Abstract
This article argues that unplayability must be a considered component of game analysis and further discussed in new media studies. The concept that games cannot be or should not be played does not limit game analysis. On the contrary, the “unplayable aspect” of a particular game or genre of games is what must be investigated. This essay hopes to expand upon why new media such as video games are becoming inaccessible by using Nicholas Baer et al.’s Unwatchable to discuss a range of unplayable games for common reasons such as: (1) excessive violence, (2) sexual violence, and (3) preservation issues.
Keywords
Introduction
This article argues that unplayability must be a considered component of video game analysis. Following Nicholas Baer et al.’s edited volume Unwatchable (2019) which includes essays from numerous authors exploring “unwatchable” media–that may be too disturbing or boring for viewers to watch, or unwatchable for other reasons such as preservation problems (2019, 3–4; see Grønstad 2012)–I offer coordinates for discussing the concept of unplayability within game studies. Initially, Baer wanted to include video games as a medium that could be deemed unwatchable (Baer 2023, Interview by Banfi). 1 I expand upon video games not as unwatchable but rather as an unplayable medium. Namely I focus on video games with (1) excessive violence, (2) sexual violence, and (3) preservation issues (see Table 1 for the specific studies that will be discussed in this essay). I chose these subjects and the corresponding games because they were the most frequently mentioned topics during my research, and I have personally played them. Thus, I was better able to discern what is unplayable about these games and why they were repeatedly identified as unplayable. As Allyson Nadia Field argues that media studies must “look for the presence in absence” (2015, 25; see Field 2022, 1) this essay will expand upon the discussions in Unwatchable to investigate the presence of absence in player’s play for numerous reasons. In that way, “absence has presence” (Field 2015, 25). While the three subjects that I have chosen to analyze may seem unrelated, I contend that ethics are involved in why players play, and which games archivists select to preserve. Such an approach will form an overview of unplayability that the field of game studies can use to further investigate why games are inherently thought of as playable and what kind of theories arise when games are (re)examined as unplayable.
Unplayable Case Studies Discussed in This Essay.
To investigate the unplayability of video games, I conducted interviews with scholars in new media studies and game studies to discuss why games are unplayable. I decided to interview these professionals because they are some of the leading academics in the field of game studies, and their scholarship has framed games as intrinsically playable. While academics must often play games to teach them–even ones that they may not want to play, but they must because the games fit in with their research area or period–I want to investigate whether there are reasons for why they would not play specific games or whether they would offer an academic description of unplayability. In conjunction with these interviews, I also spoke with four military veterans to analyze their opinions about war games. 2 By doing this I expand upon Nicholas Bowman’s research on player’s reactions to Call of Duty (2022). In conjunction with these interviews, I draw upon game definitions and Miguel Sicart’s work on ethical play (2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2019) to explore what and how we play. This approach allows me to explain why game definitions have largely omitted unplayability from its methodology to present why the presence of absence is important for the field–why and how do various issues make games unplayable, and what does that absence mean for players and for new media studies? Is it unethical to play certain games, and if so, why?
To begin this essay’s inquiry into why games are unplayable I include a discussion on the various interviews with game studies and new media researchers who I spoke with. They offer many different reasons for why games are unplayable which reflects the multitude of perspectives for why media is unwatchable in Baer’s book. This will also give an overview as to how some leading researchers view games as unplayable for personal and theoretical reasons. I then turn to analyze game definitions and the ethics involved in gameplay. Following this I investigate the specific examples of unplayability which I mention above by reviewing the academic and journalistic reviews of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Custer’s Revenge. For the examination of archival issues, I investigate how and why games have become literally unplayable by examining the scholarly literature on video game preservation. Regarding problems with preserving video games, I also incorporate interviews with arcade restorers to further investigate this topic. By inspecting unplayability this essay hopes to continue the discussion of why media has become inaccessible by expanding upon the conversations in Unwatchable to new media that is (un)playable.
