What does it mean to preserve the history of video games? This is something I thought about a lot when I started this work at The Strong National Museum of Play in 2006. My training in fields such as the history of the book and history of science convinced me that among the materials that needed to be preserved were not just the games themselves but also the work of the creators who made them. To that end we began building relationships with key individuals and companies so that we could collect these records before they were lost and make them available to scholars and researchers interested in understanding how video games developed and grew.
At first, I reviewed pretty much every new item and collection that came in, but as the pace of acquisitions quickened and the size of our staff expanded to do all this work, I’ve found myself with fewer and fewer opportunities to dig deep into these collections. That’s why it was such a pleasure to spend time going through the Bruce C. Shelley Papers at The Strong as we developed an exhibit on Age of Empires as part of our major expansion project in the summer of 2023.
The materials Bruce Shelley donated to The Strong encompass both physical papers and digital files, and in totality they help trace key parts of his career. They are particularly important because his career parallels the development of computer gaming in general.
A fan of war, simulation, and role-playing games, Shelley helped found Iron Crown Enterprises, whose first role-playing tabletop games came out in 1980, and then he worked at other board game companies such as Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) and Avalon Hill. His early efforts often involved minding the fine-grained details necessary to produce high-quality games. For example, the archives are filled with Shelley’s handwritten notes for games like Titan specifying font size or type changes; subtle tweaks to game instructions to make them more understandable for the player; and decisions about components.
In addition to his personal notes and correspondence, the files also contain a wide variety of pamphlets, newsletters, catalogs, conference programs, and other ephemeral publications that provide insights into the nature of culture and communication of the board game world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I particularly like the program for a softball game between the staff of the game publishers Avalon Hill and S.P.I. that was held at the 1978 Origins game conference.
Like many other board game designers of the period, Shelley made the transition to the world of computer games in the 1980s and early 1990s. Geographically he didn’t have to go far. Avalon Hill, the leading war game company, was based in Maryland, as was the up-and-coming computer game company Microprose where Shelley started working in the late 1980s. There he teamed with game developer Sid Meier on best-selling games such as Railroad Tycoon and Civilization. Both Shelley and Meier were firm believers in continually testing games, and the papers contain interesting records of “Questions regarding game play” for the game Colonization.
In 1995, after a move to Chicago, Bruce Shelley reconnected with two old friends, Tony and Rich Goodman, to work on a game that they were developing (they had originally met in the 1970s at a board game club at the University of Virginia). That game became Age of Empires, one of the most successful real-time strategy games of all time. Here’s where Shelley’s donation of materials is particularly rich. The paper materials he gave to the museum offer some documentation, but the electronic materials are especially valuable in offering crucial insights into the development of the game.
These digital materials contain a wide range of files, from meeting notes to outlines for technology trees for civilizations in the games to presentations about the game and the creators’ strategies and principles. I particularly enjoyed clicking through a folder from 1996 that contained the various proposed .WAV files of sounds in the game, from waving grass to taunting phrases.
Video games are almost always a collaborative enterprise, so it’s not surprising that the papers reveal some key materials created by other people. I found a 1997 memo from Dave Pottinger that outlines an early version of the AI for the computer players (i.e., the opponents of the human player in a single player game). Pottinger’s document explains the mathematical basis for determining the decisions of the different active elements in the game, assigning each a strategic number (abbreviated as SN at the start of every variable name).
Being able to care for these digital materials is the result of expertise that The Strong has built up over almost 20 years of work engaged in safeguarding the history of video games. When the collection first came in, our digital preservation team made sure to migrate the data off the original disks and onto more secure storage. In the process, The Strong’s digital games curator Andrew Borman discovered the earliest known prototype of Age of Empires called “Dawn of Man.”
By doing this work, we can preserve a record for researchers to understand how games were created, what decisions individuals and companies made, and why things developed as they did. Video games are a transformative industry, and it is a vital work of cultural heritage to preserve these sorts of materials. In this case, the materials Bruce Shelley donated helped us create an exhibit on Age of Empires that debuted in June of 2023. By using materials from the Bruce Shelley papers, as well as other donations such as those from Tony and Suzanne Goodman and Age of Empires art director Brad Crow, we’re able to unfold, for our guests, the rich, detailed work that goes into making important video games.
Bruce Shelley’s papers are of great value for anyone interested in understanding his career, the development of Age of Empires specifically, and the history of the craft more broadly. We are honored to preserve them.
