Director Park Doo-san: Unlike arcade or PC boxed games, online games aren't something you can just collect and preserve as a finished physical object. You're looking at client files, server and operating environments, and update histories all rolling into the archiving scope. Guild cultures, server dynamics, strategy guides, and community memories forged during gameplay are also vital parts of the overall online game experience.

We're cracking on with the practical bits first. Priority number one is actively including service-terminated or development-halted games into our exhibition and research scope. Even if a game isn't live anymore, the experience of making it and playing it forms the bedrock of today's gaming culture.

Priority number two is figuring out how to document the 'present' of live-service games. We're examining how to capture and preserve not just client software or art assets, but patch notes, gameplay footage, user guides, community activities, and guild or server-level cultures. If you don't log these materials while the service is still kicking, good luck trying to get them back later.

Priority number three is turning these accumulated records back into playable experiences through exhibitions and research. We plan to actively use them as exhibition content, and in the long run, we're looking into upgrading Nexon account integration so visitors' personal play histories—showing what games they played, when, and how—can be displayed right inside the gallery.

While there are overseas institutions specialising in game preservation, there's still no single, set-in-stone answer on how to collect and preserve the decades-long experiences of long-running live-service online games. Given South Korea's deep, long-standing history of operating and enjoying online games, we reckon this is a domain where we've simply got to forge our own preservation methods.

Director Park Doo-san: It's all about establishing a framework to decide what to save and how to keep a continuous record while a game is still live. Even during The Kingdom of the Winds 1996 project to restore the early version of the game, proper materials were scarce, and whatever survived was often difficult to run or belonged to a different version. Because an online game can't be recreated from a mere client file alone—it requires multiple elements aligning at a specific point in time—the difficulty of restoration skyrockets later if the documentation is lacking. Beyond development and operations, you need to log the play styles and user cultures of that era whenever possible.

It's also totally unrealistic to preserve every single milestone of a game that's been running for ages with the exact same density. When a game runs for 20 or 30 years, countless updates and changes pile up, so you eventually need to judge which points serve as crucial inflection points. That standard shouldn't just be about major updates from the developer's POV; you've got to factor in events strongly remembered by players, shifts in play styles, and moments when server and community cultures took shape.

So, archiving an online game is closer to building a consensus and standard on 'what to save and why'. You need to accumulate data from the live service days onwards regarding which version to keep, which updates and events to record, what operating environment the game ran in, and what kind of play experiences and cultures existed.

Director Park Doo-san: One of the biggest takeaways from running The Kingdom of the Winds 1996 project was realising that preserving the execution environment alongside the files is crucial. We shared this critical insight through events like NDC, which greatly raised awareness among development teams to hold onto builds, patch versions, and major resources produced during creation whenever possible. In fact, many teams are now accumulating data by version or patch in ways that suit their specific game characteristics and operational environments.

That said, because every online game has a different tech stack and service model, you can't just slap a one-size-fits-all approach on everything. Rather than forcing a rigid format, the top priority is letting each development team keep records in a sustainable way tailored to their day-to-day operations. The museum also maintains an ongoing dialogue with dev and ops units on how these materials can be preserved long-term and utilised for future exhibitions or research.

Defining what constitutes the 'original' in an online game isn't straightforward either. The initial version is obviously a major benchmark, but for a game that has shifted dramatically over a long service life, significant updates and turning points become core to understanding its history. We have to ponder how to record and connect the critical milestones of a game's evolution, rather than just stopping at version 1.0.

Director Park Doo-san: The technical difficulty of preserving an online game isn't determined by whether the client or server programs survived. Actual execution requires recreating interconnected elements of the runtime environment—such as the operating system, database, middleware, network settings, build tools, and authentication systems—in a compatible way. Miss a core element, and you're suddenly looking at something akin to a substitute implementation or reverse engineering.

Virtualisation and emulation ease a fair bit of this headache, but they aren't a silver bullet. While virtualisation can recreate legacy OS environments and emulators can mimic older hardware, outside dependencies like specific hardware drivers, proprietary middleware, and outdated database software will often stick around. If you're missing external dependencies that no longer exist—like auth servers, patch servers, DNS, security certificates, or legacy payment and login systems—you've got to build alternative implementations.

Version consistency is another massive hurdle. The server, client, resources, and database structure all need to match from the exact same timeframe, but frequent patching means files from different eras frequently get mixed together. In such cases, you have to verify which combination actually reflects the live service state, and even if source code survives, losing the original build tools and environment tanks your chances of a successful recreation. Plus, virtualisation environments aren't a permanent fix either; hypervisors and emulators will eventually hit compatibility walls with newer operating systems and hardware down the line.

Therefore, rather than just pulling off a single successful boot, having a systematic framework—documenting virtual machines, disk images, configuration values, software dependencies, network layouts, database schemas, and build procedures while periodically testing if they still boot—is far more vital. Preserving online game tech is less about storing a specific program and more about sustaining an entire execution environment for the long haul.