An Overview of Unplayability–Interviews With Researchers
In my interviews with Mark J.P. Wolf and Espen Aarseth, both provided an overview of unplayability that is like Baer’s broad definition of why media is unwatchable (2019, 3–4). Aarseth states that “unplayable can mean different things–too hard, too unpleasant or irritating, or too boring” (Aarseth 2023, Interview by Banfi). Wolf echoes these points and adds that some “Games that have such a high learning curve that it begins to feel more like work than fun” (Wolf 2022, Interview by Banfi). Academic and game developer Clara Fernández-Vara lists similar reasons to Wolf’s. Notably she mentions “Games can be unplayable because there’s a game-breaking bug or bad design. . .and. . .what may make a game technically unplayable is because it’s ephemeral (because it was designed to only be available for a limited amount of time)” (Fernández-Vara 2023, Interview by Banfi). Jason Rohrer’s A Game for Someone is an example of an ephemeral game. Rohrer “buried the game–designed to survive thousands of years–in the Nevada desert, making it likely that no one will ever play it” (McWhertor 2013, n.p.). Such a project questions the validity of playability and how it relates to game design. Game scholar Alexander Galloway agrees with Fernández-Vara that ephemeral games are a likely reason as to why games become unplayable, and he emphasizes game preservation. Galloway notes that “software preservation is a huge issue; code is much more ephemeral than other formats. This is a big problem with internet art and software art as well” (2023, Interview by Banfi). While Fernández-Vara contends that emulators can be a solution to the issues with preservation Galloway argues that “emulators are very useful, but you can’t emulate the social context unfortunately” (2023, Interview by Banfi) which reflects the ideology that to rigorously research games, academics must also investigate the hardware that the game was released on, and the game’s original box (for two examples). Regarding difficulty, Fernández-Vara argues that “As a scholar, I play anything I need to play–a game that is too difficult may be harder for me, but I don’t consider it unplayable. I always find a way.” She states that “there’s no ‘unplayable’ unless it’s technically not possible to run or operate the game” (Fernández-Vara 2023, Interview by Banfi). Aarseth agrees with her as he notes that “as game scholars we need to play games that we don’t (believe we’ll) like, as this is the only way to learn something new, but prejudice is (or can be) different from finding a game actually unplayable” (Aarseth 2023, Interview by Banfi). Aarseth and Fernández-Vara do not deem games unplayable, and this may be integral to teaching game studies as scholars must find a way to interact with the game even if it is difficult to complete or if they don’t want to play it for personal reasons (be it for ethical purposes or because they think they will not like it). Academics may at least have to try to play the game as it (or its genre) may fall within their research area or period.
New media scholar Anna McCarthy focuses not on the general reasons (except for difficulty) for why games are unplayable but rather exact games which insinuates that games can be unplayable for idiosyncratic reasons. This rationale moves the conversation from a general academic description of unplayability to a personal reflection. Notably McCarthy finds Stardew Valley (Concerned Ape 2016) “unplayable because it is so deeply depressing. . .. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo 2020) is as well because of Tom Nook. . .he makes me sick. Nook is the ultimate capitalist. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo 2017) is too hard. . .there are too many complicated commands” (McCarthy 2023, Interview by Banfi). Late capitalism acts as the impetus for Animal Crossing’s gameplay and because of her disdain for neoliberalism, McCarthy refuses to play the game. Although McCarthy deems Breath of the Wild unplayable, it sold 31 million copies (Highton 2023) and earned top tier scores from numerous game magazines, thus many people not only find the game playable but enjoyable. Breath of the Wild’s successor, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo 2023) is commonly regarded as the superior game (Marks 2023). Tears of the Kingdom revels in maximalism. Players can build numerous contraptions to wander around Hyrule–the open world. For McCarthy playing Tears of the Kingdom is overwhelming and “work” (2023, Interview by Banfi). Her reservations about the game are not unfounded as some players may feel submerged in tasks and this may limit scholars from playing or including the game on a syllabus as they might not be able to finish it and thus feel unable to speak to the game’s narrative for a lecture, conference presentation, or for a research paper.
