Hello to everybody who saw us at the DiGRA 2009 conference last week (and apologies for not making it through all of our slides in the time!). Tom and James presented some thoughts on the importance of game preservation and some of the issues we’ve faced at the NVA. Also on the panel were Andrew Armstrong who discussed the excellent and important IGDA Game Preservation SIG‘s Before It’s Too Late White Paper, Jo Barwick who spoke on the cultural significance of games in the context of digital preservation, Andreas Lange of the Computer Spiele Museum and Dan Pinchbeck of KEEP.
There was/is so much to discuss and so much work to do – not only to do the work of preserving games and the ephemera of gaming cultures but also to work out what the strategies should be, what we should preserve, who should decide, how we go about preserving and perhaps even whether we can preserve the materials at all. As both Dan and Jo rightly pointed out in their talks, it is both encouraging and amazing that 2009 sees the first formal panel convened at DiGRA on game preservation. The first of many, we all hope…and the beginning of what we hope will be some very fruitful partnerships and collaborations.
You can find copies of the papers at the IGDA Preservation SIG’s wiki.