Game Save Data Is Missing or Cannot Be Read: A Twenty-First-Century Crisis of Digital Archaeological Site Loss

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Leveling Up: Gaming and Game Design in Archaeological Education and Outreach" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2023, the first study of its kind by the Video Game History Foundation determined that 87% of video games made before 2010 are critically endangered. What was once considered a fun but silly form of entertainment has grown into a multibillion-dollar global industry spawning competitive scholastic and professional e-sporting events and spurring popular film and television adaptations. It is undeniable that video games exert an influence on our culture. However, for every Super Mario Bros. or The Last of Us, there are dozens of games that have not attained that level of notoriety to avoid becoming endangered. In this paper, I argue that video games are no different from ancient games and are worthy of consideration for research by archaeologists and anthropologists. Video games can encapsulate cultural, political, and economic moments in time, as with the creation of the ESRB after the release of Mortal Kombat. Video games can also present different or unfamiliar ontologies, as with the game Perception. Echoing the archaeological crisis of the 1970s, this paper outlines how archaeologists can use their knowledge of materials preservation, cultural resource management, and legislative efforts to be proactive in protecting video games from digital oblivion.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Leveling Up: Gaming and Game Design in Archaeological Education and Outreach   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38133.0