Beyond Aarseth’s, Wolf’s, Galloway’s, Fernández-Vara’s, and McCarthy’s reasons, there are myriad other justifications for why games may be unplayable such as: there are unplayable moments in video games; some players may refuse to play certain genres; a game may be too expensive; games may be region locked; games may fall out of the acceptable mainstream ESRB ratings (E-M) and thus retailers refuse to vend certain games–GameStop for example, does not sell Adults Only (AO) rated games (see Felini 2015, 109); a game might be inaccessible for people with disabilities 3 ; games may be banned like pinball was in the U.S. for a large part of the twentieth century (Banfi 2022, 933); players may have completed every task in the video game and they no longer have anything else to do in the game; players enjoy watching video games rather than playing them–many players watch video games on Twitch for example 4 (Taylor 2018); multiplayer games can become unplayable (which differs from single player unplayability) because players in multiplayer games can make it unplayable for other people by consistently winning against less skilled players thus alienating them form the game (Aarseth 2023, Interview by Banfi); people may consider games too racist to play–Cuphead is deemed unplayable (Blackmon 2015; Yussef 2017) for its early-Disney-cartoon-style and “Fleischersian” esthetic, which is a design style rooted in racist imagery (Holberg 1999, 309–311). For clarity and space these topics were excluded, but they can be further researched. In keeping with the scholarly outlook on why games are unplayable I will move to a theorical analyzation of unplayable games by inspecting game definitions and ethics to better understand how the game studies field views games as inherently playable. This will allow me to interrogate how games are defined and argue that unplayability must still be inspected regardless of whether games are thought of as innately playable if not for preservation issues, then for ethical purposes.
Game Definitions and (Un)Ethical Play
While scholars were willing to discuss unplayability with me to create an overview of the subject, many academics use “play” within their definitions of the term “game” After reviewing numerous academically accepted definitions of the word “game,” Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen conclude that an accurate description of a game is “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome” (2004, 79–80). This definition implies that players must play for a resulting outcome. I asked Zimmerman if he felt that his definition is still relevant today and if unplayability could be considered in crafting a new term. He responded by writing that he “is not a huge fan of definitions these days–Rules of Play (2004) is almost twenty year old. . .what I can say about unplayability is that it feels more like an esthetic term than anything else. . .. unplayability may be in the eye of the beholder” (Zimmerman 2023, Interview by Banfi). Zimmerman’s comments echo McCarthy’s sentiments about how specific games may be unplayable for particular reasons, rather than a theory. More recent scholarship like Jaakko Stenros’ article considers sixty-three definitions of games. In every definition cited, playability is considered as part of the description of the word “game” (2017). Similarly, Aarseth and Paweł Grabarczyk consider nine theorists’ definitions of the word “game,” all of which discuss play in their definitions (Aarseth and Grabarczyk 2018, 9–12). Despite Aarseth’s inclusion of play in his various definitions of the word “game,” he was willing to acknowledge unplayability as an academic topic which I noted in the previous section.
Players create meaning by interacting with the rules of the game (Sicart 2011; see Meakin et al. 2021). In the same way that playing can generate significance, a person who decides not to play can create meaning for themselves. Janyne Sattler argues that children develop by playing (Sattler 2017, 89–90; see Sutton-Smith 1998, 7). They learn what is acceptable play and reject unacceptable play. By people rejecting a game, they are making meaning in that they might consider a game illegitimate or immoral. Miguel Sicart asks if it “is it appropriate to simulate unethical actions? What are the consequences of simulating these actions, both for the player and for the developers?” (2009, 193). Sicart argues that “Unethical content is the actions that are designed to simulate what we would consider unethical behavior outside the game, but also simulations that, in themselves, can be considered unethical” (2009, 193). He specifically contends that rewarding players for unethical play (with extra health or money for example) is improper. Sicart does indicate that there is importance to examining unethical play especially if players are of a mature age to understand how the games are challenging the player’s morals (Sicart 2009, 198, 2013, 19). Thus, games can be “ethically relevant. . .as a game in which the rules force the player to face ethical dilemmas, or in which the rules themselves raise ethical issues. An ethical game as object presents a game world that is ethically influenced by the rules in the way it is presented to the players” (Sicart 2009, 49). Following