Game canon

The game canon is a list of video games to be considered for preservation by the Library of Congress. The New York Times called the creation of this list "an assertion that digital games have a cultural significance and a historical significance".[1] Game canon is modeled on the efforts of the National Film Preservation Board, which produces an annual list of films that are subsequently added to the National Film Registry, which is managed by the Library of Congress. The game canon committee comprises Henry Lowood, game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky, Matteo Bittanti, and Joystiq journalist Christopher Grant.

For the concept of official elements of a video game, see Canon (fiction).

History

The game canon project was started by Henry Lowood, curator of the History of Science and Technology Collections at Stanford University. He started to preserve video games and video-game artifacts in 1998, and in the years following, he has noted that video games are something worthy of preserving.[1] Henry Lowood submitted the proposal to the Library of Congress in September 2006, and during the 2007 Game Developers Conference, he announced the game canon.

In September 2012 the Library of Congress had already 3,000 games from many platforms and also around 1,500 strategy guides.[2]

List of games considered

The initial list consists of 10 video games that are each considered to represent the beginning of a genre that is still vital in the video game industry.[3]

Criticisms

Lowood's canon has been criticized by video game theorists and academics who consider his list limited and unrepresentative. In 2010, a featured article on Gamasutra criticized in detail many aspects of the game canon,[4] such as how the list had no explanations supporting the video games selected. The review stated that in limiting the list of historically and culturally significant video games to ten, many other innovative video games had unfairly been excluded. The article also criticizes the list for being limited to only video games considered to be innovative, and not also including innovations in video gaming.

See also

References
  1. Chaplin, Heather (2007-03-12). "Is That Just Some Game? No, It's a Cultural Artifact". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
  2. Owens, Trevor (2012-09-26). "Yes, The Library of Congress Has Video Games: An Interview with David Gibson". blogs.loc.gov. Archived from the original on 2014-03-31. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
  3. Ransom-Wiley, James. "10 most important video games of all time, as judged by 2 designers, 2 academics, and 1 lowly blogger". Joystiq.
  4. Mensah, Gareth (2010-11-12). "The Canon 2.0". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2010-11-26.
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