My last liveblog from the Information Science Trends conference taking place in Uppsala, Sweden and online.The final paper was Approaching gameplay process documentation, presented by Olle Sköld. Sköld gave examples of initiatives about preserving videogames e.g. Library of Congress, Internet Arcade, Finnish Museum of Games, Swedish technology museum ("play beyond play" documenting activities around play), Embracer Games Archive. He categorised the initiatives as : conceptual work, cooperation, adaptation (including migration); collection & creation of "content material. He posed questions (1) what can paradata be? (2) how can it be useful in videogame documentation and preservation.
He drew on two studies of content production discussed on a reddit forum and a wiki, and the research approach included ethnographic methods . Some examples from his findings were that he identified paradata: on the purpose & scope of the community; on "epistemic and methodological characteristics" (e.g. how knowledge claims were evaluated); data selection procedures (e.g. how data is identified as relevant - such what was referenced - Youtube, the game etc)
A conclusion was that "paradata can facilitate talking and thinking about pertinent facts of videogame documentation and preservation". This work is relevant to GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) activities and for videogame research.
There are paradata problems including: what paradata is useful? what paradata needs to be created by data nakers and videogame documenters? What paradta can be harnessed from existing resurces? How to collect paradata ethically? Sköld finished by questioning what paradate was in the context of videogame documentation (e.g. a methodological element; a literacy)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Uppsala castle roof, June 2023
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