Game Canon and Game History

Game Canon and Game History

Games have developed into an important form of cultural expression that needs to be appropriately archived and examined in relation to established cultural forms. They are part of various cultural institutions that collect cultural artifacts. The selection of computer games varies not only according to the profile of the institution, but also in terms of format, accompanying material, and, in particular, the consoles used. For purely pragmatic reasons, cultural institutions that collect define specific criteria for the cultural assets to be collected. How can these criteria be defined for a game collection in order to achieve a documentation of game history that is as comprehensive, diverse, and varied as possible? Can the canon debates from literary or film studies and the associated practices, such as retrospectives in cultural centers and film museums, be transferred to game studies? What are the milestones of game culture? What approaches arise in comparison to other media and their archiving practices? What is archived in a game collection beyond the code or the game board? What is interesting in terms of game mechanics, technology, or narrative? What dependencies arise in the relationship between software and hardware? Can game history be written nationally? What does a pluralistic and grassroots history of games look like?

Games have developed into an important form of cultural expression that needs to be appropriately archived and examined in relation to established cultural forms. They are part of various cultural institutions that collect cultural artifacts. The selection of computer games varies not only according to the profile of the institution, but also in terms of format, accompanying material, and, in particular, the consoles used. For purely pragmatic reasons, cultural institutions that collect define specific criteria for the cultural assets to be collected. How can these criteria be defined for a game collection in order to achieve a documentation of game history that is as comprehensive, diverse, and varied as possible? Can the canon debates from literary or film studies and the associated practices, such as retrospectives in cultural centers and film museums, be transferred to game studies? What are the milestones of game culture? What approaches arise in comparison to other media and their archiving practices? What is archived in a game collection beyond the code or the game board? What is interesting in terms of game mechanics, technology, or narrative? What dependencies arise in the relationship between software and hardware? Can game history be written nationally? What does a pluralistic and grassroots history of games look like?

Dr. Dîlan Canan Çakir is a literary scholar in German studies and a Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, currently based at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her research focuses on German literature (18th – 21th centuries), activism and literature, digital exile literature, and game studies. She previously worked at the Cluster of Excellence „Temporal Communities – Doing Literature in a Global Perspective“ at the Free University of Berlin.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Rauscher is Professor of Media Theory and Media History at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern (Virtual Design). His research focuses on film and media studies, game studies, and transmediality, with particular interest in the interplay between film and games. He previously held positions at the Universities of Freiburg, Siegen, Kiel, and Mainz.

Highlights

• Discusses the canon debates and their impact on gaming research Explore the diversity of archived games and their cultural significance Examines the challenges of documenting gaming history

Über den Autor

Dr. Dîlan Canan Çakir has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities” at Freie Universität Berlin since July 2023. There she conducts research on activism and literature, digital exile literature, and games and literature. She holds a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which includes a research stay at the University of Cambridge beginning in January 2026. Until June 2023, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the “Born-digitals” project at the German Literature Archive in Marbach.