Replayed

A leading voice in technology studies shares a collection of essential essays on the preservation of software and history of games.

Since the early 2000s, Henry E. Lowood has led or had a key role in numerous initiatives devoted to the preservation and documentation of virtual worlds, digital games, and interactive simulations, establishing himself as a major scholar in the field of game studies. His voluminous writings have tackled subject matter spanning the history of game design and development, military simulation, table-top games, machinima, e-sports, wargaming, and historical software archives and collection development. Replayed consolidates Lowood's far-flung and significant publications on these subjects into a single volume.

Lowood offers important historical contexts for digital and analog game objects and their implications for both documentation and preservation. Replayed is divided into three sections focused on archives, documentation, and the preservation of historical software, game histories and historiography, and future directions. The volume includes two previously unpublished essays, along with Lowood's reflective section introductions that provide a contemporary take on his previously published works. Rounding out the book are a foreword by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum detailing Lowood's sustained commitment to games, an introduction by editor Raiford Guins sharing Lowood's scholarly and curatorial pursuits, and an extensive interview with Lowood on his personal and professional background conducted by T. L. Taylor.

For those interested in the history of technology, game studies, libraries, archives, and museums, Replayed presents the opportunity to read Lowood's works—writing that remains timely, skillfully executed, and rigorously researched—as a major project chronicling the history of games and forecasting the opportunities and challenges faced by future game historians.