an understanding of the rules and gameplay games can be “objects that are designed for play, these moral experiences can be designed for players to enter, experience, and leave with a sense of agency, ownership, and ethical responsibility” (Sicart 2013, 6). In the same way that children learn to play, people, at any stage in their life, can learn from their simulated experiences. By engaging in (un)ethical gameplay gamers are constructing their morals or personal principles. Sicart defines morality as “ethics in practice” (2019, 151). For Sicart, morality in the context of games is “a system of rules for guiding human conduct and also principles for evaluating those rules. Any action, choice, or decision is potentially moral–that is, potentially analyzed by this system of rules and principles by which we live” (Sicart 2013, 7). Although games can place players into a situation where they are engaging in unethical play they are also learning about right and wrong. Some games incorporate play that is beyond the norm of acceptability by not asking the player to challenge their moral values for didactic reasons but rather to glorify violence. Custer’s Revenge, which I will later discuss at length, is not presenting a difficult situation but rather idolizing sexual cruelty for shock value. For these reasons it is important to examine how games are challenging players’ morals and which games are not to analyze the difference between how violent games present pedagogical lessons. And in this investigation is there value in smut like Custer’s Revenge? I am certainly giving the game attention by analyzing why it is unplayable, and Matthew Thomas Payne and Peter Alilunas addressed the game in this journal by examining how Custer’s Revenge created the first public controversy surrounding repressed sexual expression in new media (2016).
This essay will now turn to discussing how ethical play is a part of a larger conversation about unplayability. I will move from discussing brutality in militainment to sexual violence in video games. After that I inquire as to how academics preserve games and if ethics is involved in making decisions as to which games are archived. That may be the most explicit reason for why games are unplayable. Galloway, for example, emphasizes preservation issues to be a definitive obstacle for playability.
Unplayable Case Studies
Excessive Video Game Violence. Case Study: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Unwatchable contains numerous examinations of violent media that include “spectacles of destruction” (Baer et al. 2019, 57–73) and “visual regimes of racial violence” (Baer et al. 2019, 108–126). In video games, the topic of violence often centers around player ethics and their autonomous engagement in (un)acceptable forms of bloodshed. Carly Kocurek argues that the controversy concerning video game violence started with Death Race (Exidy) in 1976 (see Figure 1). The game “triggered the United States’ first video gaming moral panic. . .because it depicted violence which questioned the state’s monopoly on legitimized violence and did not follow culturally accepted narratives of violence, such as military or police violence, or the western” (Kocurek 2012, n.p.; my emphasis; see Blumenthal 1976; see Sicart 2009, 191; see Schott 2016, 5).
Death Race.
Many deemed Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2’s mission, “No Russian,” unplayable because it did not follow the “accepted narrative of violence” (see Hornshaw 2020). Acceptable military games (or “‘militainment’ [which is defined as] entertainment with military themes” (Stahl 2009, 6)) “locate the gamer in the virtual boots of numerous soldiers. . .the gamer becomes a virtual interlocutor, narratively interfacing with stories of heroism and sacrifice” (Payne 2016, 70). By playing as these soldiers the player can engage in “‘sacrificial citizenship’. . .that may ask, at any moment, the greatest of personal sacrifices” (Payne 2016, 70). “No Russian” challenges the norms of military games because the player must kill innocent civilians, and thus they are not fighting on the battlefield to defend a country’s democracy, but rather slaughtering defenseless non-playable characters (NPCs). Specifically, the player plays as Joseph Allen, an undercover CIA operative who kills defenseless people to gain the trust of a Russian terrorist group. Gareth Schott explains that “No Russian” is controversial because of its “absence of core game play interactions that customarily require players to expect or react to threats from opponents radically changes the function and nature of the narrative state that the massacre represents” (2016, 198). Nicholas David Bowman researched peoples’ reactions to this game, and he noted that some players refused to play the mission. According to Bowman, During initial testing, several people (including at least one U.S. combat veteran) refused to play the mission, and others critiqued the mission for being unnecessary and gratuitous (Evans-Thirwell 2016). The mission was censored in Japan and Germany (players would see a “Game Over” screen if they opened fire on civilians; Ashcraft 2009; [(see Mantello 2017, 507)]) and removed altogether from MW2’s Russian release (Bowman et al. 2022; Welsh 2009, 4, my emphasis).
