Introduction

Since their inception in the 1970s, digital games have grown to become a significant aspect of the creative media landscape. When Halo 3 released in 2007, it generated more revenue at launch than the biggest opening weekend for a film or release day for a book at that point (Entertainment Software Association, 2008). Minecraft, the best-selling single game of all time, sold its 300 millionth copy in 2023 as it approached its 15th anniversary (Nguyen, 2023). While it would be reductive to rely solely on economic figures to judge the importance of a creative medium to global society, understanding that digital games perform on economically similar scales to film and books can make their impact more apparent to those unfamiliar with the medium. Alongside the economic growth of digital games over the last several decades, so too has the field of game research grown (Deterding, 2017). Game research is a continually growing interdisciplinary field, encompassing scholarly activity in game design, player experience, and game evaluation, among others, and including the more commonly recognized discipline of game studies (Deterding, 2017). As an academic field, game research has become increasingly formalized by research, postsecondary institutions, and professional organizations such as the International Communication Association, DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association), and the Association for Computing Machinery (Deterding, 2017). Despite this growth it is only since the turn of the century that academic libraries have begun considering digital games for inclusion into their collections (Thomas & Clyde, 2013). Given the growth of scholarly activity surrounding digital games, academic libraries must consider the role they play in supporting such activity through their collections.

To incorporate the broadest aggregation of relevant materials, this chapter will use the term “digital games” to refer to interactive digital media where applicable in accordance with much of the game studies literature. This term encompasses a broader range of games experienced on digital platforms, including text-based games without video components^[1].

This chapter aims to provide an overview of the challenges awaiting academic libraries seeking to engage with digital games in their collections. It will first provide background on the academic study of digital games and their inclusion in academic libraries before investigating some of the challenges surrounding the establishment and maintenance of digital games collections, as well as responses by academic libraries facing these challenges. The challenges discussed include collection purpose, acquisitions, cost, format, digital and hardware preservation, and the scarcity of trade or research literature on the topic. Sources for further reading are provided following the conclusion of the chapter.

Background and Current Context

Digital games are a relatively new medium and many academic libraries have only begun considering the value games can add to their collections in the last decade or so. One of the earliest academic digital games collections was established at Simon Fraser University Surrey Campus, in British Columbia, Canada in 2001 in support of its then-nascent School of Interactive Arts and Technology (Gick, 2008). In the years since, a census of digital games collections in libraries by Robson et al. (2018) revealed that 150 academic libraries across the United States and Canada hold these materials. In comparison, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) reported a total of 634 organizational members in the same year (ACRL, 2023), indicating that less than 25% of American and Canadian academic libraries collect digital games. While there is clearly some effort being made to collect digital games in the academic library, many institutions are not engaging with these materials for some reason or another.

Digital games as a whole struggle to receive proper recognition as a worthwhile form of media, with public perceptions consigning them largely to the domain of teenage boys (Cadieux & Beaupré-Lavallée, 2011). While this is a common misconception, the Entertainment Software Association (2022) reported that the average age of video game players is 33 years old and 76% of players are adults. Additionally, Zweizen (2023) found that women comprise anywhere between 47 and 54% of video game players, depending on the gaming platform. Prevailing narratives surrounding digital games are often the result of news media disproportionately highlighting violent or sexual content in what many game studies scholars view as a moral panic (Ferguson, 2008). These perceptions extend to the academy, where digital games may be erroneously deemed unworthy of academic study and, therefore, unworthy of the academic libraries’ increasingly restricted acquisitions budgets (Laskowski & Ward, 2009). Laskowski and Ward (2009) suggest that the controversy surrounding digital games is, in fact, a mark in their favour as part of academic collections due to the research efforts such controversy attracts. This sentiment is echoed by Buchanan and Vanden Elzen (2012) who note the impact this lack of study has had on legal decisions pertaining to digital games in the United States. Controversial or poorly understood topics provide much opportunity for academic institutions to engage in research and the academic library to support these initiatives.

Supporting digital gaming through academic library collections can impact not only game studies and computer science programs, but fields of study far outside of this narrow scope. As digital games are increasingly used as teaching materials across disciplines, adequate collections can both support pedagogical needs of faculty and students as well as the researchers in these fields designing such materials (Robson & Durkee, 2012). Serious games, that is, games with educational, therapeutic, or advertising purposes, are often of greater interest to those outside of game research for their potential application in broader academic and professional fields, particularly as pedagogical tools. These games might include narrative games that can disseminate knowledge to history students (Thomas and Clyde, 2013), simulations to help prepare students for careers in healthcare (Ellis et al., 2023), or physical sciences (Clapson et al., 2020; Slator et al., 1999).

Digital games collections can also have resounding impacts on the community of an academic library. The presence of such a collection has been seen to increase student, staff, and faculty visits to the library, improved perception of the library by the campus community, and improved relationships among the library and faculties as well as administration (Cadieux & Beaupré-Lavallée, 2011). While the potential benefits of establishing a digital games collection in an academic library are evident, this is not an endeavour without challenges and will require careful consideration to execute meaningfully and effectively.

