The Preserving Virtual Worlds project was funded by the National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP) of  the U.S. Library of Congress. Groups at the University of Illinois, University of Maryland, and Rochester Institute of Technology were also partners in this important project, which ran from 2008 to 2010.  The final project report has been submitted. 

 
Preserving Virtual Worlds II has been funded by the Institute for Library and Museum Studies for the period 2010-2012.  The same team of project partners will carry out this new phase of work, the development of effective strategies for preserving educational computer games and other complex interactive materials. This research project will determine the significant properties of digital materials that must remain intact over time and analyze the likelihood that various preservation strategies such as virtualization and data migration can preserve these properties.
 
See How They Got Game's project wiki or the central project site for more information on this project.