"The purpose of this book is to consolidate the authors far-flung publications into a single work to give students and scholars the opportunity to read and teach his scholarly output as a single corpus of thought. This book offers the authors most significant pieces on game history, game historiography, software preservation, software collections, virtual worlds/machinima, play-capture, and documentation"--"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 Lowoods 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The volume includes two previously unpublished essays, along with Lowoods reflective section introductions that provide a contemporary take on his previously published works.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 Lowoods sustained commitment to games, an introduction by editor Raiford Guins sharing Lowoods 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 Lowoods 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"--.