This essay was originally written for the Immersive Environments Spring Seminar 2020 @ Tampere University which got cancelled due to the pandemic.
Introduction
The horrific news of the fire that destroyed parts of the Notre-Dame in April 2019 shook the world. The fire caused irreparable damages and forced the world heritage cathedral to shut its doors to the public for an undefined period (CBC, 2019). Yet, it may be argued that besides destruction, there is little worse for material heritage than being forgotten through inaccessibility. While reparations and restorations by specialists are in process, the video game publisher Ubisoft caught global attention with its gesture in gifting its game Assassin’s Creed: Unity for free to the public (Forbes, 2019). Unity contains a remarkable digital reconstruction of the Notre-Dame; giving people still the chance to visit the monument and interact with it in a vital virtual environment. It can be said that it was the first time that a publisher directly addressed an emergency of heritage-destruction through the substitution of a digital game. This case clearly shows that the game industry can provide progressive measures in preserving and promoting cultural heritage beyond its material existence. This opens up completely new perspectives on the conservation, protection and understanding of cultural heritage through digital games in the 21st century.
Hence, I will critically interrogate the case of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame in reflecting on it through theories of modern heritage practice and perspectives from the field of game studies. In order to do so, I will introduce the case of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame. This will include a recapitulation of the state of events surrounding the destruction of the Notre-Dame and its substitution through a digital reconstruction.
The following section will then compare the case of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame with the case of the game Never Alone. The limbo-like indie game Never Alone, developed by Upper One Games, gives a suitable comparison in how heritage can be preserved and promoted through a video game. The game was developed under the preface of a native American community trying to stop the decline of its cultural identity among younger generations (Cook Inlet Tribal Council, 2017, pp. 21-24). This section shall highlight the importance and effectiveness of maintaining a cultural memory of heritage through digital games.
Further, the case of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame shall be discussed under Adam Chapman’s concept of narrative gardens (Chapman, 2016, pp. 101-104). This concept discusses how people perceive historical narratives and cultural information in the form of its spatial visualisation in a game. In addition to Chapman’s concept research on treating games as spatial representations will be consulted (Aarseth & Günzel, 2019).
Another section is dedicated to critical an outlook on negative outcomes from the collaboration between the gaming industry and heritage practice.
The final section is dedicated to a critical conclusion; including prospective benefits as also concerns for the future of a digital heritage practice.
Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame
The case of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame encompasses a sequence of entangled events that include the destruction of the famous French cathedral by fire in April 2019 and the following digital substitution of the monument by the video game developer Ubisoft.
The Notre-Dame de Paris is a Gothic cathedral which was built and completed in the High Middle Ages (1160-1260). This monumental cathedral has been since then modified, expanded and because of other past destructions also several times restored. The Notre-Dame was a key monument in architectural history and is nowadays iconic for Gothic architecture (Millon & Frazer, 1965, p. LIX). Due to its history and international fame, the monument served also as a substantial and reliable generator of tourism for Paris.
On the 15th of April in 2019 a fire broke out and engulfed various architectural features and elements in its flames. While most structures of stone were only damaged, many wooden features including the roof, interior furniture and adornments were irretrievably destroyed. Consequently, the cathedral has been closed to the public while restoration by specialists takes place (See Figure 1a). The cathedral is said to be re-opened no later than 2024 (Macias, 2020).
Shortly after the initial fire many public and corporate figures like the owners of Louis Vuitton or Gucci started pledging million-fold donations to support its restoration. This created mixed feelings among the public as the destroyed cathedral seemed to be exploited for reckless publicity stunts (Chakrabortty, 2019). Especially in considering that most of the pledged donations were never transferred (France 24, 2019).
Anyhow, on the 17th of April the French game developer Ubisoft decided to contribute in its own way; gifting its game Assassin’s Creed: Unity for free. The game contains a remarkable 3D reconstruction of the Notre-Dame during the French Revolution (Figure 1b). Even though the reconstruction is more artistic in nature the careful research and work undertaken by the game’s designers in collaboration with (art) historians enabled an unmatched digital model of the cathedral that can be accessed and interacted with (GamesCentral, 2019).
