Introduction to the National Videogame Archive

Formed in 2008 as a partnership between the National Media Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and drawing on expertise from colleagues at Bath Spa University, the National Videogame Archive (NVA) aims to collect, interpret, make accessible for study and research and, where possible, exhibit videogames and the associated ephemera of videogame cultures.

Formerly known as the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, the National Media Museum changed its name in 2006 to encompass wider forms of media and reflect the radical impact of digital technology. As a key part of this refocusing, in 2007 the Museum created a new Curator of New Media role to widen the collection within the areas of internet and computing technology, videogames and digital art. At the same time, researchers at Nottingham Trent University and Bath Spa University were conducting feasibility research to investigate the efficacy of formal preservation and exhibition strategies and environments for UK videogames. Following consultation, the NVA – a sub-division of the Museum's National New Media Collection – was launched in October 2008 (National Media Museum, 2010)

The NVA aims to preserve, analyse and display the products of the global videogame industry by placing the games in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts. This means treating videogames as more than digital code that can be dissected and emulated or as a system of rules or representations. At the heart of the NVA is a respect for the material form of the game as well as the box art, manuals, advertising, marketing and merchandizing materials that support it and give it meaning and context.

In addition to collecting, curating and archiving these vital parts of popular culture, the ongoing research of the NVA is oriented around exploring and devising innovative and engaging ways to exhibit and analyse videogames for a general audience. This involves considering the interpretation and display of videogame experiences for diverse audiences that might include adepts and non-adepts alike, and exhibition in environments such as museum galleries which are not normally conducive to videogame play (see e.g. Newman, 2009, 2011, 2012; Newman and Woolley, 2009).