2. beSITka

Paratexts aka everything about games

To fully study gaming history, it is not enough to have functional versions of individual games stored in an archive. It is also necessary to archive "everything related to games" – artifacts, documents, or data that often capture the different past lives of game titles. These paratexts can include design documents, prototypes, or promotional materials from developers, reviews, tutorials, and reports from journalists, as well as a wide range of fan creations such as game videos, tutorials, or fan art. The second beSÍŤka event organized by the National Film Archive and the pixelarchiv.cz project will focus on Czech and Czechoslovak game paratexts from the distant and recent past. In individual contributions, we will focus on research and community approaches, methodological concepts, and practical archiving. In the subsequent debate, we will try to identify the most important types of paratexts and the most suitable ways to preserve them.

Admission is traditionally free, and advance registration is not required.

All presentations will be recorded thanks to cooperation with the VisionGame project.

program

April 5, 2025

9.00-9.20 Registration
9.20-10.50
   Jan Švelch, The Concept of Paratexts in Game Studies
   Jaroslav Švelch, Czechoslovak Paratexts from the Perspective of a Game Historian
   Zdeněk Záhora, Czech Gaming Magazines - Typology of Paratexts    
10.50-11.10 a.m. Break & refreshments
11.10-12.10 a.m.
   Rudolf Suchý, Oral history and the history of games
   Kristýna Sulková, Czech game dubbing and its documentation
1:20-2:50 p.m.
   Vojtěch Straka, Paratexts in the collections of the Game History Association
   Štěpán Stolz, Disappearing, searching for, and operating software paratexts
   David Labský, Hardware as paratexts
2:50-3.00 p.m. break & refreshments
3:00-4:00 p.m.
   Paratexts and Pixelarchiv.cz – open debate