FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2024

The cultural and historical value of videogames can no longer be ignored. Yet, as an interactive medium, video games still continue to provide a challenge in archives and as a historical basis. At the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision we've incorporated a strategy to preserve games in interactive form by leveraging emulation, working together with the rights holders of these games and presenting them to the public in interactive methods to broaden the understanding and highlight this aspect of our archive.

In this session we put all our cards (and controllers) on the table and explain our methodology, how working with the game's creators themselves allows us to bring a new perspective on video game preservation and how to present games as cultural heritage to the general public. Preserving interactive media and software through emulation, may even be applied in fields other than video games, making them valuable tools even if your institution has yet to take the plunge on games-preservation.