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The Preservation of Fun: New York's Videogame Museum A new research center in upstate New York strives to record

the history of elect ronic gaming as it happens -- before it's too late. The Strong National Museum of Play overlooks downtown Rochester, NY, a frosty, u pstate boomtown better known as the home of Susan B. Anthony and Eastman Kodak. From the outside, the museum resembles a toy box gone supernova, all jumbled ang les and primary colors. The inside isn't much different -- just louder. Named for a local heiress who obsessively collected everything from teacups to b athtubs, the Strong Museum is as eccentric as its namesake: Part playground, par t treasure trove, it's the only museum in the world dedicated to the history and study of play. Here, the exhibits range from the silly to the scientific, and c urrent installations include an art gallery of LEGO sculptures, a walk-through k aleidoscope, a history of the comic book superhero, and the National Toy Hall of Fame. In March of last year, however, the museum took a decidedly digital direction, e stablishing a new research arm: the National Center for the History of Electroni c Games, or NCHEG. NCHEG isn't just an archive -- although at over 20,000 artifa cts and growing, it's a pretty impressive one. It's a research and curatorial ef fort focused on the study and interpretation of gaming's impact on society (and vice-versa). "Videogames have revolutionized the way people play -- the way they learn and re late to each other," says Jon-Paul Dyson, NCHEG's director. "We want to capture that history now, so that when people are asking questions about this time 150 y ears from now, we'll have an answer." The Tao of Preservation NCHEG's preservation effort is more than just an attempt to collect and catalogu e every game ever made, says associate curator Eric Wheeler. It's about the cult ure surrounding games, too -- everything from game strategy guides and magazines to the puffy Pac-Man stickers you'd use to decorate your school notebooks. "Fundamentally, what's really important about these games is the experiences we have when we play them," says Wheeler, a tall, energetic military vet and avid g amer. "We want to save the games themselves, of course... but also the memories tied up in them." Already, the collection has grown to surreal proportions: Since NCHEG started in March 2009, it's acquired over 10,000 games, several hundred consoles, more tha n 100 handhelds, and dozens of electronic toys like Simon and Tamagotchi. Two of the newest jewels in the collection include over 5,000 recently donated educati onal games and nearly 1,000 strategy guides, including one of every Prima public ation ever produced. But this is just the beginning. To date, NCHEG's efforts have focused mainly on the U.S. home console market, which -- as vast as it is -- is a far simpler prop osition than tackling the dizzying universe of computer games. With all their va rious patches, mods, virtual multiplayer worlds, and downloadable-only content, PC games present a logistical nightmare for archivists, one that even Dyson (a s elf-professed computer geek who, as a kid, taught himself how to program his own text adventures) speaks about with some trepidation. "Computers present a much bigger challenge," says Dyson. "We can't collect every app for the iPhone, or every indie game ever made. No one institution can. We j ust aren't going to be able to collect everything."

Yet both Dyson and Wheeler acknowledge that tackling that digital frontier in so me way is crucial, as gaming has increasingly moved toward a virtual space. Give n that so many digitally distributed and online-only games offer no physical cop y to store away in a vault, a broader approach to preservation may be the only p ossible solution: some combination of archiving the game's source code, its anci llary materials, and stories collected from its players. Whatever method is adopted, it better be applied soon; In November alone, NCHEG acquired more than 1,000 computer games and platforms, a bounty that associate d irector Marc Check has been meticulously cataloguing ever since. Things Fall Apart The computer game problem is, in some ways, indicative of the medium's endemic e mbarrassment of riches. Given how young videogames are, their fossil record is s till quite rich. Not only is the technology itself still in use, but more import antly, most of the people alive to experience gaming's greatest landmarks are st ill around today, able to offer up their stories as precious primary source mate rial for future generations. We are literally living through videogame history. That's why it's so important to start archiving the story of games now, says Dys on, before it begins to fade away: "Everything has a shelf life -- even computer s." Even the most carefully maintained videogame or console will eventually fall pre y to "bit rot," or the gradual decay of digital data. Optical discs can become s cratched or pitted, and contaminated by the breakdown of ink and adhesives. Flop py disks or hard drives may lose their magnetism or suffer actual rot. Even cart ridges will one day cease to work, corroded from battery acid and moisture (and unfortunately, blowing on that old Nintendo cartridge actually speeds this proce ss along). "So far, we've been lucky. Almost everything we've gotten has worked," says Whee ler. But the specter of bit rot still hovers over NCHEG. When you consider that scientists' best estimates suggest floppy disks may last only 10-30 years, and t hat the thousands of games published on floppies in the 1980s are already at lea st 21 years old, you can begin to see the urgency of the situation. Equally daunting is the challenge of obsolescence: Even if a floppy disk could s omehow be preserved for hundreds of years, it might as well be a stone tablet of Indus Valley script, since with today's newest hardware the floppy has become a n all-but-unreadable media. Likewise with punch cards or cassette tapes -- these once-ubiquitous storage solutions have been rendered obsolete by the ever-accel erating evolution of technology. "We need native speakers," says Dyson, referrin g to the hardware capable of reading obsolete media. "It's not enough to just ha ve the game; we need Rosetta stones, equipment able to translate and decipher th ese older materials." But consoles and computers are themselves susceptible to bit rot, and furthermor e, even the hardware components are quickly vanishing. For example, the bulky CR T monitor -- the kind found in arcade game cabinets -- is nearly extinct, thanks to the transition to LCD screens. Few manufacturers produce CRTs anymore, and t he number shrinks daily. Although the NCHEG curators utilize several sources who can custom-fabricate par ts, if a component breaks, the only recourse in many cases is to find an identic al machine and swap out the parts. Oftentimes, the best (or only) way to ward off bit rot and obsolescence is to tr

