The Lost 87%: Towards Improved Access to Games for Game Design Education

This paper examines the challenge of accessing historically and educationally significant video games for use in game design curricula. Its central argument is that restrictive access conditions, shaped in part by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, limit libraries and cultural heritage institutions to on-site digital access, which in turn pushes educators to design courses around whatever games remain easily obtainable rather than those that best illustrate key design principles. The authors frame this against a rapidly expanding game catalog, noting that roughly 10,963 titles were released on Steam in 2022 alone, compared with an average of about 84 titles per year for the Nintendo Entertainment System, while citing a Video Game History Foundation finding that only 13 percent of legacy games are reasonably accessible.

The study is qualitative and user-centered, drawing on 39 interviews with game developers, game educators and researchers, and cultural heritage professionals. Transcripts were analyzed through inductive thematic coding to identify criteria for game importance and the barriers stakeholders face. Preliminary findings suggest that experts prioritize games that were the first, best-known, current best-known, or best representatives of a given design element across eras. Participants also emphasized that mechanics and systems are best understood through play rather than video, and that many educators rely on commercial storefronts or hold only a single physical copy for an entire class.

The findings also reveal several tensions. Grant-funded games designed for social good frequently lose support once funding ends, and some participants argued that poorly designed games are valuable as teaching examples. Stakeholders diverged on the importance of original hardware, with researchers stressing contextual objects while educators and developers focused on the software itself. The authors note that the study's scope is still preliminary, and they plan a broader survey to validate these interview-based results across a larger population of educators and industry professionals.