Permalife Of The Archive: Archaeogaming As Queergaming

TL;DR

The paper addresses the limited cross-pollination between archaeogaming and queergaming, arguing for shared epistemologies rooted in representation, ethics, and personal/political contexts. It adopts a literature-driven approach complemented by three vignettes (Wurm Online go-alongs, Elden Ring archaeological survey, and Nothing Beside Remains) to demonstrate how queer perspectives can enrich archaeological thinking about games and how archaeological methods can illuminate queer game practices. The work foregrounds subjective lived experience, reparative design, and the permalife of the archival record as central contributions, offering concrete methodological bridges between the fields. The findings bear significance for game preservation, digital heritage, and the study of queer and trans media histories, encouraging further experimental archaeogaming and inclusive game studies.

Abstract

Archaeogaming and queer games studies have both grown as paradigms in the last decade. The former broadly refers to the archaeological study of games, while the later concerns the application of queer theory to the medium. To date, there has been limited engagement of archaeogamers with queer games scholarship, and vice versa. This article argues that there are epistomological parallels between the two; as they are both concerned with the limits and ethics of representation, the personal and political contexts of game development and engagement with video games through transgressive play. The paper is structured around an extended literature review and three vignettes that reflect on the author's personal experience of conducting archaeogaming research, an ethnographic study of Wurm Online, an archaeological survey of Elden Ring and a player study of the generative archaeology game Nothing Beside Remains. While archaeogaming can learn from the centring of subjective lived experience and labour in the queer games sphere, archaeogaming as a form of game preservation can also benefit queer games studies.