
Symposium: “Archiving Videogames: Creation, Localisation & Intersectionality” (University of Liège)
18-19 août, 2025
Val Benoît – University of Liège, Allée Zoé Gatti de Gamond, 4/11, 4000Liège (BE)
Organisé par Anna-Maria Trefois (Liège Game Lab)
On August 18th and 19th, the Liège Game Lab will be organizing the two days symposium “Archiving Videogames: Creation, Localisation & Intersectionality”, with the aim of examining the conservation of video games in an academic context.
We plan to explore different axes during these two days.
- We will examine the ways in which different institutions manage to conserve video games, including BnF (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), SVGA (Swiss Video Games Archivist), KBR (Royal Library of Belgium), ULiège, and others. What does it mean to set up a video game research center in a university or library? What are the different methodologies?
- In a subsequent session, we will address some questions about how we should look at the process of archiving and showcasing video games. This process raises important issues, particularly in terms of resources and choice of work, which can be influenced by gender bias. What knowledge does a gender study approach produce about these objects? How can we take a committed look at a collection that, at first glance, is not?
- Lastly, we’d also like to highlight some thoughts on how to approach a collection housed in a different place from its origin. Most video game archiving initiatives focus on local production. For example, Pixelvetica, a SVGA initiative, is committed to preserving Swiss video games. At the Liège Game Lab, we have the project to write a history of Belgian video games. However, our lab has received a loan of 4832 japanese video games from Ritsumeikan University. This context raises questions about the potential link between production and organization of an archive and the culture of a country. In our case, we are also questioning the specificity of the so-called “Japanese video game”, and the criteria on which we should base our efforts to preserve this object. These reflections invite us to rethink the notion of territory in the conservation and study of video games. What does it mean to preserve video games relating to a geographical area (e.g. Japan)? What are the particularities if this collection is not preserved in the geographical area concerned?



