From Trash to Treasure: Exploring how video games are moving from popular culture to cultural heritage

Abstract

Video games are now recognized as an important part of our culture and history. However, this redefinition of the cultural value of video games has received scant academic attention. In this paper I explore the transformation video games have, and are undergoing by: 1) drawing on the event of the first excavation searching for video game history in the Alamogordo Landfill in New Mexico and 2) interviews with collection and exhibition experts in charge of video games in two U.S. museums: MoMA, New York and MADE, Oakland. Results explore how video games have gone from trash to treasure as exemplified by the excavation of the 1982 Atari game E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. As video games enter museums they become valued using traditional western ideals on how cultural heritage is defined, based on ideals of age, materiality, monumentality, and aesthetics. Yet, the interactivity imperative of video games makes new evaluation structures relevant.