ICHEG Interview – Part 1

Introduction

Back in 2012, I was fortunate enough to interview International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) Director Jon-Paul C. Dyson, PhD. At that time, well less than half the interview was actually published, leaving a lot of wonderful insights and information on the cutting room floor. I hope to rectify that with this multi-part post, whereby the interview will be published in its entirety.

ICHEG’s mission to collect, preserve, study and interpret video games, other electronic games and related materials remains as important today as it did back then. With the goal to “examine the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography”, I cannot recommend enough going to check them out.

In Part 1 of this multi-part series, we discuss how ICHEG came to be and some ways in which it has impacted the world of Video Gaming.

Mission, Beginnings and Role

(Game-Route) What is ICHEG’s mission?

(J.P.Dyson) ICHEG’s mission is to explore and preserve the history of video games and their impact in the world, and the way people play but also the way they live, the way they learn, and the way they relate to one another.

Press Start to Play

(Game-Route) How did ICHEG get its start?

(J.P. Dyson) ICHEG is part of the Strong, which is a museum which has, we’ll call 5 play partners.  The National Museum of Play, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the American Journal of Play, The Bryant and Smith Library and Archive, and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG).  And ICHEG itself is a natural outgrowth of the collections of the Strong. 

The Strong has the most comprehensive collection of toys, dolls and games, and as we were looking at how play was changing, we realized that video games were having a bigger impact on play than anything else.  And not just at play, but so many aspects of human life.  So we began collecting video games in 2009, and we launched ICHEG.  And since then the collection has grown from a very small collection of about 10,000 games and related artifacts when we opened ICHEG to more than 36,000 games and related artifacts today.

(Game-Route) So really this just started in 2009?

(J.P. Dyson) Yea, and there’s been rapid growth.

(Game-Route) Ok, and it became officially known as the International Center for the History of Electronic Games in 2010?

(J.P. Dyson) Yea, so initially it launched as the National Center for the History of Electronic Games, but then we realized quickly that video games are such an international business, the games, where games are made, they cross national boundaries.  And that’s only becoming more and more so, whether it’s console games coming from Japan, or MMOs coming from Korea, or Indy games coming from Europe.  It’s such an international business, that it made sense to treat it as one business, and not try to separate the U.S. segment from other segments.

ICHEG’s On-Going Work

(Game-Route) And actually, before I forget, an example of that you had mentioned when we were down in the archive area, the Royal Library of Denmark has contacted ICHEG to find out the best way to document Lego Universe before it went dark?

(J.P. Dyson) Right, exactly, so Lego Universe is going dark on January 30^th, and they face a problem, how do you preserve a record of this?  So they contacted us because we have a lot of expertise in video capture, asking what are the methods we use to preserve a video game.  And so we’ve been working with them, helping them do that, show them how we do that, what decisions we make on a technical basis, sharing some of the insights we have on what does it mean to gain a representation of a game, but then also doing some video capture for them. 

We’ve worked, for instance, with the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin, we’ve loaned artifacts to them for their exhibit.  Have had interest from other groups internationally, in another week or so we’ll have a group come in from Italy to do some filming, groups from Spain, and other places.  So, it’s definitely getting much more of an international reputation, and again, we feel that we need to preserve materials from these different regions as well.  So we have a fairly large number of Japanese games, and, um, the core of our collections are still focused on North America games and the North American games experience.

Play Across the Ages

(Game-Route) As representing a more modern mode of play in comparison to other mediums represented within Strong’s collections, did the idea to create a Center dedicated to video and electronic games experience any resistance?

(J.P. Dyson) First of all, there’s a natural correlation as we talked about, or connection, continuity, between older forms of play that we looked at in our archives and newer forms of play, such as between a doll house and The Sims, Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft.  There are multiple communities that we speak with.  And I think that one of the things, that any time you get a new form of media or new form of play, there are controversies over this. 

And so for instance in our exhibit ‘American Comic Book Heroes’ we explore some of the controversies over comic books.  And the ways that people thought comic books were threatening and caused problems.  You see the same issues with the rise of Film and the rise of Television.  So with video games you have some of those same issues.  Worries of ‘What are the contents of the material?’, ‘Are people wasting their time playing it?’. 

So, what we’re interested in doing is exploring those issues.  Not just dismissing them but saying let’s look at some of these issues.  Issues like violence.  Issues like the educational benefits, or not, of video games.  And so generally I believe we’ve received enthusiastic reception from most people, especially people of a certain generation who grew up playing games.  But within the broader community of people concerned about play and children there have been sometimes when people have said ‘Well, I’m not sure if people should be spending as much time as they do playing video games.  So, I think it’s more from that sort of standpoint that we’ve gotten, at times, questions. 

Preservation

(J.P. Dyson) But I think that when you articulate the importance of preserving this medium, and I think that even people that may be suspicious of video games still understand the impact they are having, so once you understand the impact they are having then you get to the question of do we need to preserve a record of this.  Then I think that people get the importance of why we need to do this.  That if we don’t act to preserve a record of video games, there’s a chance much of this will be lost. 

And certainly there are a lot of private individuals who have really led the way in preserving segments of video gaming history, but as an institution we can do certain things that a private individual can’t.  We can bring a long term promise to preserve things over a long period of time.  As opposed to, you know, maybe someone does something for a while, but something, they lose a record, something happens, they lose interest, whatever.

(Game-Route) Yea, where’s that handoff between when they’re not able to care for those items anymore and the next generation.

(J.P. Dyson) Exactly.  Right, so it was really private individuals who first caught the need to preserve these materials.  But now as an institution we feel that we can really aid and advance those efforts.

(Game-Route) So really it’s never been a question of the breadth of impact of the video gaming industry and whether that warrants its own center, but really maybe some of the more philosophical questions on whether this (gaming) is a good thing, or not.

(J.P. Dyson) Yea, I think so.  I mean, I imagine there are probably some people who resist the idea of preserving video games in a museum.  It seems like ‘Well, is that what museums are for?’.  But I think that we’ve been able to make a really compelling case that this is what museums need to be preserving.  And I think that we’re seeing more and more people jumping onto that bandwagon.

Please check-out the rest of this 6-part interview:

• Interview Part 1 – Mission, Beginnings & Role
• Interview Part 2 – Game Preservation Process
• Interview Part 3 – Community Partership
• Interview Part 4 – Game Maker Spotlight
• Interview Part 5 – Museum Resources
• Interview Part 6 – Preservation & Education