Andrew Reinhard is the director of publications of the American Numismatic Society and a PhD student at York University in the UK. He is also the creator of a web blog called Archaeogaming. Since this is a new archaeological field, Reinhard published Archaeogaming: An Introduction to Archaeology in and of Video Games to introduce its theory and practice. Each chapter introduces a different aspect of archaeogaming. ‘Real-World Archaeogaming’ (Ch. 1) discusses video games and related hardware as archaeological artefacts that can be studied using more traditional archaeological methods, such as excavation. Like in the rest of the book Reinhard often relies on personal experience, for example his participation in the Atari Burial Ground dig in Alamogordo, New Mexico (USA). Chapter 2 switches the perspective and explores how video games are played by archaeologists. Despite the heading, ‘Playing as Archaeologists’, the chapter does more by also discussing how archaeology is featured in video games, i.e. games that feature archaeology in some capacity, public reception of the profession, archaeologists as non-player characters, etc. In ‘Video Games as Archaeological Sites’ (Ch. 3), Reinhard makes an argument to define video games as archaeological sites and proposes possible avenues to study them as such. The last chapter, ‘Material Culture of the Immaterial’, crosses over again into the physical world and is the most multi-disciplinary part of the book. For example, his discussion on museums in games and about the gaming world touches on museology and heritage studies (pp. 167–72), while his consideration of fans bringing games’ worlds to life by making and wearing costumes (cosplay) shows the potential of linking archaeology and sociology (pp. 185–88).
Reinhard's book Archaeogaming has already garnered some generally positive attention and, as an archaeologist and gamer, I might be expected to be positive about the book. The book indeed has many positive aspects, e.g. introducing a new field to archaeology, the author's strong interdisciplinarity, and the attempt to open up the gaming world that, despite its ever-growing market share, can be quite arcane for the uninitiated. However, the book raises some problematic issues which I will touch upon in this review, and that I believe should be borne in mind for the future development of archaeogaming.
The first aspect that struck me while reading the book was Reinhard's convoluted writing style, at times including unfitting analogies, which is difficult to follow, at least for a non-native English-speaking reader. Overall, Reinhard seems to be committed to a posthuman agenda (Díaz-Guardamino & Morgan, Reference Díaz-Guardamino and Morgan2019), but his use of related jargon, whose meaning and relevance to archaeogaming are not adequately explained, makes the arguments difficult to follow. Many statements seem to be more about impressing the reader rather than conveying any content. On p. 30 Reinhard enumerates what objects are, partly relying on other authors, when suddenly the short sentence ‘An artifact is forever’ is interspersed. There is nothing surrounding this statement explaining what Reinhard means or how he comes to this conclusion. It is also an odd statement for an archaeologist who should be aware that most materials are perishable, leaving archaeology with the gaps in the material record it tries to research. From an archaeological standpoint, the exact opposite seems to be true.
Reinhard also makes several assumptions as to what ‘we’ do or do not do. For example, he states, ‘We often fail to perceive how these permanent spaces [i.e. cities] appear to the temporary visitor […]. We fail to consider fully how a migratory population builds and dwells for a short time within a permanent space. For this groups of “transhumans”, nothing is permanent […]’ (p. 104). Here it is quite unclear who this ‘we’ is, glossing over differences in the groups Reinhard perceives himself to be a part of. This could be a misunderstanding facilitated by vagueness. Added to that, the assumption that these spaces are permanent is contradicted by Reinhard's emphasis that nothing is permanent and that everything is in constant flux (e.g. pp. 89, 103). It would be better to phrase the presumed permanence of cities as a perceived one, because some people may perceive their living spaces as permanent. However, frequently people understand spaces like cities as impermanent. Almost everyone knows stories of places (real or fictional) that ‘ended’, e.g. Pompei, Troy, Sodom, etc. Such places are still active in some sense, perhaps precisely because their ‘end’ transformed them into something else. Furthermore, Reinhard's use of the term ‘transhumans’ for migratory people should have been explained since it is a word with a prior definition and its use in this context is potentially problematic.
Such lapses would not be worth mentioning if they were rare, but many examples can be found throughout. Most pervasive is Reinhard's insistence on the similarities between in-game worlds and the real world. The statement ‘Both natural and synthetic world are real. There is no “virtual” here’ (p. 111) is only true in the sense that both worlds exist; however, it ignores the fact that synthetic worlds are ‘crafted by a developer’ (p. 97). Games represent ‘amputated’ worlds in which activities are restricted and possibilities limited. For example, most ‘worlds’ in games are flat planes without subsoil depth or depositions of previous inhabitants. Most do not have any actual previous inhabitants. Settlements in games are deliberately placed by the developer. Real-world settlements might be placed deliberately as well; however, this fails to acknowledge a fundamental difference. In the synthetic world the settlement is created only for players, while in the real world the makers of a prehistoric settlement did not have twenty-first century people in mind when they built their houses. That means the reasons for the existence of a settlement in the real world always has to be a matter of interpretation by the modern observer, while in the synthetic world the reason is always ‘for the player’.
