Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife

by Raiford Guins

A cultural study of video game afterlife, whether as emulation or artifact, in an archival box or at the bottom of a landfill.

We purchase video games to play them, not to save them. What happens to video games when they are out of date, broken, nonfunctional, or obsolete? Should a game be considered an "ex-game" if it exists only as emulation, as an artifact in museum displays, in an archival box, or at the bottom of a landfill? In Game After, Raiford Guins focuses on video games not as hermetically sealed within time capsules of the past but on their material remains: how and where video games persist in the present. Guins meticulously investigates the complex life cycles of video games, to show how their meanings, uses, and values shift in an afterlife of disposal, ruins and remains, museums, archives, and private collections.

Guins looks closely at video games as museum objects, discussing the recontextualization of the Pong and Brown Box prototypes and engaging with curatorial and archival practices across a range of cultural institutions; aging coin-op arcade cabinets; the documentation role of game cartridge artwork and packaging; the journey of a game from flawed product to trash to memorialized relic, as seen in the history of Atari's infamous E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial; and conservation, restoration, and re-creation stories told by experts including Van Burnham, Gene Lewin, and Peter Takacs.

The afterlife of video games -- whether behind glass in display cases or recreated as an iPad app -- offers a new way to explore the diverse topography of game history.

Genres: Video Games, Nonfiction, Research, History

355 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Raiford Guins is Professor of Culture and Technology at Stony Brook University and the author of Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife (MIT Press).

Reviews

[Tim Lapetino · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent and thoughtful reach into the cultural value of video games. Raiford digs deep (sometimes literally) into the lives and post-lives of video games, visiting and critiquing different approaches to historical and cultural curation and preservation of these pop culture castoffs. A fascinating read, and I appreciate that he tackled this from a variety of angles, not just the professional curator's, as some of the most interesting things are happening in the margins. Recommended for the thoughtful folks, and those deeply interested in analyzing and parsing pop culture.

[Colin Post · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful exploration of the “after lives” of games from the early era of video game history, mostly focusing on coin-op arcade games. Guins brings an incredible enthusiasm and erudite knowledge of video game history to the subject. Though coming from outside LIS/archives discipline, Guins delves into the ways that archives and museums shape video game history through processes of collection development, preservation, curation. I especially appreciated Guins’ raising up the work of fans, private collectors, and professional arcade restorers — for many areas of culture, these communities are driving the preservation of cultural heritage and libraries can learn a lot from them. Guins does great qualitative research and analysis that emphasizes the expertise of these communities.

This is an excellent book for fans of games, games scholars, and preservationists of all kinds.