ICHEG Interview – Part 6

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 the 6th and final part of this multi-part series, we discuss the role that ICHEG and other institutions play in the education and preservation of video games and video gaming history.

Preservation & Education

(Game-Route) What role, if any do institutions such as ICHEG play in educating the public about electronic games?  Does this role go beyond presenting the history of the medium?

(J.P. Dyson) Well I think we do a number of things.  One is what we do, and the other is what we enable others to do. 

So, first of all, we, by gathering materials, make them available to scholars.  We’re able to encourage the broader discussion on video games and research of video games here.  So, we enable a scholar to do his or her work better because we’ve gathered these materials.  We ourselves, I think, play a role in raising some of these issues around games and discussing the broader history of games. 

So that’s both in terms of exploring individual history and individual themes, but then also presenting viewpoints on scholarship related to other issues, such as we were talking about downstairs, violence.  And the Strong’s other partners play a role in this too, especially the American Journal of Play, will publish articles on games and their impact on learning from authors such as James Gee.  Or we published an article on aspects of play in MMOs.  So, we have a role in promoting discussions on some of these issues around games as well.

(Game-Route) So really it’s both presenting the history from maybe a pure historical standpoint, presenting some of these questions to the museum-goers, and then also acting as an enabler for other researchers and other individuals to explore, whether it’s the social aspects of gaming, or the impact on society as a whole, or education, or any of those types of things.

(J.P. Dyson) Right, and so by preserving the materials, individual scholars can bring their own questions to this, that maybe we don’t think of, or their own perspective.  But we present the materials that provide good scholarship and that make good scholarship possible on these subjects.  So that’s not our only role, we also want to interpret it ourselves, but again gathering the materials is not for our own benefit.  And that’s part of our educational mission as a museum, is to not only explore it ourselves but to encourage this.

(Game-Route) It’s funny, when you said that I had this image of Scrooge McDuck and his Money Bin.

(J.P. Dyson) And sometimes that happens.  People gather incredible collections, but their goal is not to share it.  Their goal is to really get it because that’s what they want to do.  And in some ways they’re serving a great purpose.

(Game-Route) At least it’s not getting tossed in the trash, which is good.

(J.P. Dyson) Exactly, and that’s very important, what they’re doing.  But ultimately, to be really useful to society you need to make this stuff available as well.  And I think we won’t be, we’re not the only museum doing this.  I feel like we’re farther along than pretty much anyone else.  But video games are too important to be the province of only one museum or one individual collector or something.  It’s too large, having too much of an impact on society.

(Game-Route) Well that’s a good point too.  There’s not one art museum in the world.

(J.P. Dyson) Exactly, yea.  And the problems are so many, there are going to be different approaches to it.  Some people firmly believe emulation is the answer to everything.  Other people are like ‘Go with only original components’.  You know?  There are different perspectives, and by having a multitude of different people working on it, it all helps. 

And so in some respects we want to bring people together who are working on it.  We hosted this ‘Preserving Virtual Worlds’ because we feel like it’s an important project.  How do we bring people and different institutions together?  How do we help them to help each other, to do this job.  A lot of art museums out in the world there are going to be a lot more.  There’ll be a lot more video games museums out there eventually too.

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