The word “curate” is thrown around a lot lately, especially since Valve Software deemed its 100 million users “curators.” But before the democratization of “curation” in video games, there were the traditional curators; the ones who primarily curate for the sake of art, not commerce.
Today, a “curator” of video games might be thought as a person who digs up interesting games with the purpose of putting them in front of people who would like to try or buy them. That’s a useful practice, especially with the amount of video games released every day, but it’s not exactly the purpose of the curator in the traditional sense. The “true” video game curators have the crucial task of preserving video games, and making them relevant to society at large.
JP Dyson with the National Museum of Play at The Strong explains, “A curator is someone involved in the selection, collection, preservation, and interpretation of things (originally those were only physical objects but today they include digital objects such as downloadable games). (via Gamasutra – As definition of ‘curator’ evolves, traditional curation still crucial for games)