Kim Jung-ah, Head of Exhibition Team: Oral history is widely utilised in performing arts and intangible heritage research, and we reckon it's just as crucial for online game preservation. System data alone simply cannot capture in-game interactions and social relationships. One of the most direct ways to log who played with whom and what kind of culture blossomed in a specific server or guild is through people's memories and spoken words. And the subjects shouldn't be limited to developers alone; operators, guild masters, community admins, and veterans who played a single game for years—everyone who holds a different piece of history from their respective vantage point—can be a subject.

Oral history isn't just a matter of sitting down for a chat and hitting record. It requires a proper methodology covering subject selection, question design, transcription, data verification, consent procedures, and public release boundaries. Because human memories can differ, you've got to cross-reference contemporary documents and data to verify factual accuracy. Conversely, the very fact that people remember the exact same event differently serves as an important record showing how the game and community were experienced.

Nexon Museum has also experimented with capturing user memories on a smaller scale linked to our exhibitions. We had the 'Computer of My Life' project, which looked back at key milestones in IT history through the personal computer experiences of prominent figures, and in our recent renewal exhibition 'The Kingdom of the Winds: Continuing Winds', we aren't just displaying major updates and events—we're actively stacking up user stories and memories. While the methodology differs from a strict oral archive, it shares the same spirit of leaving behind game history alongside the voices of those who lived it.

Kim Jung-ah, Head of Exhibition Team: Museum exhibitions are traditionally structured so that curators dictate the narrative and materials for visitors to passively look at. But games are a medium that completely falls apart unless players participate. Nexon Museum's exhibitions started from the idea that our displays should likewise only be completed through visitor participation. Besides, you can't simply sum up the games Nexon has serviced under one neat umbrella. Over 30 years as South Korea's first online game company, the titles we've put out have spanned generations—from kids to adults who are now parents themselves—leaving behind entirely distinct memories depending on who you ask.

So, rather than presenting a single linear chronology saying 'this is the history of Nexon', we wanted to show how visitors' personal records piling up collectively forms Nexon's history. For instance, in 'Shared Chronicle', individual play histories overlap with the timeline of Nexon games. The company's history and personal timelines sit side by side, meaning even the exact same chronology transforms into a completely different map of memories for different people. It stops being a mere record of 'when a game launched and updated' and becomes a cue reminding people of the days they spent enjoying those titles.

For someone who has never touched a Nexon game, it might just look like a corporate development timeline. But for someone who spent five, ten, or even more years alongside a single game, it hits completely differently. That is precisely the sweet spot we're aiming for. The museum doesn't dictate the history of games on behalf of the players; rather, it acts as a space where players discover their own memories, which in turn reconstruct the history of gaming.

Director Park Doo-san: User data lingering on servers—like chat logs, guild activities, and character progression stats—can indeed be invaluable material for understanding online game culture. However, because these logs encompass relationships, conversations, and behavioral histories involving other users beyond just an individual, simply slapping a mask over a nickname isn't enough to call it anonymised. What looks like a single person's record is often information co-created by multiple users, and the context itself risks identifying individuals or infringing upon the rights of others.

That's why we haven't advanced to the stage of archiving or exhibiting complex data like chats and guild activities just yet. Whenever we design an exhibition, we review the scope and methods of data usage alongside our internal data protection department. We must continue pondering what data we can preserve and utilise, and to what extent, over the long term. This is an area we must approach step-by-step, prioritising user rights and personal information protection alongside the cultural value of archiving.

Director Park Doo-san: Internal developer materials alone are simply not enough to capture the social relationships forged by online games. The longer a game runs, the more vital user-generated materials—like screenshots, guild logs, fan cafe posts, strategy guides, and fan art—become for understanding its history and culture. Long-term, we need an online channel where users can directly donate or tip us off with these materials. For an archive to truly mean something, it's not enough just to receive files; you've got to log who made them, when, under what context, and what agreements were made regarding their public release and usage.

The so-called 'history of live services'—developer notes, major announcements, update logs, and in-game events—is equally important in the same vein. Since cramming every scrap of data from games running for decades into an offline exhibition is impossible, an online archive where materials are databased and interconnected serves as a proper solution. If dev and ops records, user memories, and derivative creations are linked on the same timeline, you get a holistic view of how a game changed and how those changes were received by its players.

We can also envision distinct roles for physical museums and online archives. While an offline exhibition picks out and interprets major scenes from a massive pool of materials, an online space can broadly accumulate and provide access to the background records. Ultimately, it has the potential to evolve into a platform where researchers and the general public can access both museum-held assets and user-contributed records simultaneously.

Naturally, the more open a platform is, the more headaches you have to deal with. We've got to guard against 'vandalism', where misinformation is repeatedly posted or records are maliciously defaced, meaning source verification and authenticity checks are an absolute must. Copyrights, privacy, and the rights of fan creators are also critical issues. A representation problem can also pop up if records from a specific user or guild accumulate disproportionately, making them look as though they represent the history of the game as a whole. We also need to figure out how to showcase conflicting memories when different people remember the exact same event differently.