ansfer a game from one storage medium to another, via emulation or other methods . However, this presents its own challenges, since some copy-protection schemes and licensing agreements make it difficult -- or even illegal -- to copy a video game. To confront these logistical issues, the Preserving Virtual Worlds project -- a joint effort across four universities (including Strong's neighbor, Rochester In stitute of Technology) and Second Life developer Linden Lab -- is currently tryi ng to divine a set of basic standards and preservation methodology. "We're follo wing their efforts closely," says Dyson. Capturing the Butterfly Still, the idea ndary, one that lly the same as than its source of emulation as a preservation tactic raises a philosophical qua strikes at the heart of NCHEG's mission: Is an emulated game rea the original copy? In other words, is a game truly nothing more code?

"Yes and no," says Dyson. "You can easily play an emulated version of Tetris the se days. But is it the exact same experience as being in Moscow in 1984, playing it on an Elektronika-60 at the close of the Cold War? Well, obviously not. But you can get close." Another major dilemma the curators face is how to place a vi deogame in a museum display without undermining its basic function: that is, to be played. "You can catalogue a system and its games, but that's not really the play, is it ?" says Wheeler. "Without plugging it into the wall, you aren't really playing; it's how you interact with what's on the cartridge that really matters." The solution, says Dyson, is to view the exhibits as a three-legged stool, whose supporting legs consist of interactivity, interpretation, and artifacts. That m eans not just displaying a Magnavox Odyssey for visitors to ogle behind a glass case, but to think of new ways to make old games fresh. Off the cuff, Dyson brai nstorms theoretical exhibits, all of which I'd love to see: a room modeled after Zork's dungeon, complete with adventure-style puzzles to solve; life-sized game s of Pong driven by steering wheels; and Space Invaders or Centipede, re-enacted in real-life by a troupe of actors. "As a kid in the '80s, there was something magical about jumping into those game s," says Dyson. "It's our job to recreate that magic." History Informs the Future Given the obstacles inherent to game preservation, the list of NCHEG's future pl ans is long and urgent, a compilation of must-do's before time runs out. For sta rters, the Institute of Library and Museum Services recently awarded NCHEG's cur ators a grant to sort through their archives and playtest every game in the coll ection. "We've had plenty of college students volunteer to help," says Wheeler. They also plan to expand their online presence -- particularly the online catalo gue, which already hosts thousands of artifacts. They're even dabbling in social media outlets, such as the CHEGheads blog and a Facebook page. For scholarly or academic visitors, NCHEG plans to flesh out its already-expansi ve online catalogue of games with more screenshots and gameplay videos. And it's continuing to expand and add to the "Game Lab," a storage facility and laborato ry where visiting researchers can test out vintage videogames on their native co nsoles. "We want to be the go-to resource. You want to learn about the history o f electronic games? Whether it's online or in person, you go to NCHEG," says Dys on.

And that's to say nothing of the exhibits. As of this writing, the center's firs t temporary exhibit, Videotopia -- a collection of over 200 fully restored and p layable vintage arcade cabinets -- is closed, but NCHEG is already hard at work on its first permanent installation on the history of videogames. Tentatively sc heduled to open in the summer of 2010, the exhibit will cover 2,700 square feet, exploring the impact electronic games have had on our lives and offering visito rs a chance to play many titles firsthand, both classic and new. And though both Dyson and Wheeler are understandably vague on details at this point, the possib ility of traveling exhibits is quite real, as well as a physical expansion of th e museum in roughly two years' time. For now, the biggest effort remains building the collections. NCHEG is open to d onations, and encourages anyone -- from developers to die-hard fans -- to donate whatever they can. "This is a very dynamic collection," says Wheeler. "We've st ill got plenty of work left to do." NCHEG, he adds, has learned much from the early days of film, when nobody knew e xactly what the new medium was or how best to preserve it. "I think we've learne d our lesson this go-round, and we're taking action sooner, rather than later," he says. "Hopefully, this will be a more coordinated effort than what you had ba ck then, and able to negate the number of games that are lost." But in the end, NCHEG's mission is more than just academic; it's personal. "This is something that really makes sense to me," says a grinning Wheeler. "It's not just something I read in books or studied the primary documents. I played all o f these games as a kid. I remember."

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