Permalife Of The Archive: Archaeogaming As Queergaming

TL;DR

This paper explores the parallels between archaeogaming and queer games studies, highlighting their shared focus on representation, ethics, and transgressive play, through literature review and personal case studies.

Contribution

It demonstrates epistemological links between archaeogaming and queer games studies, suggesting mutual benefits and new perspectives for both fields.

Findings

Archaeogaming and queer games studies share concerns with representation and ethics.

Subjective lived experience is central to both archaeogaming and queer games.

Archaeogaming can enhance queer games studies and vice versa.

Abstract

Archaeogaming and queer games studies have both grown as paradigms in the last decade. The former broadly refers to the archaeological study of games, while the later concerns the application of queer theory to the medium. To date, there has been limited engagement of archaeogamers with queer games scholarship, and vice versa. This article argues that there are epistomological parallels between the two; as they are both concerned with the limits and ethics of representation, the personal and political contexts of game development and engagement with video games through transgressive play. The paper is structured around an extended literature review and three vignettes that reflect on the author's personal experience of conducting archaeogaming research, an ethnographic study of Wurm Online, an archaeological survey of Elden Ring and a player study of the generative archaeology game Nothing Beside Remains. While archaeogaming can learn from the centring of subjective lived experience and labour in the queer games sphere, archaeogaming as a form of game preservation can also benefit queer games studies.