Establishing a Space for Archaeologists in Gaming: The Development of the ArchaeoGaming Collective

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The subdiscipline of archaeogaming has gained traction over the last several years, applying archaeological methods to and in video and tabletop games. Archaeology as a field focuses on concepts of space and place (and their roles in the past) quite literally, and it lends itself well to game applications including built environments and environmental storytelling. Part of the proposed presentation will discuss applying archaeological knowledge and practices to game worlds and how these are used to immerse players in games. The expansion of archaeogaming as a subdiscipline has created the need for a different kind of “space”: one where researchers addressing these topics can participate in a community and exchange ideas. Virtual communities utilizing online spaces such as Discord became particularly attractive during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. In summer 2020, the ArchaeoGaming Collective (AGC) established a Discord server to meet the needs of the growing archaeogaming community. The AGC has since developed an annual virtual conference and has led to a variety of collaborative research projects and conference symposia involving its members. This presentation will describe the development and evolution of the AGC and its goals for both the archaeogaming community and the public.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36818.0