In this post, I’d like to share a presentation organized by the Society of American Archivists Student Chapter at SJSU I attended. They interview an actual video game archivist employed by Sony’s Santa Monica Studio working on the God of War franchise.

In summary, on-going archival facilitates product development in the present, as well as maintaining an internal historic record, which can allow public-facing materialsin the distant future. These include text, images, audio/video, 3D models, and miscellaneous materials that are great for marketing and PR.

At around 12 minutes, the speaker addresses game code, and what happens when developers want to update an old game to current platforms. Sony has a separate software preservation team, but when there is none, what then? And what if you don’t have access to design documentation? Well, one way is to get a bunch of game designers to study a game down to its tiniest feature, break down its behavior, and remake it as best you can, and risk losting some design authenticity in the process.

Alison Quirion, also an SJSU MLIS graduate in ‘21, presented her experience on navigating the world of video game archival. She also had a long established career in the video game industry working in marketing and brand management. I don’t know much about that department, but I have a feeling they deal with a lot of their own digital game-related assets and campaigns when selling the game in different avenues. So I believe the hiring manager got really lucky finding someone with her experience.

In this article for Archival Outlook that she contributed with other authors are some points I want to highlight.

“…active archiving must be done before, during, and after completion.”

“The most common function of the archives is to assist with product research and development”

“For a live service game… Essentially, you are preserving the history of tomorrow, today.”

“Development teams working on new versions or extensions of franchise games or external business partners working on licensed products often request specific assets or development documents.”

It seems at first that archiving is an expense that only corporate video game companies can afford. But if smaller companies can manage to allow their artists, designers, and developers to document their work and preserve the context around their digital assets from the start, it provides groundwork not only for potential IP, but for preservation and possibly further development in the future.