{"id":938,"date":"2011-03-03T11:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T16:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=938"},"modified":"2011-03-02T19:04:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T00:04:08","slug":"digital-games-as-public-archaeology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=938","title":{"rendered":"Digital Games as Public Archaeology"},"content":{"rendered":"

The term “public archaeology” isn’t particularly\u00a0well know to those outside of the archaeological community. \u00a0So, what is it exactly? \u00a0At its core, public archaeology seeks to protect and advocate for archaeological heritage (sites, resources, etc.) through public education, outreach, and engagement. This\u00a0manifests\u00a0in lots of different ways. \u00a0Archaeologists visiting middle school classrooms to talk about a a local site? \u00a0Yup, thats public archaeology. \u00a0Hosting an “Archaeology Day” at a local museum where the public can talk to archaeologists, handle artifacts, and experience prehistoric technology? \u00a0That’s right, public archaeology as well. \u00a0Involving local community members in the excavation of a nearby site? \u00a0You better believe it, public archaeology baby! \u00a0You get the general idea. \u00a0Its only fairly recently that public archaeology and public archaeologists have adopted a broader range of digital methods and practices. \u00a0Things like websites, social network platforms, video, podcasting, digital archives &\u00a0repositories, and mobile content\u00a0are all\u00a0becoming increasingly common in the toolkit of the average public archaeologist. \u00a0What’s missing from this list? \u00a0Games.<\/p>\n

Its a constant source of frustration to me that archaeologists are even further behind in thinking about digital games as vehicles for public\u00a0engagement\u00a0and outreach or platforms for teaching than other disciplines. \u00a0While it is (somewhat) common to see sessions on\u00a0digital\u00a0games at conferences such as MLA or Museums & the Web, such a thing is rarer than hen’s teeth at an archaeological conference (such as the annual Society for American Archaeology meeting). \u00a0I can count the number of journal articles, books, book chapters, conference papers that explore public archaeology and digital games (either broadly or specifically) on two hands (and thats being charitable). \u00a0I only know of a handful of (and its a small handfull) of public archaeology digital games (most of which fall very much on the “simulation” side of the digital game spectrum). \u00a0One of the earliest examples (and one that very\u00a0much sits on\u00a0the\u00a0simulation end of the spectrum) is\u00a0Adventures in Fugawiland: A Computer Simulation in Archaeology<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Adventures<\/a>
Like an early PC RPG (I'm looking at you Temple of Apshai), Adventures in Fugawiland came bundled with a detailed manual\/workbook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Originally published in 1990, Adventures in Fugawiland<\/em> was designed to introduce students (yes, it was courseware) to the fundamentals of archaeological research by allowing them to simulate fieldwork experiences. \u00a0The game (frankly, calling it a game is stretching things a little) was developed by T. Douglas Price and Anne Birgitte Gebauer of the University of Wisconsin. \u00a0Students worked with a realistic topographical map containing numerous fictional prehistoric sites (located in Fugawiland), chose sites to excavate on-screen, examined what they found, and answered questions about their findings. \u00a0Students could refer to abundant “in-game” help modules, included in which was a regional plot providing a graph of the abundance of different site characteristics in Fugawiland. Exciting! \u00a0Adventures in Fugawiland<\/em> enjoyed several editions, and was used as course material in many anthropology classes throughout North America. \u00a0It is important to repeat that Adventures in Fugawiland<\/em> was courseware. \u00a0It was published by a\u00a0textbook\u00a0publisher and intended to be used in undergrad classes. \u00a0However, it fits nicely in this discussion because I’m very much of the belief that a good chunk of undergraduate education is<\/strong><\/em> public archaeology (something that some of my colleagues might disagree with). \u00a0Whatever many archaeologists might think of Adventures in Fugawiland<\/em>, it was an important milestone. \u00a0It was a clear statement which communicated that games (simulations, edutainment, whatever) had a place in public archaeology. \u00a0Unfortunately, instead of heralding the the beginning of a rich assemblage of archaeological digital games, it was an\u00a0isolated\u00a0blip on the radar.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the present. Digital games have evolved enormously, but public archaeology is still (largely) ignoring them. \u00a0It seems that if you want to engage the public around archeological topics, digital games (of all kinds) seem like a no brainer of mythical proportions. \u00a0Games are not only powerful platforms for learning (either formal or informal) and persuasion, but have\u00a0phenomenal\u00a0public reach – especially into groups of particular interest to public archaeologists (middle school students, teens, and maybe even undergrads)<\/p>\n

