{"id":2074,"date":"2014-10-29T15:51:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T15:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=2074"},"modified":"2016-08-12T20:02:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T20:02:00","slug":"video-games-culture-deserves-a-national-archive-to-rival-those-of-books-and-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/video-games-culture-deserves-a-national-archive-to-rival-those-of-books-and-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Video games culture deserves a national archive to rival those of books and film"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Murray Pratt<\/a>, Nottingham Trent University<\/em><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s GameCity<\/a> festival in Nottingham will include the announcement of the UK National Videogames Arcade which will open in the city in 2015. The arcade will be a centre for gaming culture and a repository of gaming history to educate and inspire. It will include interactive exhibitions, hands-on game-making opportunities and treasures from the UK\u2019s National Videogame Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In it\u2019s tenth year, GameCity has worked with Nottingham Trent University to bring video games to the widest possible audiences. The festival\u2019s aim has always been to champion games as accessible, visionary and enduring pieces of artistic work made by creative people with diverse skills and imagination. Through the GameCity Prize<\/a>, the festival seeks to promote and reward great games \u2013 because video games deserve praise in the same way as films have the Oscars, television the Grammys and Baftas, and books have the Man Booker Prize and many other accolades.<\/p>\n

In the same way as films are archived and remembered at the BFI<\/a> and books at the British Library<\/a>, the National Videogame Arcade will hold the cultural record of the public\u2019s developing relationship with video games. A place for people to play yesterday\u2019s games, to create new games whose appeals transcend age, gender or background, including the development of serious games<\/a> and virtual spaces where play informs important scientific research.<\/p>\n

An institution of record is long overdue<\/a>. Video games are now ubiquitous. It doesn\u2019t matter whether you were first exposed to Space Invaders, Nintendo, or some obscure multi-user dungeon<\/a>, whether you are obsessed with the latest gory 3D action game or demanding strategy game, or simply like to while away your time with something that involves jewels, bubbles, crushable candy or farms on your phone, video games are increasingly part of our social and cultural fabric.<\/p>\n

With each generation we become increasingly plugged in \u2013 and it\u2019s important this evolution is debated, discussed, critiqued and analysed. GameCity is a place where we ask \u201cWhy?\u201d, \u201cHow?\u201d or, indeed, \u201cWhat the Farmville?\u201d. The Arcade will be a civic, cultural and academic space where that evolution is recorded and explored.<\/p>\n

Games are for everyone \u2013 and should be made for everyone. Nor is there any reason why they can\u2019t be made by everyone. Games, including video games and the pre-digital aspects such as board games and storytelling, appeal to virtually everyone. Around 70,000 people visit GameCity each year \u2013 and not just to see the latest releases. This year the festival hopes to revive an ancient Nottingham tradition with the help of around 1,500 people: the Sheriff\u2019s Gauntlet<\/a> will see citizens competing in mental and physical trials, echoing medieval challenges of centuries gone by.<\/p>\n

We need to educate and inspire the developers, critics and researchers of the future \u2013 and the arcade will provide a point of accessibility for those wanting to build the digital products of tomorrow. But more than that, it will act as a hub for those researching video game culture, acting as a conduit through which students and researchers within the arts and humanities can bring their fields of knowledge to add cultural and political narratives to games, and critiquing what already exist, beyond the technical aspects of engineering and design.<\/p>\n

By engaging with GameCity and the arcade, humanities students can mix the theory and practice of the curriculum and add to their learning in ways that appeal to employers, or set graduates up as self-starters or future research students. It\u2019s important that it is not just people looking for careers in the gaming industry who are thinking this way \u2013 as all students will increasingly need digital awareness and production skills. When students are involved in the ownership, design, marketing and innovation of cultural products, the opportunities extend beyond just CV box-ticking.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Murray Pratt does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Murray Pratt, Nottingham Trent University This year\u2019s GameCity festival in Nottingham will include the announcement of the UK National Videogames Arcade which will open in the city in 2015. The arcade will be a centre for gaming culture and a repository of gaming history to educate and inspire. It will include interactive exhibitions, hands-on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":5719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2074"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5720,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074\/revisions\/5720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}