The Videogame as Fonds: A Rough Idea on Analyzing Gameworlds for Historical Material Consciousness through Archival Theory

Friday, November 6th

I will hopefully succeed in making this post brief yet informative, something which I've yet to do in my previous blogposts. As midterms are over (and all of them huge successes, thank goodness), I have been able to focus more easily on doing work on this thesis and making some progress on material I am sorely behind in. This blogpost is intended to discuss a concept Dr. Graham and I have discussed for awhile now regarding the videogame as archive. The idea is that a videogame can be treated as a fonds and considered within the context of respect des fonds, allowing for the flattening of a gameworld in order for analysis in terms of historical consciousness, material and thinking. To begin, I am drawing my knowledge of fonds as a concept from the article "Theoretical Principles and Practical Problems of Respect des fonds in Archival Science" by Michel Duchein.

Respect des fonds is the integral concept of modern archival science, first put forward by Natalis de Waily in 1841, and maintains that the only classification model acceptable to an archive is grouping all documents originating from one administration, person, corporate body, etc., together as a fonds. This way of organizing documents and material makes certain that documents are given significance based on their specific context of creation and collection as opposed to being ordered arbitrarily and divorced from this significance. For example, a map from a certain expedition placed in a collection of maps loses much of the significance it would have within a collection that is only material from that expedition. This is a powerful concept, but it carries with it many theoretical issues, which the piece goes on to discuss and propose solutions to. If so desired, one can find my notes on this piece in full under "nov 6 respect des fonds notes" in the notes folder.

What I find important from this theory considering videogames is the idea of a videogame as a fonds. In examining the historical material engendering historical consciousness and thinking within a videogame, whether historical or ahistorical, treating the game as a fonds is immensely powerful. We can treat the finished videogame and the world represented in the game as a collection of documents, experiences, sights, sounds, stories, etc. all from one organism/entity: the game itself. By doing so, we can place tertiary lore documents within the context of the gameworld and determine their historical value from that. Just as fonds organization gives archival documents in the real world meaning and significance, placing ahistorical primary documents in a videogame within the context of the gameworld gives them meaning and significance that can be examined in terms of how they engender historical consciousness and thinking within gamers.

This also allows for a straightforward look at how certain things might be represented in a game. For example, if one looked at Assassin's Creed as a fonds in order to engage with the history, certain meanings and interpretations would become apparent through the historical material included or excluded within the fonds. This process of looking at everything in the game as a complete unit allows for us to understand the game as a particular interpretation of history, and makes examining it for historical merit easier and more productive. Not just the material itself is examined, but instead the material is examined along with how the material is presented, where does the player access it, in what ways are they led to engage with it, and so on. This is a way of looking at gameplay material in an "objective" way, without the artistic subjective structuring of the videogame's narrative. Indeed, the subjective artistic experience of the game BECOMES the objective evidence by nature of being reduced and flattened through our conception of it being a fonds. Things like grafitti, architecture or dialogue become equally valued when reduced to archival documents that are only significant in the context of the whole. Doing this flattens the videogame world and lets us analyze events, contingency, causality, meaning, morality, and other things in the game always within their larger context.

Looking at the videogame as a fonds is distinctly different than the historical consciousness that emerges in videogame wikis. In many ways, wikis do act as attempts to represent the gameworld akin to a fonds. They show the material and processes of the game in piecemeal ways that situate them within the larger context, all while staying away from the subjective narrativization of a strategy guide or manual. However, they are still subjectively organized and written, and we cannot examine the game itself but WHO is writing these posts, how is debate going on around them, and the like. Wikis are very useful in terms of looking at the engagement of players with historical material or otherwise with a game, but they are secondary resources to the game, and therefore not a primary part of the game and so not a fonds. Regardless, I already know wikis and the collaborative knowledge creation inherent in them are going to be a big part of this project: just not within the context of fonds. The two stand very much apart and that's okay.

As I write this, however, I know that this concept is still very shadowy and has a long ways to go. A videogame is different than the documents of an organization represented in a fonds: the deconstruction must be more complex and painful for someone to do in order to catalogue it for analysis. The question of what to include emerges, which is already a red flag for respect des fonds. I know I want this project to engage with both Dwarf Fortress (DF) and a triple-A traditional RPG, in order to engage with lore in two distinct ways. In engaging DF with this, the process is fairly simple. As the game is text/ASCII based, the cataloguing of material is much simpler. Stockpile records, engravings, battle reports, and maps of the gameworld would be simple to classify and maintain in a fonds, in order to examine what emerges for the player as history and parallels between it and narrativization. As well, Legends mode is already a type of fonds: all the events and material from one world is represented without subjective interpretation or organization.

However, when engaging with a triple-A title with powerful graphics and more subtle aspects of representation, things get bogged down quickly. Obviously tertiary lore documents are going to be included, but what else? Plotlines? Missions? Cutscenes? Dialogue? Architecture of the game world that could have clues towards the history of the game, such as graffiti? In classifying this, issues of privileging or devaluing certain features emerge, which are completely contrary to the concept of fonds in the first place. The issue is flattening the gameworld for analysis from the perspective of the player: the finished product is what is most important in terms of people's consumption of game material, and things are too complex/simple from looking at the programming. There is too much there and it is not digestible in that format to a gamer - we are trying to look at the finished videogame as the archival material, not as the polished finished product that draws from archives. With the intense volume of what is seen in a traditional triple-A game, it seems conceptually and practically difficult to flatten the game without giving significance and privilege to certain areas and devaluing others, thus corrupting respect des fonds. However, I have faith that with further engagement with archival science material and discussion with Dr. Graham and others, this issue can be resolved. In terms of considering a videogame as a fonds, I WANT everything to go in - the way of doing that is just hard to wrap my head around.

So, that's the idea at this point. I'm not sure if it will ever come to anything in it's current form: it may be that down the road this is just a useful conceptual tool to look at videogames with, and not really practically possible to engage with in any way. If so, that's fine. It's still a fascinating concept to place historical material of a game, be it a historical or ahistorical game, within the larger context of the game and only draw the significance from that. I will definitely be coming back to this idea as the project continues, and if you have any comments, questions, suggestions or concerns please reach out to me on my Twitter, @rapickering. Hopefully frequent blog posts will continue as I keep checking ideas to explore off the to-do list. Thanks for reading!

(P.S.: Just over 1500 words... still have to work on brevity.)