Therefore, rather than letting anyone edit things on the fly, we need a structured approach where users can submit tips or donate materials, but those records are only incorporated after source verification, rights checks, and a proper review process.

Building an online archive platform is a challenge we've been mulling over for years. It's not a one-and-done development deal; it requires continuous upkeep ranging from sorting and linking materials, verifying rights, reviewing user submissions, fixing misinformation, to maintaining the system. It demands considerable human and material resources for development and ops, alongside clear management guidelines for handling sensitive issues. Thus, we're examining this from a long-term perspective, including operating principles on what materials to collect, who verifies them, and how far public access should extend.

Kim Jung-ah, Head of Exhibition Team: They're already partially integrated into our exhibition content. On the second floor, you'll find The Kingdom of the Winds 1996, and terminated games have a presence on the third floor as well. Prior to our renovation, we ran an exhibition called 'Nepository' focused on unreleased and discontinued titles. Moving forward, we'd love to expand upon the direction of Nepository within the museum.

We definitely want to keep staging exhibitions where people can run into terminated games again. That said, we don't believe it always has to take the form of directly experiencing past versions like The Kingdom of the Winds 1996. For some games, reviving the actual play environment is spot on, while others might be better recalled through contemporary screens, music, user logs, community memories, or dev docs.

The crucial bit isn't just mindlessly rebooting a dead game, but creating a way for players who spent time with that title to encounter their treasured records and memories once more. Since the most appropriate format varies from game to game, we're actively brainstorming multiple approaches.

Director Park Doo-san: Nexon Museum—and its predecessor, Nexon Computer Museum—was never meant to be a space exclusively dedicated to Nexon games since opening day. Both before and after the renovation, our first and second-floor exhibitions tackle broader gaming history and culture rather than being confined to a single company's corporate history. In that sense, if copyright and legal hurdles are cleared, we'd be more than happy to consider classic online games from other publishers for exhibition.

The biggest practical roadblock is rights management. In many cases, you have to negotiate individual copyrights with various publishers, and with older games, tracking down the current rights holder is often tough because the original developer has gone bust or rights have changed hands multiple times. You can also run into complex webs where music, imagery, characters, and the game code itself are all tied up under separate rights.

Above all else, other companies might not view having their games displayed inside 'Nexon Museum' in a positive light. Proper discussions regarding rights holders' intentions and the exhibition's core philosophy are a must.

Kim Jung-ah, Head of Exhibition Team: I reckon we're well past the stage where we need to prove whether games are culture. Legally speaking, games are a domain of culture and arts, and today they are naturally enjoyed within the everyday lives of countless people.

From that standpoint, preserving online games is about recording the unique culture built by South Korean society. Korean online games vividly illustrate how people met and formed relationships through technology back in the 1990s. The experience of gathering at PC bangs, making lifelong guild mates with strangers met online, and developing native slang and play styles inside games—these are online gaming traditions that evolved with particular intensity right here in Korea. Preserving games means capturing the experiences and relationships of those eras.

The museum's role isn't to awkwardly lecture people or preach; it's to let visitors see and experience things firsthand so they naturally get it. A hundred explanations saying games are culture won't hold a candle to the sight of a parent and child playing a game side by side in front of the same screen.

On the museum's second floor in front of the PC boxed games, you'll often spot a dad explaining the games he used to play to his kid, while on the third floor, the dynamic flips as the child tells the parents all about their favourite titles and experiences. Creating those moments where different generations talk about their respective games and pass memories back and forth is the most natural way a museum can share the cultural value of gaming with society.

Director Park Doo-san: Rather than some grandiose goal, I'd love for us to remain a helpful reference point whenever people ask how online games ought to be preserved. Nexon Museum has operated as a Class 1 professional museum ever since opening its doors as Nexon Computer Museum back in 2013. Even though we were built by a corporation, we anchored ourselves to the core museum duties of collection, preservation, research, and exhibition, and with our fresh start as Nexon Museum this year, we aim to pour that experience even deeper into game preservation.

When it comes to preserving package and console games, brilliant overseas institutions and research have already built up a massive repository. On the flip side, figuring out how to log online games—with their distinct live-service nature—encompassing not just technical runtime environments, but also the experiences and cultures of the people who played them, is still largely uncharted territory.

South Korea is one of the nations that has operated online games the longest and accumulated a uniquely rich user culture and social fabric within them. If that's the case, the methodology on how to record, preserve, and showcase such games can be forged right here as well. If Nexon Museum can serve as a solid reference point along that journey, that'd be meaningful enough for us.

On a slightly more personal note, I hope Nexon Museum becomes a place where people can rediscover memories scattered across the network. A spot where you can recall games you'd forgotten about for ages, the folks you played with back then, and those fleeting moments of gameplay—or stumble upon the hidden meaning and emotional resonance you might have missed at the time. Ultimately, I reckon 'preserving games' isn't just about saving the software itself; it's about making it possible to meet the time people spent together through those games once again.