"For a national museum of digital cultures." The protest panel is signed by MO5.COM, an association founded in 2003, which advocates for the creation of a national museum to showcase video games. It is found on several walls in the space of 400 m² at its disposal where the association exhibits many consoles and games of its collection at the Paris Games Week (PGW), the high mass of the video game in France, which takes place until November 3, in the south of Paris. The opportunity for enthusiasts to claim the status of heritage and artistic object of their favorite pastime.
In this exhibition park at the Porte de Versailles, many parents are approaching to let their children discover the pixels of their youth and pass by a shiver of nostalgia by replaying, decades later, to cult games, such as Mario Kart or Bomberman.
Save the works
Since the creation of MO5.COM, members - 350 today - have given themselves the task of amassing consoles, machines, accessories, floppy disks, cartridges and other video game discs, which constitute the rich history of the medium. The founder of the association, Philippe Dubois, computer engineer, is proud to have been born in 1972, the same year as the Odyssey, the very first game console. He was quickly convinced by the need to preserve what he considers a heritage in the grip of rapid obsolescence.
"The video game is the latest medium," says Philippe Dubois, "and, unfortunately, he is the one who is evolving and becoming obsolete the fastest.We change generation of gaming machine every five or seven years. the previous generation and the video games it was wearing, "adds the passionate. "Today, we have a new challenge with the dematerialization of content: video games no longer have a physical trace, they can disappear overnight like Apple has decided to remove software from its App store. 32 bits: that day thousands of applications, including video games have disappeared and it is unlikely that we find them.
For the old road video game, the solution is through the creation of a national museum, which would mark the recognition of the medium to which he devotes his free time. But awareness is time-consuming and complicated by constant change of contacts in ministries. "Under [François] Hollande, we had three ministers of culture, each time the players in the video game are forced to make an appointment to explain their approach and we go back," he says. He however praised the work of Frédéric Mitterrand, Minister of Culture (2009-2012) under Nicolas Sarkozy, who allowed the organization of the exhibition "Game Story" at the Grand Palais, then the "Video Games: Expo" at the Cité des Sciences, contributing to the recognition of the video game culture.
"We remain hopeful because there is a generational renewal in all positions, adds the founder of the association.Today in appointments to the ministries, we discuss with people having themselves played in their youth. 'was unthinkable ten years ago,' he says before setting out his dream for the future museum.
"The important thing would be to offer the visitor the opportunity to play a video game in the conditions closest to the time, in order to recreate the first emotions aroused by this video game", develops the president of MO5.COM. "For example, Mario on NES [the first console of Nintendo, Ed] is inseparable from its graphics a little mushy of the time, the rectangle handle and the fact that it was playable to only one person and that the friends at our side were forced to cheer us in. Still today, it remains an excellent game but playing alone on his smartphone trendy touch controls denatures. "
Video games are subject to legal deposit
To this associative work of archiving is added that carried out officially by the National Library of France (BNF). Since 1992, video games have entered the French cultural heritage and game publishers are therefore subject to the principle of legal deposit, which requires them to send two copies of their creations to be preserved for posterity and study.
At this Paris Games Week, there is also a fun contrast between the crowd that makes the publisher Ubisoft dance in the moisture of the exhibition park and the cozy atmosphere that reigns in the conference room located high up and welcomes the first "day of research" of the PGW. Here, the video game is serious business and we entrust to doctors of literature, psychiatrists or historians the task of discussing "intimacy and extimacy in the video game" or the place of books in the games of role.
The huge collection of the BNF - more than 17,000 works - is accessible on accreditation for researchers who would like to study the subject. But besides this archival work, the BNF has also given itself the mission of promoting the collections they own.
"There is a real technical and 'museographic' challenge: how to present the video game differently than in shop windows with inert consoles?" Asks Pascale Issartel, director of the Audiovisual Department of the BNF, interviewed by France 24. "We are collecting the heritage of tomorrow today, it is our role as an institution to legitimize this support."
If the MO5 association focuses on the gaming experience and the recreation of the original sensations, the BNF believes that it is not central when we want to bring the video game as part of a museum or exhibition. The BNF believes that the creative process, the preparatory work that leads to the final work is just as interesting to expose.
"We can look at a table at 20 people at the same time but we can not play 20 people at the same time," said Jean Jourenton, a master of new media museology, who spoke during the day. "It's very complicated to make a gameplay, I think more and more that the game, as we know it in a private setting, can not be used in an exhibition. The game is limited, making the gaming experience difficult. The material conditions are not the same: one is standing in the middle of several people ... There is the fear of playing badly in public ... ", enumerates this specialist of the question.
Make fun exhibitions
Jean Jouberton has time to work for the BNF as a researcher. He continues to think about the place to be given to video games as a complement to more traditional exhibitions. And the 31-year-old researcher has come back to the problem: instead of offering the gaming experience as it is commercially available, culture could benefit from using the medium to gain pedagogy.
"Inserting a video game marketed as is in an exhibition is a mistake, and I think the best way to insert a video game into an exhibition is to create it specifically for it."
The BNF has also decided to try the experiment by creating its first video game, "the kingdom of Istyald" which plunges the user into a world populated by creatures and mysterious objects and will be backed by the cycle "Fantasy, back to basics ". The video game is presented on the BNF stand at Paris Games Week.
"We want to get away from the simple nostalgia caused by the sight of old consoles to enter a real new experience," confirms Pascale Issartel.
"Prisme 7", the virtual floor of the Pompidou Center
This approach, an extension of the museum experience via a video game, is also the one chosen by the Pompidou Center. The Paris Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is present for the first time in its history at Paris Games Week.
"Coming to the PGW is a logical continuation of the Pompidou Center's work," says Marie-Constance Mendes, project manager at the museum. "The video game is not new: there are regular conferences, we have a new media space ..."
The Pompidou Center came to present "Prisme 7", also its first video game. The name is a tribute to the six levels of the center. The virtual experience would be the seventh. The video game will be downloadable from February 2020.
"The video game is designed to showcase the major works of the Pompidou Center, giving an overview of our collections through the presentation of some fifty major works such as Xavier Veilhan's" The Rhinoceros "or" The Rhinoceros ". Picasso's "Harlequin" on the 100,000 pieces in the center, "explains Marie-Constance Mendes. "The idea is to understand the creative process of the artist."
The video game allows the BNF and the Pompidou Center to have an additional point of entry to its collections because, as Pascale Issartel summarizes very pragmatically: "Video games can bring people in. It is also for this reason that we try to put it in our exhibitions at the BNF. "
If the popularity of the support is not to be demonstrated, its development in a museum remains more complicated. "Publishers are also thinking on their side, there is a need to recognize this game from all actors," says the director of audiovisual BNF. "But the video game museum remains a snake of sea."