Ubisoft declared that Unity would be part of a one week lasting give-away, showing solidarity and appreciation for the landmark and all its admirers around the world (Ubisoft, 2019). The game should, therefore, serve as a lasting connection between the public and the actual landmark. Additionally, 500.000€ were pledged as an effective measure to forward restoration works (Forbes, 2019).
The gesture was well received by players leading to Ubisoft getting “review-bombed” with hundreds of positive reviews and thankful messages (Miller, 2019). The following influx of players led even to a need to increase server capacities for Unity (James, 2019).
The latest event surrounding the case saw an exclusive VR experience that the developer offered to the public during the European Heritage Days in September 2019 at the UNESCO headquarter in Paris. “[T]he interior of the cathedral and an outside look at it from a hot air balloon floating above were seen in the VR tour. The whole experience was based on the recreation of Notre-Dame found in Assassin’s Creed: Unity” (Dedmon, 2019).
Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame shows a unique case in which a video game developer was capable of addressing an alarming event of destroyed heritage in a meaningful way. Offering a game with an interactive digital substitute of an internationally recognised monument for free was warmly received by the public. To offer additional monetary support for the cathedral’s restoration helped as well to evade the impression that Ubisoft tried to capitalise on the event, in light of the fact that it also managed to temporarily revive a game, namely Unity, of fading popularity (Google Trends, 2020). This case may have even pitched a further involvement of the game industry in benevolent contributions towards alarming events like in the recent case of ravaging Australian bushfires (Batchelor, 2020).
Never Alone: Digital Heritage Preservation
Capitalism and the rise of Western culture may have increased wealth, living standards and the significance of leisure activities in our lives. Nevertheless, the speed at which traditional cultural legacies are abandoned and forgotten appears in favour of new technologies and trends is alarming.
In 2014 the indie game developer Upper One Games released Never alone “a-first-of-its-kind video game based on traditional Iñupiaq stories and made in collaboration with the Iñupiaq community” (Cook Inlet Tribal Council, 2017, p. 21). The puzzle-platformer adventure game (See figure 2) is based around a tribal story of the Iñupiaq.
The Iñupiaq are an indigenous Alaskan people who are affiliated with the CITC (Cook Inlet Tribal Council), a non-profit organisation that supports American Indian people in Southcentral Alaska with education and employment services. Besides offering practical solutions for its people the CITC has been also concerned with the preservation of its native culture and heritage (Cook Inlet Tribal Council, 2017, p. 22).
It is important to mention that North American indigenous cultures as the Iñupiaq are oral-based cultures. Most of their cultural identity is preserved in their spoken language and their practised customs. This kind of intangible heritage is reliant on Memoria, the constant remembering and repetition of it (Assmann, 1992, p. 52). If not practised oral-based cultures can cease to exist within a few generations, as they also leave little lasting tangible heritage in the form of monuments or stone architecture behind.
After recognising an increasing detachment between the natives’ younger generations and the tribes’ cultural heritage the CITC was concerned with finding an effective medium to not just preserve but also forward its cultural legacy. Surprisingly, the council decided to find a developer who would create a video game for them. The game should incorporate important visual traits of the Iñupiaq culture and contain its cultural narratives, yet offering a fresh and modern aesthetic to it. (Cook Inlet Tribal Council, 2017, p. 23)
The CITC ended up collaborating with the edutainment publisher E-Line, who hired Upper One Games to develop the game. E-Line was trying much to mediate between the expectations of the CITC and contemporary market demands during the development process. The development was therefore supervised by several “cultural ambassadors”; natives consulting the development team in questions of design and content (Cook Inlet Tribal Council, 2017, p. 25).
