Make Videogames History: Game Preservation and the National Videogame Archive

The National Videogame Archive, launched in October 2008 by Nottingham Trent University's Centre for Contemporary Play and the National Media Museum in the United Kingdom, makes the case that videogames and the cultures surrounding them deserve preservation alongside their underlying code. The work argues that preservation is neglected because both the industry and wider society treat games as disposable legacy systems, shaped by a "perpetual innovation economy" in which obsolescence discourages archiving. In-house archiving by companies is typically ad hoc, academic research on the subject is sparse, and the field itself is only beginning to take shape.

A central theme is the tension between industry-driven supersessionary logic, which prizes next-generation technology, and fan-driven attachment to obsolete games and hardware as objects of beauty and emotional significance. Fan collecting through online marketplaces, informal sales, and retrogaming publications is widespread, but it is motivated differently from institutional preservation. The National Videogame Archive seeks to offer public access and interpretive context rather than the completism typical of private collections.

To pursue these aims, the archive has developed concrete initiatives. The Save the Videogame campaign invites public pledges to preserve specific titles, while the Director Commentaries project records developers discussing how their games were made. The authors stress urgency, noting that physical media degrade and development teams disband, so the window for capturing this material is closing.

The material draws on a bibliography spanning roughly 2003 to 2009, combining academic monographs, trade journalism, conference papers, and archive blog posts. Taken together, the work positions game preservation as an emerging scholarly and cultural priority, grounded in institutional practice and in the distinct values of the communities that sustain interest in older games.