Preserving Japanese Indie Games at BitSummit Drift 2024

This extended abstract, authored by Michael Pennington and James Newman of Bath Spa University, argues that Japan's contributions to videogame history are at serious risk of being lost, both because digital games are becoming unplayable and because English-language histories tend to privilege American and Eurocentric perspectives. The work proposes that documenting Japanese indie developers, particularly those creating non-commercial alternative-controller games, is an urgent preservation task. The research was funded in part by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and carried out in July 2024.

The methodology centres on oral history interviews with Japanese indie developers conducted in Kyoto during BitSummit Drift 2024, described as the largest gathering of indie game developers in Japan. The project also produced audio and video recordings of gameplay and spectatorship at the festival, with plans to curate these materials into an open-access archive in partnership with the Videogame Heritage Society and the National Videogame Museum in the UK. The methodology draws on precedents such as the Animal Crossing Diaries project and is positioned within game production studies.

A central finding is that many developers worry their games will become unplayable through hardware breakage or because financial constraints prevent continued maintenance. The authors conclude that audiovisual documentation of play is therefore a meaningful form of preservation in itself. They also characterise the alternative-controller area of the festival as a carnival-like space whose fleeting, communal atmosphere is itself worth recording, since it disappears once the event ends.

Overall, the abstract frames the project as a multifaceted documentary effort that centres Japanese developers' own perspectives on preservation, captures a specific cultural moment in Kyoto in 2024, and commemorates BitSummit's role as a festival showcasing Japanese indie games. The work is presented as an extended abstract for a DiGRA 2025 talk and as a forthcoming white paper.