After nearly three years of development, the game was released in November 2014 for Steam PS4 and XboxOne. “Initially garnering 2.2 million downloads […], subject of over 750 feature articles […], consistently rated with 4.5 or 5 out of 5 stars” (Cook Inlet Tribal Council, 2017, p. 28) and receiving two BAFTA awards; the game launched with a remarkable debut. Part of the game’s success has been for sure gained through a smart marketing campaign in which the story behind the game and its creation was staged for several short documentation movies (Cook Inlet Tribal Council, 2017, p. 26); reminiscent to Ninja Theory’s campaign for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
Anyhow, Never Alone turned out to not just be a success from an industry perspective, but also one of innovative heritage practice. The CITC managed to take effective measures to conserve its cultural trademarks of language and aesthetics and promoted them successfully to its newer generations and a global audience.
Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame X Never Alone: A Comparison
What heritage exactly is, remains difficult to define. Its stakeholders are many and its forms vary. Anyhow, it can be safely assumed that most humans have a basic understanding of what heritage is and how it manifests in our world. Heritage can be overall seen as “meaningful pasts that should be remembered” (Kusek & Purchla, 2018, p. 9; after Macdonald, 2010, p.1).
That being pointed out, in comparison of both cases crucial differences must be clarified. In the case of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame tangible heritage is unintentionally preserved while with Never Alone we encounter the intentionalpreservation of intangible heritage through a digital game.
“Tangible heritage includes artefacts, buildings, structures, landscapes, cities and towns […] It includes their location, relationship to the natural environment and the materials from which all these are made […]. Intangible heritage includes the practices, representations, expressions, memories, knowledge and skills that communities, groups and individuals construct, use and transmit from generation to generation.”
Macmillan, p. 96 (2015)
Also, Ubisoft did most likely not conceptualise the preservation of heritage through its game as an argument for its charity gesture. On the other hand, Never Alone was besides obvious commercial reasons intentionally developed for the preservation of heritage.
That being said, a comparison makes still sense. Both cases resulted in the preservation and successful promotion of cultural heritage through a digital game. Both kinds of heritage are technically now frozen in time, accessible on-demand and accessible from almost every place on the planet. These games serve as records of reconstructed cultural heritage, yet also preserving characteristic aspects of the era in which these games were developed (i.e., graphics or language) (Reinhard, 2018a, pp. 164-165). Therefore, representing strongly how this kind of heritage is thought of and imagined during the design process of the game by its developers. Consequently, both games contain subtle “ideological underpinnings of the technolog[y]” and the industry they are part of (Vie, 2016, p. 57).
Nevertheless, these games offer also the possibility to actively engage with heritage. Giving players the possibility to craft their own perspective, narrative and connection towards it. This advances the democratisation of knowledge in the context of heritage, depriving Grand Narratives of their interpretational hegemony (Holtorf, 2017, pp. 2-3). Stories of the Iñupiaq can be now played instead of being only heard, the Notre-Dame can be now climbed instead of only looked at. One can speak of a kind of transheritage; monuments and customs transcending their original medium. With this engagement, heritage can be transformed and its remembrance rekindled.
It is also to add that both games were developed with consulting specialists. While Ubisoft had consulted with historians for Assassin’s Creed: Unity (Beer, 2014), Never Alone’s development was shaped by the cultural ambassadors E-Line had appointed. This aspect strengthens the position of these games as legitimate carriers of preserved heritage. Also, both games are inhabited by a strong and satisfied user community. Lastly, it can be said that both games have proven extremely successful in living up to the expectations of not just heritage practice but also industry standards.
Perceiving the Past through Digital Space: Narrative Gardens
Academia has not missed out on studying how games affect us cognitively (Hodent, 2017), socially or culturally (Muriel & Crawford, 2018). Yet, studying how games affect our understanding of the past, history or heritage seems difficult in light of undefinable measuring parameters. Individual understandings of cultural legacies vary from geographic location to gender and its clear value isolated from political and educational frameworks is hard to assess (Meskell, 2018). Still, humanity’s obsession with its ancestral past seems bottomless in perspective of its ancient civilisations. So, instead of trying to define complex intellectual needs of relinking with ones’ ancestors, the question of how digital encounters with the past change our understanding of it in comparison to more traditional or analogue ways seems more suitable to ask.