Challenges

The challenges presented by digital games collections are diverse in nature, scoping from administrative and procedural obstacles to technical and academic issues. This section will seek to address challenges posed by the purpose of a digital games collection, the cost of digital games materials, the format of digital games, the acquisition of digital games, preservation of hardware and digital games materials, and the state of the literature surrounding digital games in academic libraries.

Collection Purpose

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the nature of the academic library is changing, and while it is still an important agent of its larger institution’s scholarly mission it is also an increasingly valuable aspect of students’ campus experience and social worlds (May & Swabey, 2015; Yoo-Lee et al., 2013). Thus, it may be argued that collections strategies should adapt to this new role and, particularly in the case of digital games, support not only teaching and research but also student engagement and entertainment.

The traditional mission of the academic library in supporting the larger institution’s research and teaching goals may lead to the belief that library materials should exclusively be acquired to serve this mission (Nance, 2022). Nance (2022), however, posits that the role of the academic library has shifted in recent years as concerns about student mental health become increasingly pertinent. In this new role, academic libraries have the potential to use digital games collections as tools to support student wellbeing through leisure and socialization (Nance, 2022). This may be a contentious suggestion, as budgetary concerns constrain spending and require academic libraries to justify expenses within the contexts of strategic plans that prioritize teaching and research outcomes. The conflicting opinions on the potential recreational value of digital games collections in academic libraries are reflected in the research. While Laskowski and Ward (2009) advocate strongly for the value of digital games collections for student leisure and mental wellness, Cadieux and Beaupré-Lavallée (2011) found that entertainment value was not a consideration among library staff responsible for digital games acquisitions. Similarly, Tappeiner and Lyons (2008) did not identify entertainment value as an important criterion for acquisition based on an analysis of existing policies and game research. While policy and practice may not reflect the value of entertainment, others still found that the use of digital games collections for outreach was an effective method for driving undergraduate engagement with the academic library (Bishoff et al. 2015; Vanden Elzen & Roush, 2013). This tension evidenced by the conflicting literature underscores the challenge posed by the purpose of a digital games collection. While it may be clear that the collection should support curricular and research needs of students and faculty, it may prove challenging to justify such significant expenses as video game consoles for the primary goal of student wellbeing when other campus services are in place to provide for this purpose.

Acquisitions and Collection Development

Several factors affect the acquisition of digital games. On the most basic level, traditional library vendors are unlikely to supply materials for the development of a digital games collection (Laskowski and Ward, 2009). These circumstances may require librarians to pursue vendor relationships with businesses not typically involved in library purchases such as commercial game retailers or game distributors. Investigating a variety of potential vendors, some of which potentially have no previous experience with similar arrangements, may be a time-intensive effort on the part of library staff. Alternatively, libraries can acquire digital games in a piecemeal fashion, seeking titles as necessary through retailers (Buchanan & Vanden Elzen, 2012). This method of acquisition is a fairly time-intensive effort, though it may be necessary regardless of vendor relationships in order to acquire vintage or rare games not available through traditional commercial channels.

Further complicating the acquisitions process is the need for distinct acquisition criteria that existing collection development policies may not reflect. Kane, Soehner, and Wei (2007) noted a dearth of resources for determining these criteria, though efforts by Cadieux and Beaupré-Lavallée (2011) have since elucidated at least some priorities for consideration. In their survey of 23 academic libraries in Canada and the United States with digital games collections, Cadieux and Beaupré-Lavallée (2011) identified faculty requests, curricular need, user requests, game platform, and game availability as the most important criteria for the acquisition of digital games. They conclude that in the absence of policy to guide these decisions, it is imperative for academic libraries to work with relevant faculty and users to determine appropriate materials for the collection. While community consultation can be helpful for guiding collection development, the interdisciplinary nature of game research can make collection management and acquisition challenging, especially at the inception of such a collection, if policies do not provide sufficient guidance for interdisciplinary collections (Bishoff et al., 2015). This is especially pertinent given Robson et al.’s (2019) finding that 73% of academic libraries did not have any provisions for digital games or hardware in their collection development policies. Additionally, library staff will need to remain abreast of trends in digital gaming to prepare for the acquisition of new games and hardware as they become relevant to the needs of the library’s community.

Outside of game research, the criteria for acquisition become especially murky as less research and expertise is available to determine valuable resources. Thomas and Clyde (2013) caution against including games as secondary sources for disciplines outside of game research and suggest that part of acquiring and describing games with the potential to support these disciplines should include playing the game to evaluate its scholarly merit. It may be difficult to balance this evaluation with other job duties and more difficult still to justify to library administration that playing digital games is a relevant task to undertake during work hours, especially if the games being considered for these disciplines are not serious games.