Germany’s and Japan’s approach to revamping the level echo similar game mechanics like in Half-Life 2 where players “are not allowed to shoot nonplayer characters who are supposed to be allied with them” (Sicart 2009, 36). For Sicart, these rules of killing the enemies and working with allies are a part of the game’s rules and thus “relevant for the understanding of the ethics of computer games. If games as ethical objects were only their rules, then the values imprinted and interpreted from those rules would be the ethical values of the game. But players interpret the rules, and they create rules” (2009, 36). In the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 other countries responded to the game by adding rules that reinforce their appreciation of presentable entertainment. By doing so these nations amend the game in ways that the developers may not have envisioned.
To expand upon Bowman et al.’s research, I interviewed four U.S. military veterans (all whose names have been redacted) on their reactions to this mission. Three of the four veterans were familiar with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and they had played the game. Only one of the veterans had not played the game nor did he know about it. My point of interviewing more retired military personnel is to better understand if the real-world violence (or training) that they engaged in affected how they play (or don’t play) video games. Out of the four military veterans who I interviewed only one stated that “No Russian” was unplayable. In his opinion, the violence is very insensitive. . .. Military games are fine, but this level crosses the line. Some soldiers are in situations where they have killed civilians and that is not something you should play (Bennett 2023, Interview by Banfi).
The other veterans claimed that they did not deem the mission unplayable but that they understand why others may refuse to play it–especially veterans with PTSD. Paul Jackson, an active-duty Navy officer, states that “‘No Russian’ is ingenious. It is shocking, but it is meant to show how violent and disturbing war can be, and what special forces must do to infiltrate a terrorist organization” (Jackson 2022, Interview by Banfi). Bill Johnson, a ninety two-year-old retired Navy officer states that he has never played a video game and that he did not want to play this one, but not because it was violent, rather he had no interest in it. When I explained “No Russian” to him, he stated that “game makers are doing that for shock value, they want to generate profits” (Johnson 2023, Interview by Banfi).
Many of the veterans who I interviewed state that although the games can be problematic for some players, there are values in these stories–the entire game does not need to be condemned because of one level. Although some players may reject “No Russian” they can still engage with the game’s narrative because the game may hold value as a whole. Jackson noted in our interview that players can skip the “No Russian” mission (see Ramsay 2020, 108; see Schott 2016, 199). Infinity Ward added in this option after people tested the game and some refused to play. In this situation, the designers allow for their game to be playable despite people refusing to play certain levels which echoes what many of the veterans felt game developers should do to be responsible artists.
Evidently, the soldiers who I interviewed disagree on “No Russian’s” narrative function. Inspecting what they find problematic and investigating why they feel that way is important to further examine specific controversies. In these ways, I agree with Miguel Sicart that problematic play “does not rule out the analysis of the game as an object. A closer look into the ethics of the formal system of the game can yield only a partial knowledge of what the game as an ethical experience might be” (Sicart 2009, 36; see Sicart 2013, 19–20). In this case study, Bennett views “No Russian” as tasteless whereas Jackson believes it to be beneficial to the game’s narrative. By not shutting down analysis of a violent game but rather looking deeper at its implications and how players read the text, we are better able to understand what is unplayable, especially from the viewpoints of those who have experienced war. Games, as Sicart explains, “simulate reality, albeit an abstract one” (2009, 40). In the case of COD, it may simulate an abstruse imitation of war (or at least a reflection of it). Military violence is a part of our everyday existence as it plays repeatedly on the news. Baer considers footage of war as unwatchable media which permeated the “domestic sphere. . . [and rendered] horrifying events viscerally accessible–from the Vietnam War to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001” (2019, 7). War games address these traumas by offering players a soldier’s POV and they place players into an ethical dilemma. We are no longer bearing witness to the Vietnam War or the War on Terror but playing it. According to Jackson, there are reasons for placing players into these situations as some soldiers are asked to impersonate terrorists for the sake of their country and they may need to engage in unethical violence (such as killing innocent people). In that way, the player is accepting the task that Matthew Thomas Payne describes of militainment games–they “may ask, at any moment, the greatest of personal sacrifices” (2016, 70) and in “No Russian,” it is to mimic a violent extremist. The developers do provide an outlet for players like Bennett who accept military games but reject levels like “No Russian” to skip the mission. For these reasons, COD contrasts with Custer’s Revenge, another controversial game where players can commit atrocities against innocent people. Journalists and academics, however, deem Custer’s Revenge unplayable and irredeemable because its violence carries no political or ethical message, it is purely for shock value.
