The IndieBeat: Archeogaming is another effort to delve into the history of games

Soon after Andrew Reinhard started his Archaeogaming website in 2013, he got a chance to practice video game archaeology in the real world. He led the famous Fuel Entertainment excavation, heading up the team that dug up old Atari video game cartridges out of the New Mexican desert. Afterward, an old copy of the Atari 2600 game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial found a home at the Smithsonian — because, like all artifacts, it belongs in a museum.

But Reinhard doesn’t like distinguishing between the so-called “real world” and the “virtual world.” Most of his work takes place in video game spaces, exploring titles like Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky or Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. And finding artifacts in these worlds is just as real as unearthing a dusty cartridge.