Abstract
This research presentation explores how videogame communities mobilise to save their favourite games from becoming lost to history using the example of The Return of Reckoning (Return of Reckoning, 2014) as a case study. The key aims are to position live-service games in current games preservation theory and then unpack how the ‘fan-developers’ preserved Return of Reckoning from becoming lost media.
After a five year attempt and creating the World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) killer, EA announced that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning would be closing the servers and ending live service (MacGregor, 2019). Two years prior, the community had already built an emulator – a carbon-copy of the live games’ server – running on a private server of the Warhammer MMORPG. This led to the revival of the game as Return of Reckoning only six months after the official closure (Return of Reckoning, 2017).
Emulation is one of the key methods for preserving videogames – especially live service titles that rely on being played by people to represent their cultural significance. Modern cultural historians position games – both digital and tabletop – as a practice more than an object (Lowood, 2006). Videogames are an important expression of our contemporary culture that are vulnerable to a technological and psychological obsolescence as the commercial success of the gaming industry balloons (Carta, 2017; Newman, 2012).
MMORPGs such as Warhammer Online present unique preservation challenges since they are a complex intersection of technological and social dependencies (Winget, 2011). This presentation’s contention is that Return of Reckoning is an exemplary example of sustainable, well-implemented live-service preservation. Through its malleability in relation to preserving and privileging an ideal ‘original experience’ (Swalwell, 2013), to its rigorous documentation of its own history, it is an evolving example of fan-curation that many high-profile videogame studios could learn a lot from in regard to preserving their own history.
References:
- Carta, G. (2017). Metadata and video games emulation: an effective bond to achieve authentic preservation?. Records Management Journal, 27(2), pp.192-204.
- Lowood, H (2006) High-performance play: The making of machinima, Journal of Media Practice, 7:1, 25-42, DOI: 10.1386/jmpr.7.1.25/1
- Return of Reckoning (PC) Video game. Return of Reckoning
- Newman, J. (2012). Best Before: Videogames, Supersession and Obsolescence. 1-184. 10.4324/9780203144268.
- Macgragor, J. (2019). “The untimely death of Warhammer Online, and the long road to resurrect it”. PC Gamer. Available: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-untimely-death-of-warhammer-online-and-the-long-road-to-resurrect-it. Accessed 25 July 2024.
- Stuckey, H & Swalwell, M & Ndalianis, A. (2013). The Popular Memory Archive: Collecting and Exhibiting Player Culture from the 1980s. 10.1007/978-3-642-41650-7_20.
- Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC) Video game. Mythic Entertainment, EA.
- Winget, M.A. (2011) ‘Videogame preservation and massively multiplayer online role-playing games: A review of the literature’, Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 62(10), pp. 1869–1883. doi:10.1002/asi.21530.
- World of Warcraft (PC) Video game. Activision Blizzard Inc.
Author bio
Will Butler is a PhD candidate at Bath Spa University in the School of Design. His research concerns videogame preservation; specifically what role producers of digital media play in the preservation and cultural heritage ecosystem. Will works within the games industry and is interested in fandom studies, historical games, game production, and labour.
