By Kyle Neill
Video Game Collection Background
In late 2018, the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point Archives began curating a collection of video games. After recognizing an on-campus need for video game related research and receiving much support from faculty and students, archivists successfully presented a proposal to begin development of our Historic Video Game Collection. Today, the UWSP Archives preserves and provides access to a collection of over 300 video game titles across more than 40 gaming systems. Video games in the collection represent six decades from the 1970s through the 2020s and support a range of programming and instruction initiatives at UWSP.
The mission of the Historic Video Game Collection is to acquire, preserve, and provide access to video games in their original formats, including consoles, cartridges, discs, hand-held systems, controllers, and accessories in support of scholarly activity and research, student learning, teaching excellence, and curricular development.
The mission of the Historic Video Game Collection is to acquire, preserve, and provide access to video games in their original formats, including consoles, cartridges, discs, hand-held systems, controllers, and accessories in support of scholarly activity and research, student learning, teaching excellence, and curricular development. In relation to our focus on collecting video games in their original formats, the UWSP Archives also houses a collection of period-appropriate televisions that video game consoles would have originally been played on, solidifying an authentic historical gaming experience.
In collecting “historic” video games, our collection is curated by identifying objectively popular and influential games that are notable within a genre or sub-genre, that innovated new technologies for gaming, are premiere titles in popular series, or are otherwise historically significant as supported by historical video game reviews, notoriety in culture, and scholarship.
The existence of the collection was initially promoted in what became our Exam Cram Video Games program. During UWSP’s week of final exams, we set up many consoles and games in the main lobby of our library to provide students studying for exams with mentally beneficial study breaks to help alleviate the stresses of cramming for final exams.1 After much positive student feedback, Exam Cram Video Games became a popular reoccurring use of the video game collection and has beneficially promoted its visibility.
engaging with the Historic Video Game Collection.
Video games in primary source instruction
Prior to selecting video games to use in primary source instruction, you must first consider the role video games will play in an instruction session. Is a class specifically seeking video game related instruction? Will video games populate just one station of many in a broader instruction session? Will video games play a central or complimentary role in the purpose of the instruction session? Is a class seeking instruction tailored to a specific assignment, or a general information session? Below, I will outline several instances of video games used in primary source instruction at the UWSP Archives to provide answers for these categories.
Gaming objects are set out to explore in two categories—handheld and console games—and then chronologically by release. The result is a visual depiction of the evolution of gaming for students to sit down and engage with.
Hosting our “Media History” course in the UWSP Archives could be considered low-hanging fruit when considering how to incorporate video games into primary source instruction. Students in this class are tasked with choosing one of many historical media objects showcased during their visit to the Archives and writing a report on that object. Categories of media include word processing technologies, audio, animation, audiovisual, and video games. While video games are not the sole focus of the class, they have grown to consist of over one third of the historic media provided for student exploration, by popular demand. Gaming objects are set out to explore in two categories—handheld and console games—and then chronologically by release. The result is a visual depiction of the evolution of gaming for students to sit down and engage with. Students get to enjoy and consider for research several popular gaming systems from the 1970s–1990s: Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, Nintendo Game Boy (along with its Pocket and Color iterations), PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64, and many more.
archival materials for a primary source instruction session.
It comes as no surprise that the Archives hosts numerous history classes for instruction each semester. While video games are rarely the sole focus of an instruction visit for a history class, they do make frequent appearances to invite students to consider how video games might be used in historical research. In a class we host each semester entitled “Archival Research and Writing,” students are introduced to archives and primary source research, and focus their semester on a research paper informed by primary sources. While the Historic Video Game Collection is introduced to each class to be made aware of its existence, students may choose whether to engage in research with video games or any of our other archival collections. Research topics in this course have made use of a selection of Assassin’s Creed games to explore historical accuracies and inaccuracies presented in historically based video games.2 Titles such as Super Mario Bros., Ice Hockey, Sonic the Hedgehog, EarthBound, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 have been used in examining 1980s and 1990s entertainment and pop culture.3 Violence in video games and the moral panic of the 1990s and 2000s have been studied using various Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto installations. Other history courses like the Japan-themed “Images of the Samurai,” and “Modern Japan” courses have made use of games like Bushido Blade, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice to examine modern romanticized depictions of samurai, and Yakuza 3 to explore fictionalized locals of Tokyo’s red-light district Kabukichō, and Naha, Okinawa which contain recreations of real-life landmarks from these places.4
Women’s and gender studies courses have made use of video games to examine depictions of gender roles, examples of gender stereotypes, or early examples of female protagonists in gaming. One common research project among students is to examine the oversexualized Lara Croft character from Tomb Raider and compare her with more recent, less sexualized versions of the character such as in Rise of the Tomb Raider.5 In this process, students will often take notes or capture screen shots on Lara Croft’s character design, noting exaggerated feminine features, describing mannerisms the character portrays or how other characters in the game interact with her. They will then compare these observations with the more recent iteration of the adventurous protagonist and make comments on her evident desexualized appearance, and if there has been any observable change in her mannerisms or how other characters in the game interact with her. As such, these two games from the same series become primary sources in students’ discussions of the portrayal of women in video games across a period of time in gaming history.
