Videogame Canon(s)

In this class, we have examined videogames and the role they play in culture by considering a top ten list, a de facto videogame canon, and then determining our own list of ten to add to the original canon. The results are displayed below. (Note: These are listed in no particular order, and their display order on this page is random.)

The original list, was compiled by a committee of game industry and academic experts: Henry Lowood,Warren Spector, Steve Meretzky, Matteo Bittanti, and Christopher Grant. Ostensibly, this group convened in order to decide on ten games that the Library of Congress should invest in preserving. An indirect though far more important outcome was to argue for the value of videogames as cultural artifacts.

As a seminar, we analyzed the games on the original list in order to better understand what it means for a game artifact to have cultural value. Teams of students prepared "exhibits" for each game, including images, metadata, scholarship, and their own critical analysis.

After each proposing a new game to be added, the seminar narrowed down the proposals from an initial list of 30 to form a new top ten list, to be added to the original ten. That list is presented below (on the right), and again, each title links to that game's exhibit (images, metadata, references, analysis).

The original committee placed a high priority on influence, and the new canon proposes to continue that principle in selecting several games that were the first of something or the first of something to be widely successful.