The collecting of digital games may also pose challenges through metadata and cataloguing, as their non-traditional nature may mean the library’s cataloguing staff are not familiar with the conventions for creating catalogue records for these materials (Laskowski & Ward, 2009). This lack of experience may necessitate training for cataloguing staff that will require additional time and resources. As digital games are relatively uncommon library materials, there may also not be existing copy catalogue records available for staff to draw from, especially in the case of rare games. If original catalogue records are required, significant time will be required to create these records, which may further require additional funds to support the labour involved, including extended hours for existing staff or the hiring of temporary cataloguing staff (Kane et al., 2007). The potential labour costs associated with a digital games collection are one of several financial impacts these collections can have on academic libraries.

Cost

Like many library materials, digital games have large upfront costs in addition to potentially significant continuing costs for upkeep and subscriptions, though the cost of acquisitions can be restrictive enough to halt a proposed collection before it can even be created. Building a collection from the ground up requires considerable financial investment. New titles are increasingly expensive, such as 2022’s Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales for which retailed for $64.99 (CAD) a year after release (Steam, n.d.). These titles also release at an astounding pace with 10,644 digital games being released through major PC (personal computer) game retailer Steam in 2022—while not all of these titles are high-profile releases from major publishers that would carry such a price tag, it is clear that acquiring a comprehensive collection of PC games carries a substantial annual cost. The situation is similar for console games, where new releases often retail for $70 (CAD) or more, especially with special editions such as the EA Sports™ College Football 25 Deluxe Edition which retails for $99.99 (CAD) (PlayStation, n.d.). The market for vintage titles is even more severe, with rarer titles potentially costing several thousand dollars due to private reselling and potential collector value (Notis, 2022). It is not difficult to see how such acquisitions can quickly balloon to an exorbitant figure if not carefully managed.

The costs accrued by acquiring a digital games collection extends beyond the games themselves, as questions pertaining to hardware have significant impact on the use and utility of the collection by an academic library’s community. While maintaining a collection of gaming hardware may represent a dauntingly large initial cost for libraries—the PlayStation 5 retails for $649.99 (CAD) at Best Buy (n.d.)—the financial impact of maintaining multiple copies of titles across platforms might quickly outpace the cost of hardware. With the gaming console market split between three major players—Sony (Playstation), Microsoft (Xbox), and Nintendo (Switch)—acquiring games across the multiple formats required to satisfy the needs of students and faculty using various platforms, the cost of acquiring digital games can quickly get out of hand. While it may seem simple to choose to support only a small selection of platforms, this decision may unnecessarily restrict members of the academic library’s community from accessing materials if they do not own the necessary hardware.

Due to the restrictive costs of video game consoles such as the Nintendo Switch or PlayStation 5, many members of the academic library’s community may be unable to afford their own gaming system, especially students. If libraries do not also provide access to hardware such as consoles and high-end gaming computers, most, if not all, of their digital games collections will be rendered inaccessible to much of their user community. There are two options for the provision of gaming hardware in the academic library: the creation of permanent gaming spaces in the library itself or the circulation of hardware as part of the digital games collection (Buller, 2017). While establishing gaming spaces in the library removes the additional barrier of students and faculty requiring their own peripheral hardware, including a monitor or television, it also requires a substantial amount of space in the library, which itself may require additional investment through renovation to create a suitable space. Lending hardware, on the other hand, allows for students and faculty to have more unfettered access to the materials for longer spans of time in a more comfortable environment and allows the library to narrow its acquisition criteria to games on specific platforms. However, the library will have less control over the condition and security of the hardware and may be reticent to engage in such a program due to the risk of loss, theft, and damage to costly materials (Robson et al., 2023). The decision to circulate hardware poses significant questions about access, library resources, security, and the gaming experience that are not easily answered, particularly when absent from the unique context of each institution’s digital games collection and community needs.

Additionally, libraries should consider if there is a need to maintain older hardware that is increasingly uncommon in personal collections. Legacy hardware may be necessary for maintaining access to vintage titles which are often incompatible with newer systems (Bradley, 2023), which can be critical for preserving the long-term research value of digital games, in addition to the research value of the hardware itself. Similar to vintage games, this hardware may also be quite expensive due to collector value and scarcity—costs for some vintage computer parts ran as much as $2,000 (USD) in 2021 (Key, 2021). Older hardware may also present other costs, either in time or money, for maintenance and repair due to their age. While hardware and format present clear financial challenges to libraries collecting digital games, the impact of these factors extends beyond cost.

