Challenges in Preserving Video Games

Video games are challenging objects to preserve for a variety of reasons, but their value is increasingly becoming apparent to cultural heritage institutions. This study describes interviews conducted with digital preservationists at Carnegie Mellon University, the Computer History Museum, the Library of Congress, Stanford University, and The Strong National Museum of Play to determine how they define meaningful preservation of video games and what they feel are the greatest challenges to achieving this level of preservation.The obstacles the interviewees most frequently identified were laws that make it illegal to perform preservation activities without permission from copyright owners, difficulties obtaining this permission, and insufficient resources to preserve a vast amount of deteriorating media. The study concludes with interviewees’ ideas for how to overcome these problems and calls for further research on how to make video game preservation successful and scalable.Master of Science in Library Scienc