Status: In preparation
Expected publication: Winter 2026/2027
Author: Niklas Nylund
Abstract
Game preservation is the practice of ensuring that old videogames can be played, but also in a larger frame understood, in the future. Firstly, this means technically ensuring that games are playable, whether by saving old hardware and software, using software to emulate obsolete systems such as old game consoles within modern operating systems, producing hardware-level copies of obsolete systems, or migrating game files to current operating systems and standards to keep them operational. Secondly, game preservation deals with issues beyond the technical, such as developing the praxis of preserving information about games with the help of metadata, or tackling legal obstacles that game preservation faces. Game heritage, a closely related topic, uses reflexive social sciences methods to analyze and critique the underlying assumptions of game history and preservation. Together these two up-and-coming fields of study work towards a future where the history of videogames is playable, contextually understood and presented without biases.
Keywords: game preservation, game heritage, emulation, migration, hardware preservation
Niklas Nylund, PhD
is a researcher and curator working at the Finnish Museum of Games in Tampere, Finland. His area of research is museum work practices, game history, and game heritage.