My previous blog post explored the emergence of video game Westerns in the 1970s. Driven by a mixture of technological limitations and public familiarity with Westerns and electromechanical shooting games, these new video game Westerns asked players to take on the role of the gunfighter in a relatively small digital world. Set in the mythic West of films, television, and novels, these games relied heavily on visual symbols such as pixelated covered wagons, cowboy hats, and pistols in arcade games […]

Continue Reading about Gunfighter Gaming: A History of the Video Game Western Part 2 (1984 to 1994) Published on:
February 7, 2025

Game developer Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (2010) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) introduced millions of people to an immersive digital world populated by Western gunfighters and outlaws. But these extraordinarily popular games are part of a longer history of video game Westerns that emerged in the 1970s, and drew on the mythic West portrayed in stories, films, television shows, and playthings. The evolution of the video game genre follows closely the development of the game industry itself from the […]

Continue Reading about Gunfighter Gaming: A History of the Video Game Western Part I (1971 to 1979) Published on:
July 3, 2024

Doris Bergen, the esteemed educational psychologist whose work enhanced our understandings of play in child development, pretend play, technology play, and humor development died on July 5, 2023. She was a charter member of the editorial advisory board of the American Journal of Play, and a collection of her professional papers lies in the care of The Strong’s Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1932, Bergen grew up in Bucyrus, Ohio. She attended Heidelberg […]

Continue Reading about Remembering Play Scholar and Educational Psychologist Doris Bergen Published on:
January 29, 2024

Video games have transformed the way we play, and The Strong National Museum of Play has long been at the forefront of collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of gaming. Now, as part of a 90,000 sq. ft. museum expansion, guests have the opportunity to explore 24,000 sq. ft of new exhibits dedicated to video games. Among these new exhibits, ESL Digital Worlds: High Score provides guests with an unparalleled look at the historical and cultural significance of video games. […]

Continue Reading about Welcome to ESL Digital Worlds: High Score Published on:
August 18, 2023

There has always been a close connection between bowling and video games for me. As a kid, I spent many nights playing with one of my brothers at our local candlepin bowling center. While my father hurled softball-sized balls down the bowling alley’s lanes, my brother and I often rolled digital bowling balls on a video game in the alley’s arcade. What I didn’t realize then was that while many of the first commercial video games of the 1970s centered […]

Continue Reading about Pins and Pixels: A Brief History of Home Video Game Bowling Published on:
March 17, 2023

If you visit The Strong’s America at Play exhibit, among the fascinating and familiar artifacts on display, you will see a 1950s-era cartop boat filled with fishing equipment. An interpretive label next to the wooden watercraft asks guests a provocative question: “Is fishing play?” Ancient fishers almost certainly started out using spears, nets, and hand lines primarily to catch food. However, as early as 2000 BC an Egyptian wall painting illustrates a person gripping a short rod (or pole) with […]

Continue Reading about The Play of Angling Published on:
January 13, 2023

When The Strong created the International Center for the History of electronic Games (ICHEG) in 2009, we recognized the important role that coin-operated games played in the evolution of video games. Indeed, the first commercial video game, Nutting Associates’ Computer Space(1971), and the first hit video game, Atari’s Pong (1972), arrived in coin-operated arcade cabinets. The Strong acquired these significant titles as part of a collection of more than 100 arcade games in 2009. More than a decade later, this […]

Continue Reading about The Strong’s Comprehensive Collection Chronicles More than a Century of Coin-Operated Games Published on:
June 23, 2022

Joe L. Frost, the renowned scholar and educator who advocated for the importance of free outdoor play, playgrounds, and recess, died on February 17, 2020. Frost was a charter member of the editorial advisory board of the American Journal of Play. In his more than 50 years of research, including writing 20 books and multitudes of articles and reports, teaching, consulting, and service, he became one of play’s greatest champions.
Born in Parks, Arkansas, on March 25, 1933, Frost grew up […]

Continue Reading about Remembering Play Scholar and Advocate Joe L. Frost Published on:
April 28, 2022

In a recent American Journal of Play article, psychologist Peter Gray draws on surveys with U.S. children and parents to suggest that in the earliest months of the pandemic lockdown, many children who had increased time to play, more time with their families, and opportunities to contribute constructively to family life, showed improved mental well-being. This research got me thinking about my own children’s play experiences during the pandemic. I thought about how their play endured under difficult circumstances and […]

Continue Reading about The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Persistence of Children’s Play Published on:
September 8, 2021