UK getting national game archive
Many of the earliest works of silent-era film have been lost forever, leaving our knowledge of the medium's ascendance sadly and permanently incomplete. It is to be hoped that such a fate won't befall the earliest works of the game industry, and the UK's newly established official game archive will...
Many of the earliest works of silent-era film have been lost forever, leaving our knowledge of the medium's ascendance sadly and permanently incomplete. It is to be hoped that such a fate won't befall the earliest works of the game industry, and the UK's newly established official game archive will work to keep that from happening.
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As reported by BBC News, the government-funded National Media Museum and Nottingham Trust University are teaming up to establish the National Videogame Archive. The collection will include games, consoles, advertising campaigns, and other items surrounding gamer culture dating back to 1972.
"Unlike film and music, it's very difficult to walk into a retail store and walk out with a bunch of games from the 1970s," Nottingham Trent's Dr. James Newman told the BBC, adding "Games influence film and television as well, so they are important parts of popular culture."
The archive's organizers have put out the call to gamers to tell them what games need to be preserved. Complete details are available on the BBC's Web site, but the skinny is that they want half-minute video or audio clips from gamers making their case for what should be named the best game of all time.
Gaming preservation efforts are not unique to the UK. Last year, the University of Texas at Austin established the UT Videogame Archive with help from local developers and industry luminaries Richard Garriott and Warren Spector. Stanford University also has a gaming archive that received a boost when a deceased student left it a collection of 25,000 games. The Library of Congress has also added games to its Digital Preservation Program to archive American creative works.
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