Sexual Violence. Case Study: Custer’s Revenge
While Call of Duty does contain unconventional violence, it does so for a reason. The game questions players’ ethics which can push them to think not only about video game violence but how developers use it to structure a story. Despite the “No Russian” mission, the game revels in war violence which produces a narrative for soldiers (and players playing as them) as they are fighting for a cause. Custer’s Revenge has no such moral claim. While the game does follow a soldier, the eponymous George Armstrong Custer–who is a controversial officer for his violence against Native Americans–it positions the player to rape a bound Indian woman which is irreparable, and especially so in the context of Sicart’s argument of what constitutes unethical play as the player is rewarded with points. Sicart himself claims that Custer’s Revenge is “shameful” (2009, 191).
Comparing the topic of gamified sexual violence to unwatchable cinema I view Mattias Frey’s essay as a comparable analogy. He claims that rape scenes in movies like Irréversible (2002) are unwatchable, especially for many of his students. Irréversible for example offers an “eleven-minute take of Alex (Monica Bellucci) being anally raped. . .her cries for help echoing through the space and ignored by a fleeting passerby” (Frey 2019, 167). Frey calls attention to the complicitly of the audience in that they cannot do anything but watch. Watching is inherently different from playing. Custer’s Revenge asks players to play as Custer. In the game they navigate his avatar across the screen to dodge arrows to assault a bound Native American woman. This section will show that Custer’s Revenge is considered so morally corrupt for some that it is irredeemable, whereas other modes of violence like war in Call of Duty were considered partially playable.
Custer’s Revenge faced legal issues and scrutiny from activist groups for its overt racism and carnal subject matter. Oklahoma City banned the game. The city council “approved a resolution. . .branding ‘Custer’s Revenge’ and other adult video games as ‘not in the best interests of the community’” (Paschal 1982, n.p.). Despite the game’s violence, Custer’s Revenge was still advertised as a game in Cash Box magazine (September 4th, 1982, 24). This advertisement is adjacent to a commercial for the Atari 2600, and its first game releases like Space Invaders and Asteroids (Cash Box 1982, 24). These games are like Custer’s Revenge in that they are all playable on Atari machines. Like the advertisement in Cash Box, an ad in Radio & Records states that “Video games have run the circuit from Pac-Man to the X-rated ‘Custer’s Revenge’” (Radio & Records 1983, 6). The video game industry markets Custer’s Revenge as a game that is no different from the arcade adaptations like Pac-Man and the previously mentioned interstellar games.
Payne and Alilunas argue that Custer’s Revenge was the first “attempt by media producers to bridge the adult film and interactive entertainment industries” (2016, 80). To expand upon his research for my paper, Payne noted that Custer’s Revenge and other games produced by American Multiple Industries were clearly crafted to be taboo objects first and games second. If you look at their packaging, the creators seemingly spent as much time (if not more) considering their box art as they did the games themselves (Payne 2023, Interview by Banfi).
Payne confirms many of the arguments that I made here, namely that Custer’s Revenge revels in being a taboo object that players can buy rather than a game that they can play. An important part of gameplay for Sicart and Fernández-Vara is to engage in simulations that push the player to think about their actions (Sicart 2013, 19). Custer’s Revenge is evidently not that. The game is of course contemptable but there is a reason for its creation and that is to offer a game that reflects the forbiddances of adult entertainment which is highly perverse and profitable. The global porn industry is highly lucrative (Kang 2023), and it is currently valued at 100 billion (USD).
