VIDEO GAMES: THE DIGITAL CONTINUATION OF HUMANITY’S OLDEST CULTURAL TECHNOLOGY & WHAT WOMEN BRING TO THE FUTURE OF PLAY

So, this is my contribution to the Women in Games End of Year Newsletter… What follows is less an article and more a short essay, a reflection on why video games deserve to be seen not simply as commercial products, but as part of the long continuum of human play, creativity and cultural expression

For some time, I’ve been thinking about the cultural position of video games, not just as an industry, but as a historical and human phenomenon. In a world that feels increasingly disrupted, polarised and accelerated, games occupy a strange dual role: they are both at the forefront of technological change and deeply rooted in behaviours that are older than civilisation itself.

This tension has made me reflect on where games truly sit within our cultural story, why they matter, and why understanding their lineage is essential if we want to shape their future responsibly. For years, the dominant narrative around video games has cast them as a young medium, the ‘new kid’ on the cultural block. I see something different. I see that video games are not a cultural newcomer at all, they are the digital continuation of humanity’s oldest cultural technology: PLAY.

In 1938, the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga argued in his book Homo Ludens that play is “older than culture”. In his view, humans were playing long before we were writing, painting or performing. Play, he suggested, is the foundational behaviour from which ritual, law, poetry and social practice grew. A generation later, the French philosopher Roger Caillois expanded this argument, showing that the patterns of play such as competition, chance, mimicry and vertigo recur across societies everywhere, underpinning the creative forms we now take for granted.

And archaeology confirms all of this. Carved dice, the Royal Game of Ur, Senet, chess – these are some of the oldest artefacts humanity ever produced. They are not tools or weapons but games: reminders that play has always been central to how we imagine, organise and express ourselves.

Contemporary thinkers have carried this lineage forward. Mary Flanagan, an artist, designer, and one of the leading feminist theorists of games argues in her text Critical Play that play is not only cultural but political, a space where identity, creativity and resistance take shape – and where women’s contributions to play have always existed, even if history didn’t record them.

Katie Salen, a game designer, educator and co-author of one of the field’s most influential texts, Rules of Play, notes that games are cultural systems: they encode values, reflect identities and generate meaning. Which raises an essential question for our sector: whose values and identities are embedded in the games we create, preserve and celebrate?

So when we speak of ‘video games,’ we are not speaking of something new, but of a profound continuity. And recognising this matters: for policy, for education, for cultural diplomacy, for heritage and, crucially, for inclusion.

A practice with a 5,000-year lineage deserves long-term frameworks, stable investment, cultural legitimacy and a place at the centre of creative life. It deserves to be understood as part of our shared cultural inheritance and to be shaped by the full diversity of people who play and create.

Although around half of all players globally are women, their presence is still not reflected in the structures that shape the industry. Women remain under-represented in senior creative roles, in studio leadership, in authorship of major titles, and in the strategic layers that determine what gets funded, preserved or celebrated. And as thinkers such as Mary Flanagan and Shira Chess remind us, this is not a matter of preference or pipeline, but of cultural visibility and value – whose play is recognised, whose creativity is legitimised, whose contributions become part of the record?

It is why Women in Games has always taken cultural heritage seriously. And it is why I’m proud that we have now formalised a new collaboration with EFGAMP: the European Federation of Game Archives, Museums and Preservation Projects, an organisation committed to safeguarding the history of games across Europe and beyond. Our newly signed partnership establishes a shared vision for recognising games as cultural heritage and, critically, for ensuring that heritage is understood through a gender-responsive lens.

Together, we have committed to increasing visibility for one another’s work, exploring joint activities, and applying a gender lens to collecting, cataloguing and exhibiting materials. This means ensuring that women creators, communities and histories are represented in archives; that interpretive texts use inclusive, bias-aware language; and that every form of contribution to games – from design to fandom to community stewardship – is acknowledged as culturally valuable.

This partnership is deeply intentional. It states plainly that gender equity is a core dimension of cultural heritage, and that the history of play, ancient and digital,  must reflect the diversity of those who shape it. It also opens a pathway for future research, exhibitions, events and publications that can shift both public understanding and institutional practice.

These ideas came vividly to life at our recent Women in Games × CSAI event, Checkpoint – Festival of Interactive Experiences, at the GAMM Video Game Museum in Rome. Surrounded by early consoles, prototypes and the material history of play, the lineage became instantly tangible. As Co-Curator, I shaped Checkpoint as a cultural meeting point, a place to honour the past, interrogate the present and imagine the future of games together.

What emerged felt less like a conference and more like a gathering of cultural thinkers. Archivists, policymakers, developers, scholars and artists sat together not just to analyse, but to reflect and recognise games as works of memory, meaning and consequence. The human pace of the event mattered: long conversations, shared meals, space to think. And it revealed something important. When we stop treating games as products and start treating them as culture, women are not at the margins of that story, they are at its centre, shaping what comes next.

This reframing, from ‘young industry’ to ‘ancient lineage in digital form’ changes everything. It changes how we advocate, how we invest, how we teach, how we collaborate. It reminds us that the future of games should not be driven only by technological acceleration, but by cultural awareness, ethical responsibility and inclusivity. And it restores women, girls and gender-diverse creators to their rightful place in the story of play: not as outliers, but as vital contributors, innovators and custodians.

At Women in Games, this is the work we are committed to: creating global momentum, building alliances like the one with EFGAMP, strengthening heritage networks, and ensuring that the next chapter of games culture mirrors the richness, diversity and complexity of the people who shape it.

If you share this belief, I invite you to join us as partners, supporters, advocates or collaborators, and help ensure that this oldest cultural technology evolves into a future that is more inclusive, more imaginative and more boldly envisioned than ever before.

And finally, as we close the year, I want to send my warmest wishes to our Women in Games community. May this forthcoming festive season give you moments of rest, reflection and, of course, a little play. I hope you find small pockets of joy, curiosity and creativity wherever you are, and I look forward to continuing this journey with you in the new year.

Dr Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO, Women in Games