While trying to calculate a player’s perception of time in historical games might be an interesting but unfortunately fruitless attempt (Chapman, 2016; Reinhard, 2018b), time’s Einsteinian counterpart, namely space may offer a more promising lead.
„Space determines what historical narratives the game can support by structuring what can be done by players and by functioning as a means of storytelling for developers.“ (Chapman, 2016, p. 100). According to Chapman space can be utilised as a means of transmitting specific (historical) information to the player. Space transforms into what he calls a narrative garden. (Chapman, 2016, p. 101). These spatial structures are used by some games as a form of environmental storytelling. Looking at Assassin’s Creed Games in general, which all contain historical buildings and monuments in relatively huge in-game worlds, one can experience cultural and past related aspects presented as a holistic organism (Chapman, 2016, p. 103). While traversing the games’ space we encounter a composition of historical clues embedded in buildings objects and of course characters. These entities relate to each other and formulate an experience of a certain past.
The Notre-Dame in Assassin’s Creed: Unity and its relation to other objects inside its narrative garden determine our perception of its historical epoch. While a barren 3D model of the cathedral may suggest a general and timeless impression of it, French flags and chaotic conditions in the interior may enable the player to perceive the era of the French Revolution (see Figure 3). A monument and a snapshot of its historical biography is preserved and can be spatially encountered.
But does one feel the aura of the original (Benjamin, 1989)? Does one feel the monumentality in contrast to one’s actual body? The game mostly communicates its thematic (i.e., historical, social and cultural) and ludic (i.e., options of movement or interaction) aspects through its space, yet the undefinable enchantment of standing inside/in front of a monument may escape the impression of the player. It may be argued that a central impression of a digital monument, located in an interactive environment, remains a (historical) narrative as a mere representation of itself (Dubbelman, 2019, p. 78-79).
Anyhow, it is also important to mention the aspect of movement here. In games, „[i]mages are not only seen, but made/produced. The journey of the player is the key element in the production process of the digital-virtual computer image […] Space in videogames [is] constructed by the player’s movement in the game world” (Teilhaber, 2019, pp. 62, 64). As space holds thematic information for the player, it is at the same time being created by the player’s individual interaction. Fostering eventually a very own personal relation to what the player encounters.
A Material Wolf in Digital Sheep’s Clothing
While positive aspects seem overwhelming in the collaboration of gaming and heritage, underlying concerns must be addressed as well. Ethical or even legal questions concerning user data and privatisation of heritage have to be addressed “to illuminate power relations and networks of production to interrogate ideological systems that may not be in the best interest of the people involved” (Conway & de Winter, 2016, p. 3). The following aspects may seem premature and highly theoretical, yet observing how even lawmaking struggles to keep up with the on-going digitisation of our society make these concerns reasonable to mention.
The practice of heritage, its preservation and promotion rely in Europe mostly on governmental and EU funding. It can be said that cultural institutions which rely on this kind of funding are (in relation) not under immense commercial pressure. Heritage is preserved for its own sake (sometimes for political reasons as well), and in most cases only with the help of commercial tools.
The gaming industry works obviously different. Commercial aspects are the vital organs of each enterprise to maintain and eventually expand. Aspects of heritage may be a tool to achieve commercial success from a marketing perspective but not necessary.
In the case of Never Alone, we can see how industry and heritage result in a successful synergy. Commercial success and international recognition is achieved while heritage is preserved, promoted and its integrity protected. This achievement is based on the checks and balances between the developers of E-Line and the cultural ambassadors of the CITC. The interests of both parties are met.
