Minecraft Cambridge (Part 1)
This post covers some of the challenges of trying to collect more-complex digital works than those already within library, archive, or museum collections. Specifically, Minecraft Cambridge, which was deposited to the University Library’s (UL) Covid-19 collection that includes physical and digital materials created by staff, students, and alumni of Cambridge University as well as residents of the city of Cambridge. Part 2 will cover approaches to preserving this work.
Background
I recently gave a presentation to colleagues at the UK Legal Deposit Libraries (LDLs) — of which the UL is one of six of these libraries — on the topic of Minecraft Cambridge that was deposited to the UL’s Covid-19 Collection in April 2021. Although Minecraft Cambridge was not collected under UK legal deposit, it shares characteristics and challenges with the works the LDLs would like to collect.
This presentation was part of an event organised by the LDL Emerging Formats project, which was established to determine collection management solutions for complex digital publications in scope under UK legal deposit. In the UK, print legal deposit has existed for hundreds of years; in 2013, legislation came into effect to allow the LDLs to collect publications in digital formats. Since this time, the LDLs have amassed a large collection of digitally published works, including eBooks, eJournals, the UK web domain, notated music, as well as maps and geospatial data.
The LDLs aren’t alone in wanting to collecting digital works whose characteristics differ from digital works in more-common formats already within the collection. Increasingly, libraries, museums, and archives worldwide are grappling with the challenges posed by digital works for which no or limited solutions exist for collection management activities.
Other UK-based initiatives include the V&A’s Towards a National Collection project “Preserving and Sharing Born Digital and Hybrid Objects”; Tate’s ongoing work to preserve software-based artworks; and The National Archives’ research into content created using Google’s Docs, Slides, and Sheets products.
More than ever before, a diverse range of hardware and software exists with which to create and make content available to audiences; this will only increase as technology progresses. I co-led a workshop on this topic at the International Digital Preservation Conference in 2019, where the majority of attendees were already navigating this space. Collaboration with peers in the digital preservation community as well as other communities, like time-based media conservation and web archiving, is essential for meeting preservation challenges.
These are just some of the common characteristics of such works:
- Born-digital with no analogue counterpart.
- Often networked and made of components that often consist of more than one format.
- Comprised of non-standard format and metadata types that might never become standardised.
- Device-dependent and often require proprietary devices and platforms to enable the intended delivery of content and a meaningful user experience.
- At risk of rapid obsolescence due to the transient and rapid change of the digital marketplace.
These works can also pose the questions of whether they can be collected (e.g., does the institution have permission to do so, or does it apply to an institution’s collecting policy?) and are collectable (e.g., do solutions exist to enable collecting?).
In the UK legal deposit context, these works call into question what it means to publish content in this day and age as well as what constitutes a published work. A publication might not have an author but instead a creator, a team of creators, or a brand, as well as make use of formats and distribution methods unfamiliar to collecting institutions.
An eBook, for example, could be an interactive mobile app for Apple and Android devices that relies on server-side data to deliver content rather than a PDF or EPUB, which are the file formats commonly deposited for eBooks under UK legal deposit. Such works make use of new distribution models with their own technical and metadata dependencies required to sell content on app stores, provide access on mobile devices, and support any updates to a devices operating systems or the app’s intellectual content.
But let’s move away from apps and onto another complex format — Minecraft!
Minecraft
I wasn’t very familiar with Minecraft when asked about collecting this work; the majority of my knowledge has accrued as part of thinking how to support Minecraft Cambridge in a library context. This point is commonly a challenge for collecting institutions looking to collect new types of digital works: skills and knowledge are required to support the collection management activities.
Mojang Studios, a Swedish videogame development company, first launched Minecraft in 2009 then released it more widely in 2011.
It is a 3D, multiplayer videogame recognisable for its block-like aesthetic as well as an example of a sandbox videogame. This term describes games that are open world with lots of creative freedom that may or may not have objectives for players to complete; if there are objectives, these are typically set by the players themselves.
In 2014, Microsoft purchased the intellectual property, which led to a proliferation of ways Minecraft can be played, including on different operating systems and videogame consoles as well as localised (e.g., Minecraft China) and special editions (e.g., MinecraftEdu).
This videogame can also be played in different modes, including survival mode where players need to gather resources and build objects and shelters, as well as creative mode, which allows players to focus on building and creating without having to also survive attacks by non-player characters.
Minecraft has proven to be incredibly popular since its release, generating $3 billion USD in sales over its lifetime with 131 million monthly active users.
Minecraft Cambridge
Minecraft Cambridge has a great origin story. While researching this work, I learned that the idea came from a Camfession posted to Camfess in March 2020. Camfess is a Facebook group for contributors to post anonymously about Cambridge University life.
Upon seeing this post, Sam Sully, a student in the Department of Computer Science took it upon themself to set up a Minecraft server the very next day. Soon players could interact, communicate, and collaborate with one another during a time when in-person classes and socialising was limited or impossible.
Students at Cambridge University weren’t alone in setting up a Minecraft server during the pandemic. Many universities worldwide set up Minecraft servers where students built lifelike representations of their universities in a virtual space — as well as added new landmarks (a trip to the casino, anyone?).
Building in Minecraft provided the opportunity for members of a university’s community to come together and socialise during the pandemic, and especially at times when classes were held virtually or students moved elsewhere to continue their studies remotely.
Writing about Minecraft during the pandemic for The Verge, journalist and former Oberlin College student Pearse Anderson expressed the following: “Minecraft has become a salve for many students like myself, and college servers have started to become a place where students can log in to process the sudden loss of an on-campus community — or maybe rebuild it.”
This observation also applies to Minecraft Cambridge: works deposited to the UL’s Covid-19 collection represent how members of the Cambridge University community spent their time during the pandemic, and as such is a valuable record of University life during this time. Over 1,000 members of this community, including students, staff, and alumni, played Minecraft Cambridge from when it was launched in March 2020, helping to also build landmarks from colleges.
Minecraft was — and continues to be — widely used throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to allow members of a university community to socialise. What I didn’t know what that Minecraft was already used in a higher education context to host virtual events, including lectures and open days, as well as to teach content to students all over the world.
What was collected
The UL collected the digital files that make up the overworld of the Minecraft Cambridge server as it was in September 2020. The overworld is the area of Minecraft where players spend most of their time in the game and the most diverse of Minecraft’s three dimensions (the other two being the Nether and the End).
As part of collecting works that aren’t contained within one format, or whose audiences help in the delivery of content, a question about where the work starts and ends could be asked. Put another way, what are the boundaries to the work? With Minecraft Cambridge, the decision was made to take a snapshot up to just before the 2020 Michaelmas term began, which seemed like a natural cut-off point.
Another point relating to boundaries concerns all the additional content that surrounds a work. These secondary sources provide richer context, especially for multi-player works or ones that have a community of users around them. These additional sources are also works in themselves that could be collected, and could include blog posts, articles, tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, amongst other types of content. They are valuable for creating a richer picture to support a work when it’s used and studied in a research context.
Metadata relating to Minecraft Cambridge’s creation and compatibility with the Minecraft software was also provided and used to accession this work into the Libraries’ Archives Management System, making it the first videogame in the UL’s collections!
I’m going to end this post here, but come back for Part 2 about how this work is being preserved!
