardware (Lee, 2018). Sometimes, video game companies will create hardware that is

backwards compatible, meaning that it can play games from an older generation of

consoles. This is becoming less common, especially with the trend towards consoles

without disk drives that only play digital copies of games. Digital marketplaces have led

to video game companies re-releasing and remastering older games on newer consoles

with more frequency because it is less expensive to produce a digital product than a

physical disk or cartridge (Lee, 2018). However, this also brings about questions of

authenticity and which versions of a game “deserve” to be preserved.

Emulation is another one of the most discussed long term preservation strategies

for video games (Carta, 2017). Instead of modifying the digital object like with migration

strategies, emulation instead modifies the environment requirements for the object. This

makes emulation a great preservation solution for institutions looking to provide video

game playability for their users (Olgado, 2019). However, emulation has its own set of

issues. One of the arguments against emulation is that the experience of playing the

game is no longer authentic or original. For some people and institutions, this may not

be important, however there is a large subset of the gaming community that would

argue otherwise (Swalwell & Stuckey, 2017, p. 215). Those who are against emulation
claim that the hardware that a developer intended the game be used with is integral to

the gaming experience. A counterargument to this idea of authenticity or original

experience is that those people are being held hostage by nostalgia and that it is

impossible to have the same experiences as in the past because people are inherently

different than when they first played the game however many years ago (Swalwell &

Stuckey, 2017, p. 219-220). Another issue with emulation is the legality of it. Due to the

nature of emulation, there are a lot of potential liabilities and infringements that could

happen, even if they aren’t intentional (Lee, 2018). The video game industry has

generally been against emulation since its inception (Carta, 2017) due to the potential

reproduction and pirating issues. Regardless of which side is being argued for or

against, there is no denying that emulation is a key component of video game

preservation based around actually being able to play the game.

Video Games as Objects

Preserving gameplay in such a way that disregards the ability to currently play

the game is another approach to video game preservation. One benefit of this kind of

preservation is that it includes preserving video game culture, community activity, and

acts of play in a more tangible and intentional way. Some examples of this are making

and archiving Twitch and LetsPlay videos, collecting commercial paraphernalia and

published documentation, and accounting for expressions of fandom such as online

threads and unofficial walkthroughs (Olgado, 2019). As previously mentioned, there are

a lot of other materials that are created during the video game creation process. Those

types of materials are useful for preservation purposes when disregarding the ability to

actually play the game and give insight into development, gameplay, and community.
There is still a sense of the game itself, the community, and the hard work that went into

making the game even without access to a playable copy. However, there are very few

precedents that have been set for the preservation of these kinds of materials which can

complicate the preservation process (Hodges, 2022).

This approach is especially important for games like Massively Multiplayer Online

games (MMOs) because it allows the game to be continually preserved past their “end”

date (Murphy, 2015). MMOs are entirely online, so when a company decides to shut

down their servers for whatever reason, the game is no longer playable. MMOs are not

the only kind of video games that run into this issue. Games that are distributed solely

on a digital marketplace and downloaded onto consoles for offline play also have the

potential to disappear at the will of the developers (Lee, 2018). This not only removes

the ability to preserve a playable version of the game, but can also reduce the amount

of context provided for other preserved objects related to the game. It is estimated that

about one third of online video game players already record gameplay interactions for

one purpose or another (Hodges, 2022). These records help to preserve the gameplay

and some context of the game, even though it is not being done directly by an archivist

or memory institution. However these records, or copies of these records, could easily

be transferred into the care of an archivist or digital preservation specialist in order to

keep them safe and accessible far into the future.

The Future of Video Game Preservation

Video games cannot feasibly be maintained and preserved in their original forms,

due to issues like obsolescence, bit rot, and other socio-technical issues (Carta, 2017).

Ideally, there will be a future where an accessible technology exists that could prevent
bit rot, improve file integrity, and allow for unlimited emulation capabilities. On top of

that, digital preservation initiatives will need increased funding, staff and resources

allocated by institutions. Another ideal would be for video game developers to actually

consider long term preservation during the video game creation process. This will put

more strain on developers in terms of resources, but implementing a digital preservation

plan during the creation process would help with video game accessibility and

preservation.

However, until such time, another strategy or strategies will have to be

implemented. None of the current approaches by themselves cover any one aspect of

video game preservation completely. Emulation and migration by themselves are not

enough (Carta, 2017) and digital objects about video games lack an experience that can

be integral to understanding and context. Instead, a more complete approach to video

game preservation that includes preserving the objects, the experiences, and the

context in which both of those things exist (Nylund, 2018) could be a future standard.

This approach includes a mixture of the two current basic theories that would best cover

a wide range of video game preservation needs, but could be extremely costly to those

who are looking to actually preserve video games. Based on current information, it is

difficult to predict if video game preservation strategies will evolve significantly within the

next five to ten years. However, there is much more interest in the topic than before, so

there may be hope for a better preserved future for video games.

Conclusion

Video game preservation matters because video games have significant cultural,

social, and technological impacts on society. While there is no one solution to the issues
of video game preservation, taking a more holistic approach to preservation that

includes the objects, the experiences, and the context seems to be the way forward.

Looking at the past, present and future of video games and video game preservation

shows that video games are important as cultural artifacts and technological

advancements that deserve to be preserved. Like with many budding technologies, it

may be too late to preserve all older titles and hardware. However, if proper precautions

and plans are made now, video game preservation initiatives can prevent even more

loss and protect accessibility, content, and context into the future.
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