02079nas a2200241   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002653002200043653002200065653001700087653001700104653002400121653002700145100001800172700001700190700001700207245007200224856015400296300001200450490000700462520134800469022002001817                                       d10aGame preservation10acritical heritage10agame culture10agame studies10aintangible heritage10aparticipatory heritage1 aNiklas Nylund1 aPatrick Prax1 aOlli Sotamaa00aRethinking game heritage - towards reflexivity in game preservation  uhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85084082105&doi=10.1080%2f13527258.2020.1752772&partnerID=40&md5=747e36d957e4a7868b19e3e3c1fadecf  a268-2800 v273 aWhile games and the cultures that have sprung up around them are diverse and vastly different from each other, most exhibitions dealing with them are based on a limited understanding of games that relies on symbolic brands on one hand and on the centrality of playable experiences on the other. This bias is potentially replicated by heritage institution collections starting to define how games become cultural heritage. While games research has shown that games are firmly nestled in a participatory grassroots culture, these kinds of perspectives are curiously lacking in exhibitions. By connecting previous work on critical and intangible heritage with game studies literature, this paper emphasises the importance of various productive communities for game heritage. The concepts of intangible and critical heritage suggest that the inclusion of players and communities into the game heritage process could offer a more diverse heritage discourse. But participatory practices in collector run museums tend to produce game heritage which is implicitly working towards the same kind of one-sided understanding of games that has been criticised heavily in game studies. The critical expertise of museum professionals is needed in order to start incorporating the varicoloured practices of communities into our understanding of game heritage.  a13527258 (ISSN)