Format

While digital games collections have many of the same challenges of other multimedia collections housed within the library, these challenges tend to be amplified in a digital games collection. Although the format of home video tends to shift rather uniformly from one format to another, such as the move from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray, newly released digital games are often concurrently available on multiple computer and console platforms (Laskowski & Ward, 2009). Mobile phones are also increasingly included as platforms for digital games traditionally found on PC or console such as the massively popular farming simulator Stardew Valley (GameDaily.Biz, 2018). If a library is not providing gaming hardware to patrons, whether through circulation or in-house use, the collection will likely need to encompass a far greater breadth of game formats than if access were provided to specific hardware due to the diversity of library users’ personal gaming platforms. As previously mentioned, this may not make for the most cost-effective collection development strategy. Additionally, digital games are a rapidly evolving medium, with new innovations arising and market trends shifting on a constant basis along with electronic communication technologies found in both the software and hardware (Robson & Durkee, 2012). The PlayStation 4, for instance, launched in 2013 (PlayStation, 2013) followed only seven years later by the PlayStation 5 in 2020 (PlayStation, 2020). This constant change poses a challenge for academic libraries whose research communities are seeking current releases, which will likely come at an elevated price at release or require new hardware.

In more recent years, the digital games landscape has shifted from hardcopy media such as cartridges and discs toward digital downloads. The shift toward born-digital formats for games poses several administrative, fiscal, research, and legal challenges for academic libraries (Robson & Durkee, 2012). Policies may not be in place to support an acquisition process relying on software downloads as opposed to hardcopies. In many cases, libraries may also be required to enter into subscription-based models to acquire access to games from non-traditional vendors. Such models create precarious collections, with libraries’ access to downloaded games being mediated by these vendors much like digital serials, and with no material being properly owned by the library.  While libraries are increasingly familiar with subscription-based models for digital materials, those available for digital games, such as Xbox Game Pass or EA Play, are intended for individual end-users and are not designed to accommodate library lending models, nor would their licensing accommodate these uses. The shift to digital formats also means the loss of paratextual material associated with physical formats such as the game box, game manuals, and collectible paraphernalia (Lee et al., 2016) which may hold long-term research value, potentially hampering current and future research projects. In 2012, Robson and Durkee (2012) noted that the shift towards born-digital formats was especially pronounced for PC gaming, which was becoming an increasingly dominant platform for digital games at that time. These trends have continued into the 2020s, with PC gaming claiming a larger market share than consoles in data reported by multinational accounting firm PwC (2022) and the prevalence of digital distribution intensifying during the Covid-19 pandemic (Mattioli, 2021). In addition to the previously described drawbacks of digitally-distributed games, Yee (2021) also cautions that born-digital games on PC are often accompanied by Digital Rights Management (DRM) software that prevents the transfer of materials between users or machines, effectively stifling the ability to lend such games. In order to facilitate access to these digitally-locked games, libraries would need to provide in-house access with the necessary hardware and spaces for students and faculty to play games. Alternatively, libraries may be forced to rely on decreasingly available physical media to avoid obstacles posed by DRM; unfortunately, most independently developed games are only available through digital distributors, limiting the scope of physical media collections to mass-market titles and precluding many indie titles from the collection (Ioannou & Reynolds, 2018). The larger shift toward digital media also presents a significant challenge for preservation, as digital game materials become increasingly ephemeral.

Digital and Hardware Preservation

As an increasing number of digital games are born-digital, having never been distributed in hardcopy formats but rather only over the internet and thus only existing on the hard drives of users or developers and servers holding the downloadable files. The intangible nature of born-digital games makes preservation a considerable challenge for the field of game studies at large (Barwick et al., 2010). The closing of the online stores for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable systems led to panic among gamers in 2021 due to the loss of games exclusively available through these digital storefronts (Yee, 2021). These preservation issues are amplified in the case of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) due to their network dependencies which rely on an external server for the game to truly function as intended (Winget, 2011). Unfortunately, these preservation issues are not unique to born-digital media, as physically distributed games are also at risk of being lost. A joint report from the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) and the Software Preservation Network (SPN) determined that 87% of classic games released in the United States are no longer commercially available, and therefore considered endangered (Lewin, 2023). Jones and Beagrie (2001) argue that nonselection in by libraries and other cultural heritage institutions can often consign digital media to being lost. Cultural heritage institutions have historically been reticent to engage in the preservation of digital games and other software, largely due to technical and organizational barriers for establishing preservation practices (Chassanoff & Altman, 2019). As a result, digital games fan communities have had to take on the brunt of the preservation work (Barwick et al., 2010). There are also legal concerns with this work as most material in need of preservation is still in copyright (Barwick et al., 2010) and extensive DRM protections on digital games prevents data transfer for preservation purposes (Yee, 2021). The resulting precarity of fans’ preservation efforts has led Barwick et al. (2010) to assert that it is not a sufficient solution to rely on grassroots initiatives and that cultural heritage institutions, including libraries, must take on the preservation of digital games as well. While the growth of game research has prompted some academic libraries to begin investing in the preservation of both software and hardware for digital games, these projects are not without risk. As VGHF and SPN note in their report, libraries and archives’ efforts in this area is stymied by copyright legislation that is not designed to address the modern context of digital games (Lewin, 2023). Barwick et al.’s (2010) assertion is predicated on an assumption that galleries, libraries, archives, and museums are more capable of withstanding legal challenges to their preservation efforts, but such legal challenges should not be taken lightly. By undertaking the preservation of digital games, libraries may attract unwanted attention from games publishers and designers who see digital preservation methods such as emulation as a threat to their intellectual property rights.