If we think of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame we encounter a case that has already departed from these checks and balances. Ubisoft is idealised (by its online community) as a preserver of world heritage and receives a certain kind of authority through this. Theoretically, Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame is at the moment this is written the only possibility to enter the monument.
If this case should receive recognition as a legitimate way for developers to get involved in heritage practice to market their products, polish their corporate image or even get governmental funding, it is not unlikely that the industry would use the opportunity to analyse user data. For what use data, from players’ interacting with digitised heritage, may be suitable is speculative. But concerning events as the NSA scandal, revealing “strategies for exploiting online gaming to collect intelligence data on players and control communications within the game” (Ruffino, 2018, p. 9) or Facebook’s involvement with Cambridge Analytica, it is reasonable to highlight, that data within the context of heritage in games may be assessed, recorded, analysed and used for dubious reasons.
Another concern is the possible privatisation of heritage. Shouldn’t digitised cultural heritage be part of the public domain (Frederiksson, 2015, pp. 157, 165), especially in a case where its genuine material counterpart is incapacitated? Sure, a developer can claim to have just reproduced the monument artistically, but what if a game contained a scientific copy of material heritage? Which status would this digital monument hold? Is it legitimate for a company to market its game with a monument which is laboriously preserved by underfunded cultural institutions?
While it can be said that Ubisoft took its role with responsibility, the future may hold a more exploitative approach towards heritage. Though it should be stated that concerns of the gaming industry involving itself in heritage practice, do arise from what the tourism industry has done already in a way (Colomer, 2019). Nonetheless, the commercialisation of heritage is a must to finance its existence, yet trying to keep the synergy between heritage practice and industrial commercialisation in check means to be able to realise and address negative implications of this process.
Digital Gaming for Material Heritage’s Sake: A Conclusion
Throughout the paper, the reader was introduced to Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame which was then compared to the case of Never Alone. In their comparison, the implication of digital games as a means for preservation and promotion of heritage was underlined. Further, one was familiarised with the concept of narrative gardens and spatial aspects in digital gaming as a way to communicate a past, heritage and therefore cultural legacies. Lastly, one was confronted with ethical concerns which the involvement of the gaming industry in heritage practice could cause.
It seems that digital games offer an effective way to preserve and promote cultural heritage. Besides that, games offer from a technical point of view the right format for heritage to be experienced, namely as “processes that recreate and transmit the knowledge about its reality, including its feelings and experiences” (Muriel & Crawford, 2018, p. 99). The active engagement with heritage on a digital playground offers a profound connection to our cultural legacies and can make us understand its importance beyond the screen. It also makes us more curious about it, sending us on a ‘learning journey’, from first encounters in the digital world to Wikipedia pages, documentaries, movies, books, up to scientific literature (Brittain & Clack, 2007, p. 22)
More time needs to pass to be able to sketch out the historical implications of Ubisoft’s Notre Dame in heritage practice. Nevertheless, the case as also Never Alone may be early examples of a new role that the gaming industry will play in the preservation, protection and promotion of heritage. It is hard to say if this development will advance into the further democratisation of heritage or if this may be the beginning of a monopolisation and instrumentalisation of it. While the gaming industry’s interest seems to stay non-political for the sake of commerce, nationalistic tendencies, especially in Europe, may soon realise the potential of video games for subtle propaganda. Heritage often falls victim to political means and is used to fortify ideologies. A good example is, how certain museums in Poland are currently manipulated by the state to remodel unfavourable historical narratives (Flieger, 2019). Similar actions taken within the development of video games may happen in the future, especially as more governmental funds are being introduced for the development of video games. It is therefore important to realise the responsibility the industry has to stay neutral in this context.
Heritage, whether tangible, intangible or digital is an opportunity but also a burden. It is a chance for us to remember the past and reshape the future but it is also our burden to protect and preserve it. Video games offer a great medium for this task; helping meaningful pasts to be remembered, but we need to be on guard to not let them distort what they contain.
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