For Sicart Custer’s Revenge is unethical because it rewards the player points for raping another person. Comparative to COD, players are not earning any rewards but rather they are progressing through the game’s narrative. This places COD and Custer’s Revenge at odds with one another. Albeit both are controversial, there is a reason for the violence in “No Russian,” whereas the senseless sexual violence in Custer’s Revenge is the primary purpose of the game–and that is to shock people into buying it.
In recent years, “No Russian” has remained culturally and commercially relevant as Activision published a remastered edition of Call of Duty Modern: Warfare 2 in 2020. Custer’s Revenge evidently landed on the wrong side of history. It became literally unplayable because of the government’s and market’s reaction to it–its production cycle only lasted around seven months and it sold 80,000 copies, thus “by any metric the game was a spectacular failure” (Prager 2020, n.p.).
Video games are vended, and consumed, to be played and to generate a profit. Independent video games are no different than Triple-A features in this regard. A group of players may refuse to play the game, which in turn, can cause developers and manufacturers to cease production and distribution. Beyond games being discontinued for controversies like Custer’s Revenge they can also vanish for archival reasons. It is also a question as to which games should be archived. What might it mean for The Strong Museum of Play to display Custer’s Revenge? Does Custer’s Revenge hold any cultural value?
Preservation Issues Case Studies: Online Games (Mario Kart Wii) and Arcade Games (Donkey Kong)
Media like film, for example, naturally deteriorates (Baer et al. 2019, 229–244). Although video games are new media, they are quickly diminishing. According to Andrew Borman, the Digital Games Curator at The Strong National Museum of Play, games are already failing. Thousands of mobile phone games, early iOS games are suddenly just gone. Floppy disc games will not work forever, and they are already failing. Magnetic data will fail. . .. We can slow the process, but how many years can that buy you? (2023, Interview by Banfi).
The Strong is doing what it can to preserve games. When deciding which games to preserve and showcase the question of ethics arises. Returning to the research questions I posed in the previous section; I asked Borman if we should preserve games that many people deem grotesque. For Borman “it is important to preserve all games, even games like Custer’s Revenge which is morally questionable. . .it was sold to people. Games should be available for research, even ones we might not enjoy playing. We can’t ignore video game history. At the same time, we, as a museum, need to be careful about how we showcase games. Museum cases give importance to objects” (2023, Interview by Banfi).
Beyond the ethical decisions of whether to conserve games like Custer’s Revenge exists a practical discussion of how to safeguard online games, which is one of the museum’s largest problems. The museum’s efforts to preserve online games “that require servers such as massive multiplayer games are hard and nearing impossible in some situations” (Borman, Interview by Banfi). Downloadable games and games’ online features are “gradually disappearing from the market. . .[as] developers are shutting down online services, leading to missing features and terminated games” (Miller 2017, n.p.). These issues have become commonplace as generations of consoles and the online services associated with them become obsolete. According to Will White, “Without proactive measures, much of the history of digital games stands to be lost forever—potentially within the next few decades” (2020, 570–571). Academic studies on video game archiving have largely neglected to address the online preservation of games (Skold 2018, 135). Online games such as “MMORPGs present representational and preservation challenges because they are complicated pieces of software. . .they also are sites of complex and variable social interactions” (Winget 1870, 2011; see McDonough 2011, 173). Online games that are not MMORPGs like Mario Kart Wii no longer have online features as “Nintendo ceased online services for all Wii and DS games in 2014, including Mario Kart Wii. [The game can be played offline] but online competition. . .no longer exists” (Miller 2017, n.p.). For this reason, certain features in Mario Kart Wii are literally unplayable.
Media studies must consider unplayability as a subject that is becoming increasingly relevant because games are physically decaying as well. Arcade cabinets are difficult to maintain. Many were manufactured in the late 1970s. They are now commonly restored, which is to say that they do not contain all their original parts. Eventually, arcade games will become unrestorable (see Newman 2012; see White 2020, 570).
