Thoughts on a recent lecture I attended

I recently attended a lecture at my Alma Mater Studorium which was given by a Megan Wignet who is currently working on her PhD at the University of Texas, Austin. Her general focus is on video-game archiving.
What follows is a combination of two things:
1) My notes as I was interpreting and scribbling during the lecture (in bold)2) My reactions to the notes I made, as well as the gist of the lecture (in italics)
I am writing out these things here because I hope to spill out some ideas and potentially encourage discussion, there is no other goal.

Thoughts on Megan Winget presentation January 28, 2009
Topic: Challenges & Current Practices in Game-Related Collections
Video game as: Cultural Artifact; Significant cultural industry; Entertainment medium
Also – social network medium; hobby (non-social activity) ?

Having an impact on cultural output by changing the nature of society – but I ask how?
Is it really changing the nature of society , or are the tools we use to shape culture and society evolving such that the old rules/standards/practices no longer are sufficient for applications to new media – such as video games, film, music

Digital Preservation – General Strategies:
Viewing problem – Migration; Emulation
Documentation issue (metadata)
What about issues of:
Confidence/privacy affecting abilities to gather statistics

I am curious what the history of archiving games looks like – and how would a review of this history affect/impact efforts to archive video games?
How will this perspective affect the theory and practice of archives?
Are we going to start saving every document simply by fact that it is extant?

In response to the statement “We have noticed that the concept of ‘fun’ has changed [over the past 10 years of gaming]” (as an example of the rapid changes occurring in the industry/media): I would argue that the concept of “fun” has not changed that significantly over the past thousands of years of human thought; similarly the concept of a game is one of the oldest recorded forms of social interaction. I would argue instead that the speed, rules and playability of games are now bound and limited by technology in ways we do not yet fully understand or are able to describe/see the full repercussions of – leaving me to wonder, is there a new media paradigm shift that has not yet been perceived?
So in my mind the question is not how has fun changed, but how has technology’s ability to represent games/concepts/events/etc affected social and cultural behaviour? Which games are then the benchmarks for these social/cultural/behavioural changes? Is it the game or is it the technology? This question seems to be critical – there are countless examples of ways in which technology has impacted upon culture/history/society so as to shape it in some way – are there examples of a game having the same affect?
Take the ball game for example – this is a sport that was played by an ancient Central American culture (shame I can’t remember which one at the moment). Sadly, most of the rules of the game are gone, and the intricacies of how to play as well as evidence of the experience is long lost to this world – and yet those who study the culture of these particular people are very aware of the significance this game had in their culture and society because representations of the game have survived.


Take choose-your-own-adventure books for example – the purpose of the book is to create an experience out of what is essentially a product. Are librarians charged with recording every version of the experience?

So where is this leading the theoretical/practical aspects of the profession – what can be reflected back upon our methods in an effort to change/improve/evolve?
Are we going down the path of assumption that simply because a document exists it is worth preserving? If document creation is a default by-product of contemporary tech-based media, are archivists responsible for documenting every single one?
An interesting observation was made regarding the natural dichotomy in the concepts of art and intent, and the new technological necessity that the two are somehow married – end result is incredibly curious for, if art is intent, then defining the intent is to re-define the art, or to nullify the true meaning of the conceptual piece. Again, this, to me, hints to the fact that the affects of the paradigm shift are not yet comprehensively appreciated.
There seems to be a universal media archive issue: dealing largely with popular culture means answering to questions about placing significant cultural/social/historical value in the context of something so young, evolving and baring the stigma that is somehow inherently peripheral to other significant forms of expression such as films, museums exhibitions, etc perhaps due to its firm grasp within cult/minority cultures. Thus the issue: how do we deal with this? What new methods must be developed? Old solutions will not universally apply to new problems.