One of the primary methods of digital preservation thus far has been emulation—that is, the reproduction of an older software system in a newer system (Barwick et al., 2010). Even beyond its potential legal ramifications, emulation is methodologically contentious in the field of game studies. Some game researchers argue that the game itself is found in the experience of playing and, if the experience of the hardware has been lost through emulation, the game itself is no longer preserved in its intended form (Newman, 2009). While this should not dissuade libraries from undertaking emulation projects, it should be noted that it may not necessarily serve the community of scholars seeking to make use of the collection.

The questions surrounding hardware preservation in digital games collections represent a particularly pressing challenge. This issue is two-fold, reflecting both the nature of vintage games and modern games. Vintage games were originally designed on hardware that is often no longer manufactured, such as out-of-production consumer consoles, arcade cabinets, or obsolete computer components, and are not easily run on more modern equipment (Salvador et al., 2023). Thus, the original hardware must be maintained to continue providing access to these games without relying on emulation or other digital methods. However, maintaining original hardware requires significant technical expertise with electronics few librarians have and may require significant training or outsourcing to do effectively. Wershler (2022) describes the challenges of maintaining hardware that has been modified by previous owners, often to improve performance or quality. While he writes primarily from the perspective of media archaeology, his work speaks to another challenge in maintaining materials that may require highly specific upkeep as a form of hardware not quite like any other in the world. A conservator of such materials must have a unique understanding of each platform’s engineering beyond the original boilerplate models. This further complicates how such a collection might be described in relation to other similar hardware and how such hardware might impact the experience of researchers more directly concerned with software. There is little research on hardware preservation in libraries and archives, or digital games preservation more broadly, though this is symptomatic of broader issues in the field of LIS.

Sparse Literature and Academic Coverage

As previously described, digital games a rapidly evolving creative and scholarly medium unique from other materials held within the academic library. This unique landscape should necessitate a body of literature guiding theory and practice of collecting digital games, though this is not the case. Robson and Durkee (2012) and Cadieux and Beaupré-Lavallée (2011) note in their literature reviews on digital games collection research for academic libraries that scholarly interest from within LIS has been low, despite the first digital games collections appearing over a decade earlier. This trend seems to continue to the time of this chapter’s writing as well, with most of the relevant research literature being published 10–15 years prior. Additionally, major textbooks in collections management pay little attention to games—while Collection Management Basics (Evans & Saponaro, 2012) dedicates a brief section to examining collection strategies for digital games, though mostly in a public library context, Collection Development and Management for 21st Century Library Collections: An Introduction (Gregory, 2019) and Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management (Johnson, 2020) only mention games in passing among lists of multimedia materials. This is indicative of a larger gap in the coverage of digital games in LIS education as noted by Elkins and Hollister (2020).

Thus, librarians are entering the workforce largely unprepared to approach these challenges and will find little guidance on these matters by turning to the LIS literature. This lack of discourse on digital games in LIS scholarship since the mid-2010s is concerning, given the following decade has seen significant growth in the digital gaming industry as well as substantial change with the emergence of virtual reality (VR) gaming into popular consciousness and the intensification of the industry-wide shift toward digital downloads in lieu of physical media such as discs and cartridges.

Responses

While digital games “are among the most complex items to select, acquire, and support of all the media formats in a collection” (Evans and Saponaro, 2012, p. 200), these challenges are by no means insurmountable. Many academic libraries are actively maintaining collections of these materials and can thus provide guidance for approaching these challenges.

Collection Purpose

While it may seem prudent, whether for budget reasons or otherwise, to build a digital gaming collection at an academic library around research and curricular support and eschew leisure, academic libraries are increasingly taking on the role of a third place in the campus environment—that is, a space outside of home and the classroom, where students engage in social, educational, and leisure activities—in addition to its primary role as an academic space (May & Swabey, 2011). Thus, it is worth considering the capacity of the academic library to actively engage with the student body and embrace this growing role as a social space on campus. In the context of digital gaming collections, this might mean finding purpose for the collection as an outreach tool for building library visibility and a tool for promoting student wellness through leisure. As Laskowski and Ward (2009) describe, such a perspective contributed significantly to the success of their collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). At UIUC, acquisitions following the initial 100 titles were informed by collaboration with student groups they invited to play with their early collections—this relationship building resulted in several donations of vintage games from members of these student groups that would kickstart a special subset of the collection (Laskowski & Ward, 2009). This later collaboration may not have been possible had one of the original purposes of the collection not been student entertainment and the collection instead gatekept for research purposes only.