It seems that Reinhard is implicitly aware of this problem, because he makes much of procedurally (i.e. algorithmically, randomized) generated game worlds like Minecraft or No Man's Sky. However, procedurally generated games only invert the problem, as other than starting/writing the algorithm no agency is responsible for settlement placement. Conversely, in the real world there are manifold agencies involved in creating settlement patterns, a process that was not started by a single agency. It is also worth remembering that in games like Minecraft only very limited gravity exists so that the algorithm creates floating islands. Settlements are placed randomly after the landscape is created without regard for the shape of the landscape so that half of a house is on the floating island and half on the ground. This is an important difference to the natural world, where the natural environment, amongst others, is often a significant factor.
Similar issues can be encountered elsewhere in the book. For example, Reinhard observes that in the game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim ceramics differ according to in-game ‘races’ and regions, improving in quality compared to older versions of the game series. He likens this development to archaeological ceramic chronologies (p. 48). While there may be an aspect of this in terms of real world technological developments, it ignores that the creators of these pots are outside the presumed cultural frame of the ‘users’ of these pots; pots are non-player characters (NPCs), which were never meant to be anything other than cultural markers, and the ‘change’ they undergo has no other reason than the technological improvement in visualization outside the game world. In short, there is very little room for interpretation. In the real physical world, pots change and differ for a variety of intertwined reasons, for example, class, social function, personal taste, etc.
Reinhard's unwillingness to discuss differences between ‘natural’ and ‘synthetic’ worlds blinds him to some of the limitations of real world archaeology in synthetic worlds. He argues (p. 94) that sites real or virtual consist of networks and systems that an archaeologist can break down. He then states that there is no difference between Athens and a virtual simulation of Athens. However, the spatial limits of the simulation cannot be passed. Thus, a whole component of the network that real Athens may offer, i.e. contact to the outside world, is missing and cannot be studied. Virtual Athens also adds a layer of interpretation (by the developer) that real world Athens does not have.
All of this explains why Reinhard mostly sticks with games that present large, open world, sandbox environments. These games are made to resemble the real world which is a fact that Reinhard does not seem to appreciate. Most of his analogies would break down if he were to discuss them using games like Tetris, Mario Bros, or Rocket League. The forced analogies sometimes unwittingly cross over into the cynical. For example, Reinhard describes games as ‘sites composed of artifacts working together, an electrified society of automatons’ (p. 93). He seems to think that something that is run on pre-programmed premises, reactions, and processes can be recast as a ‘society’, presumably akin to human society. This is reaffirmed when he maintains that NPCs ‘engage with that space based on parameters, acting when acted upon’ and then states that this is ‘little different than a human commuter in a rut’ (p. 97). This denies humans any kind of agency and has some frightening consequences when thought through. No one has a problem deleting NPCs if they do not fit the narrative any longer, reprogram them, or, as part of the game, kill them. Does he really want to imply that ‘it's little different’? These are of course theoretical issues that have arisen in archaeology most recently around concepts like symmetrical archaeology, (primary) object agency, and the so-called rights of objects. This requires critique and discussion that has just recently started (e.g. Díaz-Guardamino & Morgan, Reference Díaz-Guardamino and Morgan2019; Ribeiro, Reference Ribeiro2016, Reference Ribeiro2019; Sørensen, Reference Sørensen2016, Reference Sørensen2018).
The book laudably often touches on ethics in archaeology and its practice. However, sometimes it gets somewhat curious. Reinhard went into a retro gaming store, but did not purchase anything, declaring (p. 35): ‘it troubles me ethically to purchase the things that I study.’ However, a major part of the ‘fieldwork’ in the book is a survey (i.e. study) of the game No Man's Sky. One is left wondering how Reinhard and his team acquired the game if ethics prevented purchasing it? He is also concerned that the portrayal of looting and problematic treatment of artefacts in the real world may desensitize players (pp. 75–86). But Reinhard does not factor the suspension of disbelief and the unreality that most games portray, which prevents them from becoming guidelines for real life behaviour. In an insightful assessment of how archaeology is portrayed in popular cinema, Hall (Reference Hall2004: 173) noted that ‘[i]f we read such films in an overly literal way we will miss their (sometimes unintended) point.’ The same seems true for video games.
The glossary aiding the understanding of gaming terms is a commendable addition. However, some important terms (e.g. ‘vanilla’, the original version of a game) are missing. The structure in which items are mentioned (e.g. list of games with an archaeologist protagonist (pp. 62-70)) has no apparent order. The information given to each game differs: sometimes it is a partial game description with some commentary on the character, sometimes it includes game mechanics, sometimes it is a list of titles under a brand (i.e. Tomb Raider), and sometimes it has company information or history. A clearer structure to the information given would have aided reading and following Reinhard's argument.
Despite all these critical points, Archaeogaming represents a valiant effort to introduce an emerging archaeological field with great potential. It highlights the need for further discussion, criticism, and refinement. As such, the book is definitively worth reading and will be a cornerstone for the future development of the field. Chapter 4 especially will be crucial for the development of new interdisciplinary approaches. There are many good ideas, such as studying in-game gear realized by fans, which could provide answers with relevant implications for other archaeological enquiries, e.g. the degree of precision of copies, the uses of the created objects, the potential adoration or veneration of such items, etc. Ironically, this review is like two phenomena that can be found in reviews of games on platforms like Steam. There, games like No Man's Sky received mostly negative reviews after launch, because the developer promised too much, and fans were expecting too much. Also, ‘Early Access’ games (i.e. games that are playable while still being developed) frequently receive reviews stating, ‘the game has great potential, but…’. Both apply to Archaeogaming.
