gamehistoryorg

How to be a video game historian!

Added 2017-11-15 20:00:23 +0000 UTC

Hi all! The latest result of our Writing Fund is here, and it's the first in a series of tutorials on researching video game history:

https://gamehistory.org/video-game-research-tips-searching-the-internet-archive/

This is an important step for us in terms of shaping the VGHF story. Everything we do is meant to encourage the study of video game history by using contemporary source material. With this new series, we now have a three-tiered approach:

1. Surface rare materials by collecting and archiving them

Initiatives like our Media Assets Collection and our ongoing software preservation (such as with Dooly Bravo Land) help to identify and preserve those parts of video game history that are rare enough to be considered endangered. You can't study history from contemporary sources if those sources don't exist!

2. Show what can be done with access to these materials

This is where our Writing Fund comes in. Most recently we were able to establish that no, E.T. wasn't nearly the worst game ever at the time of its release, and before that we were able to dig deep into the source code for Disney's Aladdin.

3. Teach people how to do it themselves

Now, with today's feature, we've started to educate the world on how to research video game history. In the future we'll probably extend that to showing our approaches to digital preservation too, but we're still a ways off from establishing our standards.

This is all exciting for me: thanks to all of you, we've been able to take our time with the VGHF and let it shape itself into what it needs to be. I feel like we're finally hitting the point where I can summarize how we're saving history into an easy sort of "elevator pitch" when talking to people and, potentially, fundraising. Best of all, I think we're differentiating ourselves from existing institutions in a really unique way, and we're doing that by playing to our strengths.

So, as always, thank you. Your donations are what made all of this possible!