Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Archaeogaming: An Introduction to Archaeology in and of Video Games

2019; Penn State University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.7.2.0257

2166-3556

Michael A. Johnson,

Archaeogaming, by Andrew Reinhard, is an introductory text to a relatively new subfield of archaeology. At first glance, the title of this work immediately brings to mind media studies of archaeology focusing on well-worn characters such as Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series or the various adaptations of Indiana Jones to the gaming universe. While Reinhard does spend some time discussing media representation of archaeology and archaeologists in video games, his project is significantly broader than this, aspiring to outline a variety of perspectives from which archaeological thought can be brought to bear on digital worlds and their impact in “meatspace” (that is, real life) (p. 2). The book is divided into six sections, with four primary chapters as well as the introduction and conclusion. The primary chapters are essentially categorical, with the first three addressing, in order, an archaeology of the video game industry, archaeology in video games, and video games as sites of study in their own right. The fourth chapter, titled “Material Culture of the Immaterial” addresses a mixture of these topics. The final substantive section of the book is an appendix (pp. 203–9) containing the code of ethics for the No Man's Sky Archaeological Survey (NMSAS) discussed in Chapter 3 (pp. 130–48).After opening the introduction with a series of short vignettes from his own life to illustrate a few scenarios where the archaeogaming moniker might apply, Reinhard launches into a discussion of what archaeogaming is and identifies it as being analogous to real-world archaeology. Accordingly, archaeogaming addresses five themes (p. 3), though these are more of a starting point than an exhaustive list. The first is rather uncontroversial, being the study of the material culture of gaming. Having gone through roughly five decades of development, digital gaming has generated a substantial material assemblage and has been the driving force behind the development of a variety of social phenomena (see Chapters 1 and 4). Second is the representation of archaeology and museum studies in video games and the handling of topics such as looting, ethics, and racism (Chapter 2, pp. 172–75). Third, and perhaps most interesting (or frustrating, given the seemingly infinite number of debates that could emerge from the topic!), is the notion of doing archaeology in video games. There are a variety of issues to discuss here ranging from how to conceive of games as archaeological sites to the question of whether in-game cultures are truly cultures in the sense of aggregates of phenomena transmitted through social learning. Whether one agrees with Reinhard or not, the notion of conducting archaeology in video games as discussed in the book provides much to think about. The fourth and fifth themes are more vaguely worded, justifying direct quotation so the reader may try to parse their meaning for themselves: Archaeogaming is the approach to understanding how game design manifests everything players see and interact with in-world.Archaeogaming is the archaeology of game mechanics and the entanglement of code with players. Video games are multisensory collections of interactive math, so what deeper meaning(s) can the video game archaeologist infer from these new kinds of archaeological sites and how players engage with them? (p. 3) The remainder of the introductory chapter provides the theoretical foundations for the project of archaeogaming as well as several discussions of instances where archaeogaming overlaps with other academic fields and the role of archaeologists as game designers. This is followed by a brief chapter summary and explanation of what the book is intended to accomplish.Throughout the book, Reinhard uses three agent perspectives to structure much of the discussion and his theoretical framework (p. 8). The first of these is that of the developer. From this view, topics of interest include issues of coding and game design (pp. 41–53), the archaeology of developer sites (pp. 39–40), as well as some issues of discard (pp. 23–29). Many of these arguments and discussions will be familiar to archaeologists of any background, often centering on issues of typology and seriation, abandonment, and historical narrative. In particular, the story of the excavation of the Atari Burial Ground (pp. 23–29), with its pursuit of a supposed myth, evokes a certain Schliemann-esque quality. The second perspective to note is that of the player. This represents the study of human interaction with game media and takes us into diverse realms such as the social function of arcade spaces (pp. 35–39), the social impact of the home-console and later MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games (pp. 37–38), and the creation of real-world gaming-culture phenomena such as cosplay (pp. 180–88). Finally, there is the perspective of the player's avatar (character manifestation) in-game. This mechanic, the rule-bound entity through which players interact with the game environment as constructed by developers (pp. 5, 7, 91, 96–97), forms part of the foundation for Reinhard's argument that games represent archaeological sites.This notion of the game as archaeological site represents one of the major theoretical issues of this book, and is addressed at some length at various points (pp. 5–12, 88–95, 159). The first line of reasoning for this perspective lies in the role of games as a form of blended reality, “which contains not only the physical artifacts of mobile phones and computers but also born-digital artifacts that reside within space we cannot see without the aid of hardware, artifacts within artifacts” (p. 7; see also pp. 53–58). Without this consideration—that interaction with digital artifacts is discrete from interactions with artifacts in the physical—the act of playing a video game seems more easily reducible to the interactive observation of a piece of art. The major distinction here is that interaction with a video game (some, at least) results in some alteration of the fabric of the game-world that is then theoretically observable by the archaeogamer (pp. 94–95). Thus, the game-world represents one site-like manifestation that is dependent on player interaction with games through the mediator of an avatar; but what of the developers and player interaction with the game as code?From the developer perspective, they are the original crafter of the game-artifact, complete with ideas of how the game should be played and what it is meant to accomplish. The