(Video Game) Preservation is Political : Video Games as a Cultural Force and Heritage

Video games are one of the major cultural phenomena of the digital age. In just a few decades, they have become a leading form of entertainment, reaching more people and generating more revenue than film or music. What makes them particularly significant as cultural heritage is how closely they are linked to the development of digital technology itself.

Games reflect a deep human tendency to experiment with new tools. This is sometimes called the ludic drive—the impulse to play, to test boundaries, and to create meaning through interaction. Whenever new technologies appear, people often begin by playing with them, trying to understand what they can do. Video games emerge directly from this kind of engagement. They are not only technical achievements or entertainment products, but also evidence of how people relate to, and shape, digital systems.

In this sense, video games help us understand both the broader historical processes of digitalisation and the creative ways people have responded to those changes.

Who we are: Confederatio Ludens

Confederatio Ludens is a research group made up of 20 people from four universities in Switzerland. Our team includes sociologists, cultural anthropologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, design researchers, game designers, and historians. Each of us brings a different perspective to questions around games and their cultural significance.

Our work focuses on the history of digital games in Switzerland. We are not only interested in the games themselves or the companies that produced them. We also look at gaming culture more broadly, including gender representation, informal networks and communities, early gaming journalism, and how games connected to movements like the demoscene or the early history of computerisation in everyday life.

One reason we started this project is because most existing histories of digital games are centred on the United States, Japan, and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom. These accounts tend to follow a narrative of individual inventors and iconic titles, often overlooking the wider cultural and technological developments in other parts of the world. In contrast, we are interested in how games were part of everyday life in Switzerland, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s, when home computers were becoming common and people were exploring what these machines could do.

For many, games were not just a way to pass the time. They were a way to learn, to imagine new possibilities, and to understand emerging digital technologies.

Preserving Context, Not Just Code

A key part of our work is the preservation of games, their metadata, and their surrounding stories. This kind of preservation is not just about saving files or keeping old devices running. Games do not exist in isolation. Their meaning is shaped by many overlapping contexts, and these are often difficult to capture through the software alone.

First, there is the technological context. This includes the hardware and infrastructure that supported the game—what kind of computer it ran on, whether it used floppy disks or cartridges, and how it has aged over time. Many of these formats are now obsolete or at risk of disappearing.

Then there is the social and domestic context. Was the game played on a shared family computer, on a personal device in a teenager’s bedroom, or in a computer lab at school? These settings influence how games were experienced and remembered.

Finally, there is the broader historical and cultural context. Games reflect the politics, media, economic systems, and social expectations of their time. Pop culture references, marketing strategies, and community reception all shape how a game is understood.

Because of this complexity, games are not just digital objects. They are part of a larger network of practices, technologies, and relationships. Effective preservation needs to account for all of these layers.

Preservation is Political

Preserving digital games and their histories is not a neutral task. It is shaped by decisions, values, and power dynamics. In the current political climate, where cultural memory and public knowledge are increasingly under pressure, this work becomes even more important.

I take inspiration from Donna Haraway’s concept of situated knowledges. In her writing, Haraway challenges the idea of objectivity in research and calls instead for a more honest recognition of the researcher’s position. Knowledge, she argues, is always shaped by perspective, and it is important to acknowledge both what we see and what we miss.

This idea resonates with my own role in this work. First, I recognise that I am in a position of influence. The research I do and the things I choose to preserve affect what future generations will be able to remember. Second, I understand that by focusing on one game, one story, or one person, I am inevitably leaving something else out.

Laine Nooney addresses this issue beautifully in her essay A Pedestal, A Table, A Love Letter, where she looks at how the story of video games has often focused on the object—the game itself—without considering the conditions in which it was created. She points out that gender has long been ignored in these histories and argues for an approach that includes emotional and material context. This perspective allows us to ask different questions and to notice whose contributions have been made visible or invisible.

Games as Assemblages

To better understand the full significance of games, I have found it helpful to think of them as assemblages. This means looking at a game not just as a single object, but as a cluster of related elements: the code, the interface, the hardware, the player experiences, the communities, and the media that surrounded it.

Dany Guay-Bélanger’s work Assembling Auras offers a useful framework here. He suggests that preservation efforts should include things like fan fiction, forum discussions, Twitch streams, and other forms of paratext. These materials help us understand how games were played, interpreted, and valued by their communities.

At Confederatio Ludens, we follow this approach. We believe that video games should be preserved as cultural assemblages—complex and multi-layered, shaped by both their technical features and their social lives. We also see preservation as a practice shaped by our own choices and values. Haraway’s thinking helps us stay aware of this. Instead of pretending to be objective, we try to be transparent and reflective about what we do.

What’s at Stake?

Digital culture is fragile. Software becomes inaccessible, hardware breaks down, and formats disappear. At the same time, we are seeing political efforts to rewrite or erase parts of our shared cultural memory. This makes it all the more urgent to protect the complexity and richness of digital play.

Preserving games is not just about saving data. It is about honouring the creative, social, and emotional labour that went into making and playing them. It is about paying attention to the contexts in which games existed and recognising their cultural value beyond the commercial market.

This kind of preservation requires care, time, and thoughtful attention. But it is also a way of resisting simplified, one-sided stories about technology. It allows us to remember that digital culture is not just built by corporations or celebrated designers, but also by ordinary people experimenting, learning, and finding meaning through play.

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Adrian Demleitner (he/him) is a PhD candidate at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB), where he researches Swiss video games, digital humanities, and the cultural impact of code. His background spans design research, process design, and critical code studies. Before starting his PhD, he worked as a scientific software programmer, junior researcher, and full-stack developer. His research interests include sustainable software, archival practices, and the intersection of art and technology.

Are you interested in learning more and getting hands-on? Join us for the upcoming TechBrunch workshop with Adrian Demleitner on Sunday 29.06.25. More information can be found here. Both this blog post and the TechBrunch workshop ares part of the series A Journey Through Our Digital Past and is supported by the Foundation for Art, Culture, and History (SKKG).