For Pat Lawlor, a video game and pinball machine designer, “mechanical parts of an arcade game can be rebuilt, plastic can be reproduced, electronics are another story, however. Look at the problem with many of the arcade games, integrated circuits that were Transistor-transistor Logic (TTL) that went into those games are hard to find, and soon they will not be able to be reproduced” (Lawlor 2023, Interview by Banfi). Thus, arcade and video games mirror film in this way. Multiple projections of a film strip wear down the celluloid. Arcade cabinets are not much different as the technology will become obsolete and players damage the machine just by playing it.
Although arcade games may deteriorate, they must still be studied. James Newman states that when he is teaching game studies courses, he must account for games which cannot be played. Newman uses Donkey Kong as an example of a game that is disappearing. He writes There are literally dozens of ports, conversions, translations, and clones of. . .Donkey Kong. . .However, Donkey Kong was originally an arcade game so this should be our starting point as the ports and translations are versions, remakes, and remodels of this “original” incarnation. And so, we encounter our first problem. . .. the chances of finding a working cabinet are slim at best (Newman 2012, 4).
Newman notes that game analysis must not stop because Donkey Kong is unplayable. Instead, video game conservation must soon start to mirror film preservation. This situation is the same for online game preservation. Scholars must be willing to work around the loss of games if they are to continue to teach and analyze games that dissipate. One solution is to emulate out of print games which I noted in the introduction of this essay. Fernández-Vara contends that this can be a solution, however, Galloway argues that “emulators are very useful, but you can’t emulate the social context unfortunately” (2023, Interview by Banfi). Marçal Mora-Cantallops and Ignacio Bergillos note a stricter approach to studying video games than the former two researchers’ approaches to analyzing video games. They consider the ideology that “Games must be preserved ‘fully, together with their original accessories” (Mora-Cantallops and Bergillos 2018, 224). This kind of attitude for studying decaying games will not be useful as games are deteriorating and for arcade cabinets to remain in working order restorers will have incorporate non-original parts. As for the lack of social context with the original games and hardware, to study the framework there are trade presses like Nintendo Power that academics can look to.
Overall, it is not practical to try and preserve all video games. Archivists will have to be selective about which games to conserve. The games that hold “cultural status, value or meanings” will have precedent (Swalwell 2016, 46, quoted in Mora-Cantallops and Bergillos 2018, 214). According to Andrew Borman, The Strong Museum of Play uses a system called “RAVE” to prioritize game preservation. The “‘R’ in Rave stands for Rare–one of a kind. ‘A’ signifies at risk of being extinct. ‘V’ represents Valuable–what will be important to researchers who visit the museum. And ‘E’ stands for Engaging: games that are popular and that provide immediate use in the museum” (Borman 2023, Interview by Banfi). Thus, unplayability will force scholars and archivists to be judicious about which games to maintain.
Despite games inevitably rotting, there is power in looking for absence in presence which Allyson Nadia Field calls attention to when examining lost films (2015, 25). Video games are no different than cinema in this regard. Nor should the studies surrounding collapsing video games be.
Conclusion
This essay studied unplayability with regards to (1) excessive violence, (2) sexual violence, and (3) preservation issues. Examining these issues brought upon a larger discussion of ethics not only in play but also in archiving. When analyzing militainment it is crucial to investigate player agency (including the agency of refusing to play) and how narratives are structured around violence. Regarding sexual violence in Custer’s Revenge, the public’s protest of the game highlights their ethics and the shock value associated with the product–which is what the developers were hoping to sell. This leads to the question of what we should preserve. I agree with Borman that as many games as possible should be conserved. Although games like Custer’s Revenge bring upon public outrage by questioning players’ ethics, it is a game that represents the culture of its time and to preserve it is not unethical. Conservation allows for future scholars to investigate the object which can lead to a broader understanding of why games (even grotesque ones) were created, marketed, and bought.
I noted that academics agree on various reasons for why games are unplayable beyond my study, which emphasizes not just the limitations of my research, but also the depth of unplayable games. Scholars can adopt a range of approaches when investigating why a game is unplayable. New game analysis methods will form if new media scholars examine unplayability. Hopefully this essay will inspire more research not just on video games but on the shortcomings of new media whatever that might come to mean.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