Vanden Elzen and Roush (2013) argue that digital games pose an opportunity for academic libraries to connect with students through outreach and instructional programming. When approached in this manner, the use of library game collections can help draw students into the library and build awareness of the library’s broader offering of services. These initiatives can also give library staff an opportunity to learn the needs and behaviours of their community. Such approaches to digital games and outreach have proven successful in several academic libraries (Vanden Elzen and Roush, 2013). While outreach and programming are not directly linked to collections, it is clear that a well-developed digital games collection is far easier to leverage for these initiatives than more traditional collections. At Lawrence University’s Seeley G. Mudd Library, 23% of participants in a gaming outreach event reported an increased awareness of collections, in addition to other outcomes such as increased sense of belonging and comfort with library spaces and staff (Vanden Elzen and Roush, 2013, p. 811). Similarly, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) also utilizes its digital games collection to this end and has found success with the use of this collection as a tool for both curricular support and outreach (Cowing et al., 2018). Even the presence of the collection itself was found to be useful for engaging students by providing inspiration for student groups and prospective game developers.

As Robson et al. (2019) describe, there is little policy support for digital games collections. For an aspect as contentious as the collection’s purpose, policy could be one of the most effective approaches to addressing this challenge as it would explicitly provide library staff with guidance for their collection. While the potential for library collections, including digital games collections, to be used for outreach and entertainment should not be discounted, if an institution determines that they are not able to prioritize this purpose, this should be a choice embedded in policy to provide ample guidance when approaching collection development.

Acquisitions and Collection Development

As digital games are a highly distinct medium with regards to the traditional academic library collection, traditional vendors will likely not be able to support the development of a digital games collection. Gaming librarians at the UIUC addressed this challenge by setting up an account with a local gaming store that was able to provide retail titles (Laskowski and Ward, 2009). They found that this relationship also allowed the gaming store to assist in acquiring rarer or more in-demand titles. However, such a solution is only relevant to physical hardcopies of games and a brick-and-mortar gaming store would have little use as a vendor for digital downloads.

The volume of games released annually, and the backlog of games with potential value to the academic library’s community can make selecting games a daunting affair, especially at the inception of a digital games collection where no clear direction yet exists. Gaming librarians at the University of North Texas (UNT) overcame this barrier through collaboration with user groups in the library (Robson & Durkee, 2012). Collaborative acquisitions processes such as this allow for the community’s needs to guide collection development and help sift through the overwhelming diversity of games available for acquisitions. This is especially true of the vintage game collection started at UNT as a result of student donations, where community interests have fundamentally impacted the foundation of the collection (Robson & Durkee, 2012). Similar to the UNT vintage game collection, The University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) Library acquired the Syd Bolton Collection—boasting over 14,000 game titles and 5,000 gaming magazines—in 2020 through a donation from the wife of its namesake (University of Toronto, 2022). The donated items include popular mass-market games, exceedingly rare games and hardware, and even arcade machines (UTM Library, 2023). While not every academic library can expect such a substantial donation, the case of UTM does suggest that members of the community, even outside of students and faculty, might be able to provide digital games materials, especially rarer materials that can be harder and more expensive to acquire.

Consideration should also be given to serious games and other non-commercial digital gaming materials such as mods—fan-made modifications of game files that modify gameplay, add and change cosmetic items, or fix bugs not yet addressed by a game’s developers (Laskowski & Ward, 2009). Because these materials are not available through typical commercial channels that other materials may be acquired through, staff charged with acquisitions should take special care to discover these materials as necessary to support curricular, research, and leisure needs of the academic library community. Finding these materials for acquisition might require trolling modding websites such as NexusMods or staying abreast of publications from other disciplines about educational games in their subject areas—for instance, a series of open educational digital gaming simulations for nursing students were presented at the Digital Pedagogy Institute’s 9th annual conference (Cosgrove, 2023). Those working to curate non-commercial materials, and mods in particular, should also give consideration to copyright and technological protection measures (TPMs). While game developers are typically accepting of modding, there have been cases of mods being found to circumvent TPMs and infringe copyright in the United States—in many cases, mods do infringe copyright but are allowed to exist because developers give their, often tacit, approval (Michigan Technology Law Review, n.d.). The retraction of such approval could land mod developers and users in dangerous legal situations.

Cost

Developing a digital games collection and making acquisitions is of course not just procedurally challenging but financially as well. While there are ongoing costs to collecting digital games, the initiation of the collection might be the most daunting due to the bulk purchasing of multiple titles at once. Approaching this challenge, especially in the context of restricted budgets, requires careful consideration and small batches of acquisitions to keep spending under control and build awareness of the collection to drive further development.

Laskowski and Ward (2009) describe the process of building their collection of digital games at the UIUC gradually, beginning with only 100 items chosen in collaboration with a game studies researcher and author at their university. In the three years between the inception of their collection to their publication, the collection grew four-fold to over 400 items. Through collaboration with an established scholar, Laskowski and Ward (2009) were able to strike a balance between popular mass market titles and titles with significant research value to faculty in their initial collection, ensuring that the collection would see use in its early days to justify future expansion. Taking small but well-planned steps early in the development of the collection would have kept initial spending down while providing high usage statistics to justify further spending as the collection expanded.

