Museums Give Video Games Bonus Life, But The Next Level Awaits
Video games, like other digital media, present a host of challenges for preservationists. The hardware and software used to run and play any particular game eventually becomes obsolete or breaks. Storage media like DVDs, flash drives or hard drives can become corrupted over time, too.
“There’s the hardware and the software — the console and the code of the game,” says Michael Mansfield, SAAM’s curator of film and media arts. “Both are needed to experience the game as it was designed to be experienced. … You really need the architecture of the [PlayStation 3] to play [Flower] into the future. They can’t be separated.”