LucasLacamara

I’m of two minds. The purist in me always wants to be experiencing something in its intended form, in this case on the original platform with the visuals that were made at the time it was completed. At the same time, I don’t think that’s always super necessary, depending on the game. Sometimes the difference is just a wider aspect ratio, while sometimes its littered with 2017 particle effects that can sometimes feel out of place when it plays like something from the PS2.

I guess ultimately what matters to me is that its done with the intention of preservation, and doesn’t try to take too much of a revisionist stance.

For me, Mario Kart’s always been the great video game equalizer over the years. Something that practically anyone I know can pick up and (whether or not they’re any good at it), and feel like they’re having fun playing a game. This new one’s been a staple with me and my girlfriend and the ease of setting up local 2-player on the switch has been much to look forward to recently!

As I was reading your piece I kept comparing the individual, temporal experience of playing a game to the way films are exhibited in art museums/galleries, but then ran into a few important distinctions. While watching a film is similarly personal, most have traditionally been designed to be seen with a group of people together. This makes films much easier to be exhibited in a gallery setting, whereas games demand your individual feedback in a way that renders communal exhibition inadequate.

That said, I think that the only thing that determines the appropriateness of a game in something like MoMA is its context. If they’re simply letting the game speak for itself without considering what they want people to get out of whatever portion of it they have curated, then there’s really no reason for it to be there since playing the game in that environment wouldn’t be any more enlightening than playing it at home. However, I do think there is something to be said for allowing gallery/museum exhibitions to function as opportunities to explore aspects of games that might not be as obvious while locked into one of them back at your house (tropes, artistic/technical evolutions throughout games history, etc).