Why don’t we archive games?
As you can guess by the title, the topic of this weeks blog discusses the idea of archiving video games. It’s certainly something that myself or anyone in the ‘gaming community’ has ever spoken about, which I find quite devastating. While games as a whole are relatively new in terms of only being created in the last 70 years (OXO - developed in 1952 by Alexander S. Douglas and Tennis for Two - developed in 1958 by William Higginbotham), there is a history that is almost lost due to the inability or thoughtlessness of game archiving.
Gita Jackson’s blog(https://boingboing.net/2015/05/28/the-vast-unplayable-history-o.html) is enlightening and insightful, not only is this same problem occurring in film but there are also games that seem to have just been wiped from existence. Its especially devastating to see this because companies like Konami see games as technology, entertainment and profit rather than a story, rather than literal history.
It has definitely come to my attention now that games need to be preserved and archived properly otherwise we are losing valuable pieces of history, after all games are an artform. Technology is progressing and so should our mindsets, more money and education should go into game archiving/preserving so that younger generations can understand where it all began and what it’s come to now.