Ports and patches: Digital games as unstable objects

Abstract

The problem for curators and archivists of digital games is that the games are inherently unstable. As a range of commentators have explored, gameplay in digital games often takes quite unexpected, unpredictable and emergent directions as players probe at the boundaries of rules and systems. For those engaged in the archiving, curation and exhibition of digital games, a clear challenge comes from the contingency of playing preferences, and that various ‘playings’ might be differently informed by prefigurative and regulatory materials such as walkthroughs, FAQs and reviews. However, before we get to considerations of the ways it is (re)configured through the performance of play, in fact regardless of whether it is ever played at all, we should recognise that a digital game is a potentially changing, unstable object. In fact, it is typically better thought of as a growing and mutating collection of many objects. This article centres less on ideas of performance or the changing nature of the game at play but rather concentrates on the instability of the fabric of the game to-be-played-with. As media that are routinely ported (transferred and translated) to different operating systems and platforms with differing hardware and software capabilities, and patched (updated to fix bugs or modify gameplay mechanics), digital games simply cannot be conceived of as static objects or texts. To demonstrate the impact of porting and patching on the instability of digital games, this article draws on an analysis of Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog series.