Henry Lowood, Curator, Stanford University: Game Preservation, You Have Met Your DOOM: "Significant Properties" and Computer Games

Henry Lowood, Curator, Stanford University
Monday, June 4, 2012, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Location: Engineering 2, Room 399
Hosted By the Center for Games and Playable Media

Abstract:?

The main focus of the Preserving Virtual Worlds 2 project is analysis of digital games to determine? sets of "significant properties" for specific game titles.? Significant properties research has occupied a place of growing importance in the digital curation and preservation literature over the past decade.? However, the results of this research have thus far not had much impact on digital game preservation. This is because digital games generally are more complex than most other digital media forms. Moreover, there have been significant disagreements even among critical games studies researchers concerning the inherent nature of digital games.? Yet, integrating perspectives from game design, software studies, history of technology, and social studies of gameplay into a discussion of the properties of games seems unavoidable.? This talk will present some of the issues, followed by presentation of some thoughts for discussion about shifting the significant properties discussion from analysis of surface characteristics of games to auditing procedures based on data inputs.

Bio:

Henry Lowood is curator for history of science & technology collections and for film & media collections at Stanford University.? He is also a lecturer in the Introduction to the Humanities Program, the Science and Technology Studies Program and the History and Philosophy of Science Program.?? Since 2000, he has led How They Got Game, a research and archival preservation project devoted to the history of digital games and simulations.?? This project includes Stanford?s contribution to a multi-university, interdisciplinary project called Preserving Virtual Worlds, funded by the U.S. Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.? His most recent publication is The Machinima Reader, published by MIT Press and co-edited with Michael Nitsche.

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