How much reach? \u00a0Lets break down the numbers a little. \u00a0I know that many have seen the Entertainment Software Association figures<\/a> (and they are not without their problems). \u00a0However, I think they are worth looking at –\u00a0especially\u00a0if we are interested in exploring the potential reach of digital games for public archaeology. \u00a0These numbers are also quite persuasive for the archaeologists in the room (especially those who are\u00a0generally\u00a0unfamiliar with digital games). \u00a0Its very important to remember that these figures are for the United States alone. \u00a0The picture is different (in some cases, markedly so) in other countries and regions.<\/p>\n

According\u00a0to the ESA (Entertainment Software Association), in 2010, 67% of American households owned either a game console (such as an Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii) and\/or PC used to run entertainment software. \u00a0In terms of age, 25% of gamers were under 18,\u00a049% were between 18-49, and 26% were 50+ years old. \u00a0Its also very important to point out that the gender imbalance in gamers is quickly shrinking – males made up 60% of the game playing population, while females made up 40% of that population. \u00a0If you look just at online games, that gap is even smaller (58% men, 43% women). \u00a0In terms of sales, digital games (both PC and console) were a 10.5 billion dollar industry in 2009. \u00a0Sales of both PC and console games exceeded 275 million units. \u00a0There isn’t any metric in the universe that you could draw upon that favorably compares those numbers to the number of people reached in any kind of public archaeology program.<\/p>\n

So, why hasn’t\u00a0public\u00a0archaeology caught on to the potential of digital games? There probably isn’t one factor that we can point our finger at. \u00a0As one would expect, much of it has to do with archaeology and archaeologists (from a disciplinary perspective). Archaeology and archaeologists have always had a weird relationship with technology (the irony is certainly not lost on me). \u00a0When it comes to technology for research (things like GIS, remote sensing, modeling, databases), archaeology has very much been on\u00a0the\u00a0cutting edge of things. \u00a0However, when it comes to using technology for outward facing purposes (the public archaeology component of the discipline), archaeology is very traditional in its practices. \u00a0The physicality of archaeology (sites and artifacts) seems to have pushed public engagement and outreach towards much more analog practices (if I can use the term “analog” in that way).<\/p>\n

So, what’s to be done? \u00a0Honestly, it isn’t a great mystery. \u00a0First (and perhaps most importantly) there needs to be some\u00a0ground\u00a0level, fundamental advocacy for digital games in public\u00a0archaeology. \u00a0Those of us who see the enormous potential of using digital games for public archaeology simply have to get out there and lay some serious groundwork – presenting our work (and seemingly unique perspective) at core disciplinary conferences and publishing in core disciplinary journals (easy, right?). \u00a0The good thing is that, as with much of the academy, the natural process of scholarly generational evolution means that more and more\u00a0digitally\u00a0inclined grad students are\u00a0becoming\u00a0professors (or museum archaeologists, public sector archaeologists, private sector archaeologists, etc.) – graduate students who are probably a lot more comfortable and familiar with digital games (many of which are probably gamers themselves).<\/p>\n

Part of what needs to be done also has to do with building a strong dialog with funders. \u00a0That means talking with traditional archaeology funders (both private and public) about building and using games. \u00a0In order to do this, we should also be doing some serious work on best practices in\u00a0developing\u00a0and using digital games in public archaeology (drawing upon the enormous wealth of existing work on game design and development, serious games, and meaningful play). \u00a0Designing and\u00a0developing\u00a0games is complicated. \u00a0We won’t do anyone a service (and we sure as hell aren’t going to get renewed funding for future projects) if the games we build are crappy, boring, and\u00a0ineffective.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, and we have got<\/strong><\/em> to adress the whole Lara Croft thing (though, we’ll leave that discussion for another day)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The term “public archaeology” isn’t particularly\u00a0well know to those outside of the archaeological community. \u00a0So, what is it exactly? \u00a0At its core, public archaeology seeks to protect and advocate for archaeological heritage (sites, resources, etc.) through public education, outreach, and engagement. This\u00a0manifests\u00a0in lots of different ways. \u00a0Archaeologists visiting middle schoolContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[98,97,96],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles","tag-engaement","tag-outreach","tag-public-archaeology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":72,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1012,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=938"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}