scenes. These juxtaposed screenshots show dramatic changes to Lara Croft’s
character design and presentation, especially in regard to her snowy environment.
In using video games during an archives instruction session or during a research appointment, students are provided access to the full game for an authentic experience. Instruction sessions are often lively during exploration and hands-on time, so students’ engagement with video games does not constitute any disruption. When accessing the video game collection during a regular research visit, an appointment is required in advance to ensure we can have a console, television, and any necessary accessories set up and ready to be used. To mitigate any potential noise disruptions, we will often set up video games in our adjacent instruction room when it is available, or use a headphones-compatible television if a game must be set up in our reading room.
Selecting video games to use in primary source instruction for specific assignments and topical courses presents the bulk of an archivist’s work when considering how to incorporate games. When selecting video games for general information sessions not tied to certain themes, simply present a selection of games that have successfully been used in instruction and student research previously. Library-hosted courses such as “Information Literacy Skills for College-Level Research,” and “Critical Approaches to Information Research” visit to discover archives as a source of information. Among other collections, video games are often presented to students to challenge them to think about what items or objects can be thought about as information, and how a video game may be used as a primary source for a given research topic. Examples given simply reflect a variety of specific examples presented previously. Smaller, representative selections of systems and games are provided for students to explore based on how other students have already used these types of information successfully in their own research. This approach is effective at engaging often first and second year students in thinking about how video games are applicable to academic research.
Conclusion
The UWSP Archives’ Historic Video Game Collection has been well used in primary source instruction and student research. When considering how to select video games for student engagement in primary source instruction, it is often best to begin with a more specific approach rather than a broader one. Some topical classes or specific research assignments can make more obvious use of video games than others. Beginning with media classes that may look specifically at video games for the sake of video games, to topical classes that may draw connections with information presented in games, to humanities courses that can take advantage of cultural representations in games, you can build ideas to present to broader or more general courses based on these specific examples of successfully using video games in primary source instruction.
- Kyle Neill and Brad Casselberry, “Exam Cram: Providing Video Games for Final Exam Study Breaks,” in
52 Ready-To-Use Gaming Programs for Libraries, ed. Ellyssa Kroski (Chicago: American Library
Association, 2020), 121-125. ↩︎ - Ubisoft Montreal, Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft Entertainment SA, PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360,
2007. ↩︎ - Super Mario Bros., Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1985; Ice Hockey, Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1988; Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Corporation, Sega Genesis, 1991; Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory, EarthBound, Nintendo, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, 1994; Neversoft Entertainment, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, Activision, PlayStation, 2000. ↩︎
- Mortal Kombat, Midway Games, Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, 1993; DMA Design, Grand Theft Auto, BMG Interactive, PlayStation, 1997; Lightweight, Bushido Blade, Sony Computer Entertainment, PlayStation, 1997; FromSoftware, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Activision Publishing, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox
One, 2019; Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Yakuza 3, Sega Corporation, PlayStation 3, 2009. ↩︎ - Core Design, Tomb Raider, Eidos Interactive, PlayStation and Sega Saturn, 1996; Crystal Dynamics, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Microsoft Studios and Square Enix, PlayStation 4,
Windows, and Xbox One, 2015. ↩︎
Kyle Neill is the Instruction and Digital Archivist and Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point Archives and Area Research Center. He earned his MLIS from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2018. Kyle’s work focuses on his students: teaching, leading internships, and mentoring future archivists. He is also an avid gamer and considers it an absolute privilege to curate a historic video game collection.