I picked a video game for one of the most recent consoles. Video games are important to me and my generation for a few reasons. Our generation is the first generation to make video games a common medium alongside movies and television shows. Video games are also the first truly interactive medium where the player can directly affect what occurs on screen. Dozens of eSports, content creators and businesses  revolve around the production and promotion of video games. They’re a revolutionary platform that are only going to become more common and widespread in years to come.

Personally, I grew up with video games. Either flash, gameboy or on my PC I’d always be playing something. It’s interesting to see the evolution of how games are played over the years. Where as games used to require a console to be played now the vast majority of people play games on their phones and tablets, technology that was designed with gaming as a secondary function.

Xcom 2 being inserted into a PS4 – Wyatt Nevins, August 27th, 2018

While I haven’t been playing as much as I did when I was younger, I still game. Mostly casual games on my phone like the majority of the world. However I still occasionally hop on with some buddies from high school and catch up over a game of Titanfall or Xcom. This is another reason why I picked this artifact – games have become social activities, a substitute for catching up on the phone or facetime. This is both a necessary and growing function of video games, and yet another reason why they will continue to rise in prevalence.

As time goes on physical discs like this one will be less common as digital downloads become the primary method of accessing games. However, gaming has it’s roots in physical discs, cartridges and CD’s. Archives like the MLA will have these video games in the near future to record this pivotal point in media history. Without these important pieces of history we’d never have gaming as it is today – digital, mobile and available.