National Center for the History of Electronic Games Opens
As recently as a decade ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find many people who took video games seriously as an artistic medium, let alone regarded the history of video gaming as important enough to archive and preserve. Nowadays, gaming has come far enough to be almost regarded as respectable. With that respectable status, comes enshrinement in museum form, courtesy of the Strong National Museum of Play.
The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York has established the National Center for the History of Electronic Games that aims to preserve and collect our culture's bleeping and blooping entertainment devices for current and future generations to understand and enjoy.
TheFeed spoke to Jon-Paul C. Dyson, the Director of the National Center for the History of Electronic Games and Eric Wheeler, Associate Curator to get an inside look at this one-of-a-kind collection of everything gaming.
G4: Why is it important to preserve video games? I mean, they're relatively disposable to most people.
JD: They’re such an important part of our history. You can’t understand play, consumer culture, childhood now, or the way we live without understanding electronic games and video games. If we don’t archive it, it’s going to be gone. We’re at this crucial moment where 30 years from now, or even 15 years from now, you won’t be able to get this stuff anymore. So we want to get it now -- while we still can. A lot of the old stuff is getting harder to find, We’re still in the present at the creation of these things, but the creation is rapidly receding into history. If we don’t act now, it will be all be lost.
G4: Tell me about the Strong Museum of Play.
JD: We’re a hands-on history museum. We get nearly 600,000 people a year. The National Center for the History of Electronic Games has several components: First, the center, itself. It's open to researchers. We also have some displays for people to see some of the artifacts and opportunities to play some of the old games.
Meanwhile, we’re planning a major exhibit on the history of electronic games and the impact on the way we live, learn, and play. That’s tentatively scheduled for 2012. It's a 15,000 sq. ft. permanent exhibit exploring the impact of games on our lives.
G4: How many different consoles are there in the collection total?
JD: We have 70 to 75 unique systems.
EW: We have different models of some of the older systems, including different variants of the same console. The majority of them have been tested, just as the majority of the games have been. They are working games for the most part.
G4: How many games individually?
JD: We’ve been bringing them in so fast, it’s hard to keep track, but well over 10,000.
G4: Where do they come from?
JD: A combination of purchases and donations. [The Strong Museum] has the world’s most comprehensive collection of traditional toys, dolls and games, but we realized that electronic games are changing the way we all play. So we wanted to make sure we had a video game collection that told the important story of how electronic games are changing the way we play, the way we live, and the way we relate to each other.
G4: Do you have arcade cabinets? Or are you focusing on home games?
JD: Eventually, we want to explore the whole universe of gaming. This summer, we’re hosting the Videotopia exhibit. It’s a history of the arcade game, from Computer Space and Pong up to the latest motion-simulating games. It will be running from May 30th to November 1st. We’ll have 100 or so games and people will be able to come in and play them. They’re all working. They’re all original cabinets and all original parts. So it will be a neat chance to experience the game you wasted too many quarters playing. I’m already planning to see if I can get a few levels higher in Tron.
G4: I’ll be all over Crazy Climber! What’s the most obscure piece in the collection?
JD: We have some unique things, like [inventor of the home game console] Ralph Baer’s original papers. We have a prototype of the Simon handheld game. But in terms of mass produced stuff…
EW: We have a 1977 mint condition copy of the Bally Astrocade. Later renamed Bally Professional Arcade. It was still shrink-wrapped in the box and we have some of the original game cartridges -- still shrink-wrapped, as well. That was a system that if you knew how to write basic, you could make your own homebrew games! We have a Fairchild Channel F. It was the first cartridge based video game system in the collection.
G4: I’m going to try to stump you here: Do you have a Vectrex?
EW: We have several Vectrexes.
G4: Do they work? Because every Vectrex I’ve ever seen has been at least partially broken.
EW: They work. I’ve played Mind Storm on it. We have three or four of them in the collection, and they are all working.
G4: This is a totally ridiculous question, do you see a return to the wood grain look of old school Atari 2600s?
JD: I suppose when you see woodgrain station wagons again, maybe you’ll see woodgrain consoles! It’s like Joysticks..They’ve evolved so much and have become so complicated, you’d think, “Oh, they’ll never be simple again.” And the Wii-mote comes out. So who knows?
G4: Thanks for your time!
Check out the Nation Center for the History of Electonic Games' official site for more details and info... and stop by the Strong Museum this summer and I'll totally school you at Crazy Climber!