self-representation of their work can be observed through examination of the physical game media or, increasingly, digital advertisement and packaging of games on distribution hubs such as Steam. Beyond this, the study of the installation of a game on a computer or other device, as well as the study of the underlying code of the game offer interesting insights into the technological style of the game and even the chaîne opératoire behind the creation of the game world. For Reinhard, the installation location also represents an archaeological site (pp. 90–91), with different versions of code for a game representing stratigraphic layers (p. 53). In this perspective, games may be understood as assemblages of code spread across the site of the installation directory. Taking this approach further, if the game as installed represents the site created by developers with all of their concerns and motivations in mind, player modification of code (modding) essentially represents a secondary occupation of that site (pp. 52–53, 90).As one would naturally expect for an introductory text, however, there is the question of the methods used to pursue these larger intellectual goals. For studying the physical remains of the video game industry, the use of current archaeological methods is clear and straightforward, involving the digging and survey that most archaeologists recognize. The archaeology of modernity has been established for some time now and this constitutes part of that endeavor (p. 5). The archaeology of video games—as collections of code installed on computers—is somewhat more complex, though the application of seriation, typology, and stratigraphy (pp. 46–53) seems well suited to the task. Indeed, the provision of version numbers and patch notes gives the emic (developer-oriented) organization of different versions as well as a list of what changed and often why it was changed. This leaves the question of methods for conducting archaeology in video games (pp. 108–48). The first aspect of this discussion concerns the development of purpose-made digital tools for use by the archaeogamer. This section is rather brief, I suspect due to the nascent nature of the archaeogaming endeavor. For the remainder of the section on methods, Reinhard pursues the line that traditional archaeological methods are suited to the investigation of digital spaces (see pp. 130–48), utilizing modern texts on project design and investigative methods (p. 111). If we go so far as to accept the premise that in-game space does constitute an archaeological site, then many of the suggestions within the book are reasonable with the caveat that the archaeogamer's capacity for action is limited by the same rules that govern the behavior of a player's avatar.On the whole, I find many of the arguments presented in this book to be compelling and there is much to be learned about human behavior, the ways we think about culture, and the nature of digital (not quite material) culture from the study of video games. That being said, there are two major areas that this book could address more effectively. The first of these, mentioned above, is whether or not the in-game environment, constituted by the landscapes and cultures of the game, independent of player-presence, are representative of anything more than a developer's idealized aesthetic vision of another culture or the output of an algorithm (p. 6) designed to create game spaces within certain parameters. Except in historical games, the material culture utilized in game space is not the result of active use and technological development, which constitute a large part of what makes studying material culture an effective way of learning about human behavior. Even then, the extent to which developer representations of history are representative of anything other than modern stereotypes of technology and culture is questionable. As a result, it is not always clear what the imagined outcome of this research should be. Furthermore, there is the matter of comparability of data. One of the great strengths of archaeology is that all of our assemblages are linked forward and backward in time to one another and were produced under the same sets of natural laws, with technology being the mediating factor that expanded or constrained human capacity for action within those laws. In addition, though social rules differed in how this might be pursued, it can be argued that, at a minimum, all people share the common goals of eating, drinking, and finding shelter. No such continuity exists in the world of video games—everything, right down to the rules of physics and the point of playing varies from game to game (this even includes some series, such as Age of Empires or Dawn of War). This is not such a problem from the developer and player agentive perspectives given above, because they are using the game as an artifact. As for the practice of archaeology of game worlds, how can data be compared between games and what do we hope to learn from this study?As someone who has played video games ever since they can remember, starting on an ancient Apple II in the late 1980s, right up to now when this book tempted me back into playing No Man's Sky, putting my PhD in mortal danger, the project proposed in this book is fascinating. In this view, I am inclined to agree that archaeogaming represents a unique avenue for communicating with the public about archaeology, what it is, and how it is done. As an archaeologist, the theoretical issues posed by Reinhard are thoroughly intriguing, particularly as they relate to the nature of culture and the impact of not just digital technology, but entire digital universes, on human society. It is not possible to write off video games as interactive art or interactive stories—real societies populated by real people (pp. 147–48) have emerged in them, some so alluring that, unfortunately, some individuals have largely abandoned their physical existences in favor of the digital (WHO 2018). As such, digital space is increasingly an arena where evidence of human activity is accumulating, accompanied by the physical ephemera of production processes and use, meaning that archaeology is well-positioned to approach these topics. It is apparent, however, that significant thought needs to be given to some theoretical concerns unique to this realm, as well as to the methods needed for its investigation. This book is clearly not for everyone, being best suited to archaeologists with at least a modest level of gaming experience and a strong interest in theory. Nevertheless, for those interested in the archaeology of modernity including “internet archaeology,” it represents a significant introduction to investigations of a rapidly expanding area of human activity.