Video Games are Hard to Archive

Today I read an interesting article that took a critical look at the Smithsonian, who have an exhibit entitled "The Art of Video Games". The article argues that many 'classic' games have been omitted, because the poll conducted for what items to include resulted in only hugely popular, home console games.

I've dealt with how to go about archiving video games before. It's a fairly rich history, and from a certain viewpoint it seems simple, since it is so recent and many of the 'originals' are still in existence. But as I found out, it is very hard to get the history straight, organize the items, and above all else describe them. I attempted to do as much in my metadata schema that I adapted from Dublin Core and EAD (here), but I frequently ran into decisions that had to be made. Would I include arcade games? Ultimately I decided to, just because arcade games are vital in video game history, despite their insignificance today. I also included PC games, despite their relative obscurity.

Underlying all this is the issue of whether video games are art in the first place. I've argued they are in the past, but not in the same way others do. That is, many people want to compare video games to existing forms of art in order to find some legitimacy. I am of the opinion that people will only fail with this comparison. I think the way to do it is to recognize video games as a new form of art, instead of trying to awkwardly compare it to completely different media. Was it important to describe how a photograph was similar to a painting? Or was the real breakthrough to develop the photograph as a wholly different art medium? I would argue the latter, because initially all comparisons between a photograph and a painting resulted in the photograph coming up short.

I'm still skeptical that video games will see legitimacy in the world of archives and the arts, but there is hope, simply because of the popular growth of video games, with some grossing more in their first days than some movies make in an entire year. However, as the article points out, the legitimacy starts to evaporate if we judge the artistic merits of a game based on sales. There is significant overlap, of course, because the NES Super Mario Bros. is both an artistic high water mark and a commercial blockbuster. But much in the same way as independent and foreign films, whose commercial success is very small and yet receive critical acclaim, we must document the video games that had something to say, or presented something significant, despite being commercially insignificant.