Similarly, when approached by engineering faculty in 2006 for the purpose of creating a video game lab and collection, The University of California, Santa Cruz’s (UCSC) Science and Engineering Library began with an even smaller collection of only 15 games (Kane et al., 2007). This initial expense was luckily fronted by UCSC’s computer science department, but further expansion required other funding streams, leading the library and computer science department to pursue a sponsorship with Sony to receive new publications from the company in addition to funds to acquire other titles. Though no report indicates this pursuit was successful, the UCSC Library’s catalogue boasts over 1,000 games and 40 consoles at the time of writing (UCSC, n.d.). Regardless, corporate sponsorships may be an option, especially for universities and colleges with game design programs that might attract the attention of major digital game developers and publishers. Of course, such sponsorships should be approached carefully, as the addition of private interests may complicate the broader mission of the academic library.

As to the question of hardware circulation, the University Libraries at the University of Denver chose to circulate their consoles due to limitations on the physical library space and the primary goal of the collection being curricular and academic support (Buller, 2017). Buller (2017) notes that the outcome of the decision may have been different had outreach and engagement been identified as a purpose of the collection. It is worth noting that neither option—hardware circulation or in-house hardware access—precludes the adoption of the other in the future should the opportunity arise and circumstances warrant such a development. In a review of 12 years of circulation data for digital games hardware at UNT, Robson et al. (2023) found that losses and damage occurred at sustainable levels and the cost of replacement was minimal, concluding that “circulating consoles in a video game collection is a valued addition to a library that can supplement programming, boost innovation, and support burgeoning scholarship without being unsustainable” (p. 67).

Format

In response to the shift toward digital media forms, the UNT gaming librarians planned to develop their collection in a number of ways, most notably by expanding access to PC gaming in particular to access the broader array of games available through web-based platforms and digital storefronts such as Steam (Robson & Durkee, 2012). Prior to this shift, the collection had focused on a narrower collection of mainstream games from major publishers on a select array of consoles and platforms. The choice to develop the collection in this way, while responsive to the evolution of the digital gaming world, was primarily made to adapt to growing curricular needs of UNT’s game studies program and other academic programs that were beginning to broaden their scope of study to include more serious games. UNT’s shift toward PC and web-based gaming was also accompanied by a restriction for access of some of the collection to in-house use only, requiring librarians to take a greater administrative role in mediating patron access. The shift to born-digital media, therefore, requires greater staff investment and academic libraries should be prepared to support staff as necessary in facilitating this shift should the needs of the campus community require it.

As console technology is constantly evolving, it may become a significant expenditure of both time and money to keep up with acquiring new hardware and new formats for games. Buchanan and Vanden Elzen (2012) recommend waiting up to a year after the release of a new console before supporting it to determine if it has enough uptake by community members to justify the expense, though their advice is given to all libraries more broadly. In academic libraries, it may be prudent to acquire newly released hardware and compatible games sooner if doing so serves the research and curricular needs of students and faculty, particularly for greatly anticipated platforms which may be more easily acquired through pre-order before demand has driven prices up. The PlayStation 5, which was initially advertised for $499 (CAD) leading up to release (PlayStation, 2020) but three years later sold for almost $650 (CAD) from BestBuy (n.d.). Conversely, games themselves tend to drop in price after their release and waiting to acquire new titles is often a more cost-effective strategy. Academic libraries might consider polling students and faculty, especially those already making use of the digital games collection, about their intentions to purchase or study upcoming consoles to gauge whether this is a sensible strategy.

Little research exists on institutional approaches to the challenge of format, which is especially necessary in regard to navigating digitally distributed materials that are restricted by DRM and potentially made available through subscription models. It remains to be seen in the literature how academic libraries are responding to these challenges, though other organizations, such as VGHF and SPN are actively seeking copyright exceptions in the United States to facilitate libraries’ ability to distribute digital games to their patrons (Lewin, 2023). While these exceptions can have implications for more current releases, VGHF and SPN are more directly concerned with the impact of copyright and DRM on preserving the overwhelming volume of endangered games.

Digital and Hardware Preservation

As the literature describes, there is little activity in digital preservation occurring in academic libraries at large, though such activity could have significant impact on the digital games landscape (Barwick et al., 2010; Chassanoff & Altman, 2019). Of course, this approach should be undertaken with caution due to the potential legal ramifications of doing so, especially as programs such as controlled digital lending become increasingly contentious following the Internet Archive’s legal troubles (D’Agostino, 2023). Additionally, methodological concerns about emulation mean it may not be the most appropriate preservation technique for a given academic library’s research and teaching community due to the loss of the experience of the original hardware. Carta (2017) advocates that should emulation be the chosen path for digital game preservation, though special care should be taken to record detailed technical metadata to make some attempt at bridging the gap of the missing hardware.

