Interviews

November 12, 2007 

University of Texas at Austin Video Game Archives:  Interview with Brenda Gunn, Associate Director for Research and Collections at The Center for American History
by Aceinet 

Video Games are finally getting the attention they surely deserve with the Video Game Archives at the University of Texas at Austin.  

GameZone.com recently had the opportunity to interview Brenda Gunn with the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.  The University has recently started a new program with the focus on the preservation of video game history.  The University of Texas at Austin Video Game Archives will allow gamers and non-gamers the opportunity to discover what it takes to design, develop and market video games.  Thank You to Brenda for taking the time to talk about the Video Game Archives.    

Please give us some background on the University of Texas at Austin Video Game Archives.  How did this project begin? 

Brenda Gunn:  The Center for American History, in collaboration with some of the leading figures in the game industry, announces a new archive dedicated to the videogame industry. Why? The game industry is at a critical moment in its history. The need to preserve and protect its material and intellectual culture is growing, as is the need to provide primary source material for the study and advancement of the industry. As long-time game developer Warren Spector notes, “The fact is that the history of the videogame business is being written every day and, sadly, being lost just about as quickly. So here’s my thought: We need to step up NOW and recognize the cultural and academic importance of videogames. Luckily, we’re a young enough medium that nearly all of our serious practitioners are still alive and available to be interviewed and/or solicited for contributions to an archive of research and reference materials.”  

The new archive is the first to be created in Texas. It sits at the very center of this state’s burgeoning videogame industry – an industry in which popular culture, art, technology, business, and the law fuse and form a rich new environment for current and future research. With an international reputation for the caliber and accessibility of our media collections, the Center can help foster collaborative opportunities among universities, researchers, and other similar initiatives around the world. To ensure an archive of scholarly and cultural interest, the Center will gather and make available for research materials from all sectors of the industry, including developers, publishers, and artists.  

In addition to the games themselves, archival materials of interest include:

  • Documents relating to the conception, development, planning, management, marketing, scripting, technology, and design of computer and console games.

  • Art in the form of drawings, paintings, sketches, diagrams, block diagrams, play charts, environments, and other forms involved in game development projects.

  • Digital files, including development documents, art, programs, source code, images, e-mail correspondence, planning data, contracts, and business plans.

  • Physical game platforms including computers, consoles, cartridges, diskettes, controllers, sound boards, speakers, and especially early models that are no longer available for play.

  • Collateral materials used in marketing or developing games, such as posters, cut-out figures, play weapons, photos, costumes, and vehicles used to convey the sense of the games.

  • Business documents related to the operation of the game business.

  • Game player material such as e-mail correspondence, Web sites, and game magazines.

The archive will support game studies curriculum, not only at the University of Texas, but to all interested researchers wherever they call home. Formal, academic programs devoted to games studies exist in just a few universities. More commonly, at the moment, classes focusing on games and digital media are scattered throughout university catalogs. The trend will be to bring those disparate classes together under a formal unit, with a defined structure and course of study. The new archive will enhance the potential for collaboration among University departments with emerging videogame curricula and then will provide support for students and professors involved in these programs. 

What challenges have been encountered in developing the Archives?
BG:  We’re still in such an early phase that I’m not even sure we know all the challenges that might come our way. That doesn’t deter us though. We know intellectual property rights will present some interesting challenges. Providing access to the games themselves and in what format will be something we’ll need to face and get figured out. We know that digital preservation will be a huge issue and I’m very pleased to have help in sorting out the questions related to preservation from the UT’s School of Information. I think building this archive will be a wonderfully collaborative process between our staff, people from within the industry, and academics who have a research interest in games, and in the myriad topics and subjects that spin off from there.  

A different sort of challenge however is funding. Currently, we have funding for a two-year project at part time. However, to continue building the collection, we need additional funds to extend the project past the two-year mark. Two years are a good beginning, but we’re going for great here. Having someone who is dedicated to this archive means that each collection that comes in can get examined to a degree that fosters a good solid understanding of the contents of the collections. That understanding and the intimacy with the collections translates to a deeper level of detail that can go into the descriptions and research tools that we as archivists produce for our researchers. The more detailed the research tool, the greater the access and the easier it is for researchers to find material pertinent to their topic. 

