Book Reviews

Patrick Jagoda makes thought-provoking
assertions for an understanding of joy andtransformation at the center of games.
—Adrianna Burton, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA

Replayed: Essential Writings
on Software Preservation andGame Histories
Henry Lowood, edited by Raiford Guins,
with a forward by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum and an Interview by T. L. Taylor
Foreword, acknowledgments, editor’s
introduction, bibliography, and index.
358 pp. $50.00 hardcover.
ISBN: 9781421445946
When talking about the past, fresh is rarely
the first qualifier that comes to mind. Yet,this retrospective collection—grouping
previously published and unpublishedpieces written by Henry Lowood overtwo decades—feels refreshing. The editor’s introduction, author’s introductions
for each part of the book, and an interview serving as the collection’s conclusion
breathe new life into Lowood’s contributions to the fields of software preservationand game history by providing a relevant
and important context to the previously
published chapters. Replayed is a valuable
resource to these fields and, as an historianworking within them, I read the book andwished such a resource had been available
when I first dipped my toes into gamepreservation and game history.
Lowood’s many hats, notably as a historian and curator, complement each otherwell and show the worth of cross-disci-

plinary approaches and expertise. Perhaps
one of the more valuable contributions of
this collection is to show what history cantruly contribute to game studies, especiallywhen combined with libraries, archives,and museums. As Raiford Guins argues
in his editor’s introduction, “professionally trained historians lug an entirely different set of tools to a problem” (p. 13). Tome, this reminder is especially importantas I have heard some scholars, sometimes
even colleagues, on several occasions
make the claim that “anyone can do history.” Although academic historians do
not—and should not—have sole ownership of history, dismissing their skills andtechniques is not productive for game andplay studies. Lowood shows this throughout the book, but the chapters entitled“Games Studies Now, History of ScienceThen” and “Game Engine and Game History” exemplify it best. Drawing from historians of technology, like Thomas S. Kuhn
and Michael Mahoney, and from HaydenWhite, a historian known for his works
on historiography, Lowood shows what a
professional historian’s ability to tackle bigquestions brings to the table.
Replayed’s sections are well structured
and speak to one another, which makes
each part and the book itself feel cohesive. Every chapter is thought provoking,engaging, and fairly accessible, at least
for a publication dealing with such complex issues, making it a good resource forthose both within and outside academia.
I found myself smiling and chuckling inplaces, and some of Lowood’s rhetoricalstrategies were very effective in making hisarguments even stronger. I would, however, have liked to see more about minorgames. When talking about video games

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P L AYfor instance, many of the examples used
revolve around canonical titles, such as
Doom, Quake, Counter-Strike, StarCraft,or World of Warcraft. He tackles someless mainstream topics—such as play bymail war gaming, and to some extent
machinima, which has become quite agaming niche—and dismantles simplistic
interpretations of game history informedby technological determinism. But I wish
Replayed had included more about lesserknown games because minor games not
only have worth in and of themselves,
but they can also tell us a lot about major
games. Indeed, a similar point was wellmade by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Gattari
in “What Is a Minor Literature?” (1983),
which Benjamin Nicoll builds off of andapplies to video games platforms more
recently in Minor Platforms in Videogame
History (2019). Such inclusion would
help us avoid a gaming version of great
men theory, a “great game” theory if you
will, still obvious in overall game history. Nonetheless, we always need to startsomewhere, and canons are often goodstarting points.
In his introduction to the collection,
Guins says this book “signals a milestone
within a field, the moment when it produces its first major corpus of criticalworks on history and preservation” andthat, “beyond flagging a milestone forgame studies,” it “proves something of alandmark publication for the history oftechnology” (p. 22). He has high hopes forthe book, and I believe it delivers. Replayed
is a solid entry point for those interested
in software preservation and game history. More importantly, it asks and helps
set the stage for the big questions necessary to ensure the continued maturation ofthese fields. I am excited to see such a collection published and cannot wait to see
what the future of play and game studies
brings, especially since we are now starting to have major contributions such as
this one.
—Dany Guay-Bélanger, Université deMontréal, Montreal, Canada