Preserving the history

The United Kingdom's first official National Videogame Archive is soon arriving in an effort to preserve the history of a now global industry worth about £22bn (~$39bn).

Academics at Nottingham Trent University, in partnership with the National Media Museum in Bradford (where it will be housed), formed the archive, which is said will 'recognise the significant contributions made by videogames to the diversity of popular culture across the globe' - everything from 1972's Pong to all the big stuff we're seeing now.

It is to be managed, steered and researched in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University's Centre for Contemporary Play, which draws from an impressive range of academic strengths and disciplines, including psychology, cultural studies, art and design, and computer science.

Specifically, the archive will have the standard trove of consoles and cartridges, but will also collect what documented the industry for so long: advertising campaigns, magazine reviews, artwork, and more. They say the overall aim here is to 'collect, celebrate and preserve this vital cultural form for future generations.'

Dr James Newman, from Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Contemporary Play, said:  “The National Videogame Archive is an important resource for preserving elements of our national cultural heritage.  We don’t just want to create a virtual museum full of code or screenshots that you could see online.  The archive will really get to grips with what is a very creative, social and productive culture.”

He added: “It will not only be a vital academic resource to support growing disciplines in videogame studies but will also be something that the general public can fully engage with.”

Part of the reason for all this effort and dedication is to avoid the mistakes the film industry has made in failing to collect historically significant material of its own industry. As some know, countless pieces of artifacts have been lost from that world forever, and the people involved here are developing procedures and practices so this will not happen again.

Paul Goodman, Head of Collections & Knowledge at the National Media Museum, said:  “The archiving of these important artefacts presents us with some real challenges, not least in the area of preservation.  We must balance the necessary conservation requirements of these materials, with the need to allow the public to understand and interact with them both now and in the future, which is really the cornerstone of what we are trying to do.”

Though it doesn't appear to be 'national', the huge effort seems a counterpart of sorts to the University of Texas' Videogame Archive. Perhaps with this endeavour, UT's will grow, too.

The National Videogame Archive is going to be launched this year at the GameCity 3 festival in Nottingham. A three day event, it's set to attract all kinds of folk from the video game culture, from the enthusiasts to the developers and publishers.

Iain Simons, Director of GameCity at Nottingham Trent University, said:  “This year’s festival is going to be huge.  We’ll be opening up the world of videogames for everybody to experience and the launch of the new National Videogame Archive will be an important feature for this year’s event.  We’ll have special guests from the industry with us, along with world-record breaking attempts, keynote speeches and lots, lots more.”