What type of response have you received regarding the Archives.

BG:  People are excited about it, especially students. I receive phone calls and messages from potential researchers and students who are interested in working with or volunteering for the archive, curious about it in general, and eager to begin research. Additionally, we have gotten a very positive reaction from the industry itself. I think we’re being watched closely because we’re the only institution really putting a focus on the documentation and records associated with the production of video games.  

Who have been some of the initial donors and donations received for the Archives?

BG:  Richard Garriott, who developed the Ultima game series, joined Spector early this year in support of the archive, and they both have committed their personal papers. Others are following suit, including musician George “The Fat Man” Sanger, who has created music, sound effects, voice, and atmospheric pieces for games, television, and film since 1983.  

We’re just beginning our collection development process. More on that soon.  

How is being located in Austin, TX helped in setting up the Archives?

BG:  UT Austin is an obvious location for the archive for several reasons, the least of which is that the industry is so strong here. We have key figures and studios that are on a national and international level. From Richard’s, Warren’s, and George’s support and endorsement, we receive attention and interest in the archive, which has a direct positive impact on the development of it. We will soon have a project archivist because of the success of the fundraiser held in September. The fundraiser was timed to coincide with the Game Developers Conference in Austin and also with Richard’s advance press events for Tabula Rasa, which was tied into the GDC also. The University of Texas is a major research institution and our special collections and archival collections rank in the top 10 in the country in terms of the sheer volume of material and among the repositories on this campus, the Center for American History has the greatest volume of material.

How can the archives help in changing the opinions of individuals unfamiliar with video games?

BG:  Scholarship will be the driving force that changes opinions. Publications that stem from the academic scholarship routine will put video games in front of people in very different ways. In the non-academic community, I expect we’ll see people, who have never given video games any consideration, one way or another, respond to the archive simply because it is attached to a major university. For them, video games on an academic campus carry an endorsement of a sort that there’s more to the games than the playing. 

Publications, articles, courses, students, faculty, industry people will be the ones to change opinions. We’re in a supporting role in that we’ll provide the raw material from which the article, the book, the course will be written. 

Do I think our society is at a point to accept video games as more than “just a game?”

BG:  I think if we’re not at that point, we’re not too far away. Maybe I have that opinion because I do live in Austin where the industry is strong and I work in an academic setting where acceptance of art forms may come earlier than they do in other settings. If we’re at the point where we’re even asking the question, then acceptance isn’t too far away. Preserving the history of video games and the industry is our way of saying there’s more to this than a game.  

Tells us your thoughts on the Library of Congress starting a video game archive? 

BG:  Having the Library of Congress involved in archiving video games just furthers the endorsement that this industry has a history worth preserving. It is especially important that LC is supporting research projects that will yield valuable information for all of us who are attempting to preserve digital content. This is a tremendous contribution and they are the natural ones to do it.   

Where would you like to see the Archives in ten years? 

BG:  I’d love to see a full-time archivist dedicated to this Archives. I’d love for our fundraising efforts be successful enough to endow a staff position to continue bringing in new collections, working with the existing ones, and facilitating access for researchers. I would expect that in that length of time we’d see a steady stream of research for PhD dissertations, Master’s theses, undergraduate reports as well as the myriad of other publications that can grow out of research. I want us to be right in the middle of scholarship, maybe to the extent that we’ve helped sponsor book-length treatments on the industry. 

I’d like for us to have well-established relationships with key industry figures and companies and that their papers and records will continue coming in as they become inactive or not needed for personal or business needs.  

I hope the archives will be supporting more courses on this campus and others worldwide.  

I hope our efforts and experiences will be a model for others.  

And I’d love to see an archivist show up in a best-selling game! We’re cool after all. We collect video games! 

Readers can learn more at the following:
http://www.cah.utexas.edu/projects/videogamearchive/index.html