Cataloguing video/computer games – pitfalls for new players

The issues for collection managers around games cataloguing are difficult and that may well be why we find 30 years on, the institutional collection and cataloguing of this material is somewhat limited. Similar to the new challenges of ‘Time-Based Media’ cataloguing we find ourselves with the complexities of hardware, software, documentation, versions, platforms, social memory, secondary resource material ….and the box it came in.  Play It Again with its emphasis on preserving games of the 1980s, and for us particularly, Australian material, provides the Australian Centre for the moving Image (ACMI) the opportunity to work with academics and industry practitioners in refining our cataloguing work.