The National Videogame Archive in the UK approaches the preservation of digital games in a variety of ways, including the use of player-produced materials such as walkthroughs and other paratextual materials to support study of digital games that may be inaccessible in part or full (Newman, 2011). In many cases, preservation efforts will require creativity on the part of librarians, game researchers, and other interested parties. MMORPGs, for instance, reflect ephemeral experiences that are near impossible to recreate through emulation alone, and may require additional strategies such as game performance archives that capture player interactions (Winget, 2011). The preservation of born-digital materials including digital games is clearly a far-reaching issue and could benefit from collaboration at multiple levels, including national and supernational to potentially circumvent some of the legal issues that digital preservation may present.

Digital games are only one of many varieties of software that may be relevant to the research and curricular goals of the academic library. Chassanoff and Altman (2019) suggest that academic libraries might pursue larger software preservation strategies through collaboration with data managers, archivists, and technologists. While they note that there is an additional cost to training library staff for the preservation of software, including digital games, the result is library staff more able to assist researchers with born-digital artifacts needing preservation as technologies and research continue to evolve.

Sparse Literature and Academic Coverage

Institutionally, there are limited opportunities for academic libraries to respond to the scarcity of current research and scholarship on digital games collections aside from encouraging gaming and digital initiatives librarians to publish. Librarians involved in these collections must take initiative to address these gaps in the literature, especially to address

Elkins and Hollister (2020) identify LIS education as an area for improvement in this regard. The limited coverage of digital games in LIS programs might discourage early career librarians from approaching these challenges as they feel unprepared. Elkins and Hollister (2020) recommend that instructors be encouraged to engage students through this material and their administrations provide them with professional development resources to facilitate the coverage of this new material. A more prepared class of early career librarians may then feel more prepared to tackle these challenges, find effective responses, and share their experiences with the field at large.

Conclusion

Digital games are valuable cultural objects and are increasingly becoming a subject of research interest. Thus, academic libraries should consider taking steps to support the use of digital games in the teaching and research activities of their parent institutions through their collections. There are several clear challenges to developing a digital games collection: the potentially unclear purpose of the collection, non-traditional acquisition and development practices, high costs, diverse formats, contentious preservation issues, and lack of evidence-based support in the literature. However, these challenges should not deter libraries from pursuing this endeavour as many institutions have found success pursuing the development of digital games collections. As with much collection development, the key to navigating these challenges is to listen to the library’s patron community—in this case, faculty and students involved in game research and play. Policy is also a significant though greatly underutilized tool in approaching the challenges posed by digital games collections.

Digital games collections can provide exciting opportunities for academic libraries and their parent institutions to engage in innovative research across disciplines, enhance pedagogical practices, and provide meaningful student experiences if these challenges are approached head-on and with ingenuity. While those academic libraries pursuing these initiatives must have faced them in some form or another, though the area of digital games collections is poorly represented in the literature and those libraries seeking to begin their endeavour with digital games collection may struggle to find evidence-based practices to carry with them. This chapter concludes with a call to action for a more vocal presence of digital games librarianship, so that the field at large can benefit from the collective experience of librarians’ efforts. Exciting developments may lie ahead if we are ready to press “Start.”

Sources for Further Reading

Daly, D., & Robson, D. (2022). Yuck!: The care and cleaning of a game collection [Presentation]. https://twu-ir.tdl.org/items/b41ec309-a008-48b4-858e-619cd98990e9

Presented by one of the foremost scholars in digital games collections, Diane Robson, this presentation addresses some of the challenges in the ongoing maintenance of a digital gaming collection, specifically hardware. The presentation provides guidance for processing, cleaning, and basic repair procedures.

Harris, A., & Rice, S. E. (Eds.). (2008). Gaming in academic libraries: Collections, marketing, and information literacy. Association of College & Research Libraries.

This book published early in the days of academic libraries’ efforts to collect digital games provides an overview several initiatives across library services. Though it is not terribly recent, it’s breadth and detail are helpful for establishing an understanding of the potential impacts and uses of a digital games collection on the academic library and broader academic institution.

Tappeiner, E., & Lyons, C. (2008). Selection criteria for academic video game collections. Collection Building, 27(3), 121-125. https://doi.org/10.1108/01604950810886040

This fundamental article in digital games collection development outlines prospective selection criteria derived from an examination of existing collection development policies in place at academic libraries and overriding themes in game research literature. While certainly not prescriptive, academic library staff seeking to determine their own selection criteria may wish to use the work of Tappeiner and Lyons as a starting point.

Salvador, P., Nooney, L., & Rose, M. (2023). Unacceptable loss: Video game preservation in libraries and archives [Webinar]. Library Futures. https://archive.org/details/unacceptable-loss

Presented by Library Futures, this webinar covers the state of digital games preservation at large and in the context of libraries and archives. The webinar is led by the library director of VGHF, a games researcher, and a lawyer, who provide insights into the technical and legal aspects of preservation efforts, especially regarding DRM and copyright.

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