Preserving Virtual Worlds
Wednesday August 20, 2008
Historians and archivists are constantly grappling with the question: What is worth preserving? We cannot save everything and yet we must decide what will be important to history in the decades to come. The most recent concept is to preserve virtual worlds - interactive online games. With millions of people playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORG) like World of Warcraft, should the history of such games be recorded? Will we someday research game history like we do Disney films or modern artists? If you want to know more about this new effort of preserving the history of virtual worlds, check out this BBC article.
Comments
These games will be preserved. The impact they have made, primarily through a y chromosomal connection is significant, on the order of the impact of a ball. How many games for boys, men, guys are there with a ball.
My son keeps and collects, in a very limited but specific format, cartridges, discs, programs. These are not kept for historical motives, but rather because they move him. Boys like him will provide the preserved data base for analysis 5 to 25 years from now when the impact of this game form is reviewed and analysed on an academic basis,,,, writing the history