In this paper, I explore the concept of significant properties and how such properties do and do not fit within the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. Combining interview data from research about the deployment of OAIS in cultural heritage institutions with data about video game production and preservation from the Preserving Virtual Worlds II (PVWII) grant project, this paper maps stakeholder-identified significant properties onto the 2012 version of OAIS [4]. Significant properties have many definitions and even many names. Operationalizing this term broadly, many such properties do fit within existing OAIS entities. However, significant properties that are relational and external to digital objects’ code and environments do not. This paper concludes that additional metrics are needed to begin shaping the process of documenting significant properties at scale.

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