Capstone Post Topic: Video Game Preservation- and Why it Matters

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For my capstone project I am going to discuss video game preservation. My two media objects will be an infographic and a remixed video. The video of course, is especially helpful for showing any video game footage I might need to show. It can also be used to showcase interviews with researchers or even footage of museum video game collections and archives. With video you can also demonstrate failing hardware or software, such as incompatible operating systems, drivers, or dead batteries in game cartridges. The infographic is a good way to quickly disseminate facts about video game preservation and why it is important. The infographic will likely discuss the reasons why preserving video games is important more so than why games are in danger. For instance, video games are a huge part of the cultural record of the last forty years. Losing access to these games would be like losing every copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Issues facing video games include so-called “bit rot”, hardware scarcity, obsolescence of hardware and software technologies, and physical decay of hardware among other things. Less obvious dangers to video games include contamination and loss of original source material. A classic example of this is Will Crowther’s 1970’s classic, Colossal Cave Adventure. The most widely distributed versions of the game were not Crowther’s original game, but extended, edited copies written by other students. It wasn’t until fairly recently that someone found the original, unedited source code in the student archives at Stanford University.

 

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