Play begins in anticipation. This is true not only for play generally but also specifically for video games. We discover a game from an advertisement or through word of mouth or perhaps from reading or watching something that someone else—often a professional journalist—has written or produced about the game. We begin to daydream about the game and think about what we’ll do in it, what surprises we’ll discover, and what challenges we will have to overcome. Our fingers itch to […]

Continue Reading about David Ahl: Getting Creative with Computers Published on:
January 20, 2023

This week we’re celebrating our annual Women in Games event that spotlights women who have shaped the video game industry, and so it seems fitting to post a blog honoring Margot Comstock, a publishing visionary who helped people become familiar and fall in love with computers and computer games. Sadly, Margot passed away on October 22, 2022.
When Margot Comstock began her work in the 1970s, personal computing was just taking root. Computers, as they first developed after World War II, […]

Continue Reading about Margot Comstock, Publishing Pioneer Published on:
November 14, 2022

I was a math kid, one who enjoyed solving simple problems of multiplication and division, arithmetic and subtraction. For many years my favorite toy was DataMan, a calculator themed as a space hero that was created in the late 1970s by Texas Instruments, the same company that introduced not only the portable calculator but also such electronic toys as the Little Professor and Speak n Spell. Still, none of these simple calculations captured my fancy the way prime numbers did.
I […]

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September 2, 2022

We welcomed four new inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame class of 2022: Ms. Pac-Man, Dance Dance Revolution, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Sid Meier’s Civilization. They span almost a 20-year period in game history, with Ms. Pac-Man coming out in 1981, Civilization released ten years later, and DDR and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time debuting in 1998. Interestingly, that seventeen-year time span actually marks the most time-compressed period for any of our World […]

Continue Reading about How Does a Game Get into the World Video Game Hall of Fame? Published on:
May 5, 2022

This month we opened our new maker space, Play Lab. It’s a bright, busy place, filled with equipment for assembling, building, crafting, cutting, designing, fashioning, gluing, hammering, programing, soldering, and weaving. Our public programming team and guest services staff will hold facilitated sessions where kids (and adults) can create. It’s hands-on fun!
For kids, making things is an essential type of play, one that teaches as it engages. Scholars note the benefits of construction play. Construction play trains spatial skills. It […]

Continue Reading about Making Space for Play Published on:
April 7, 2022

On a recent morning, I was out early at our local Wegmans supermarket. Because the store had just opened there were few people there and I could hear the music playing over the loudspeaker. In this case, it was the 1970s R&B song “Everybody Plays the Fool.” Like an ear worm, the chorus stuck in my head:
Everybody plays the fool, sometime
There’s no exception to the rule
Listen, baby, it may be factual, may be cruel
I ain’t lyin’, everybody plays the fool
I […]

Continue Reading about Everybody Plays the Fool Published on:
March 3, 2022

I usually write blogs because I’m interested in a subject. Perhaps it’s a new collection that came into The Strong museum, such as when we preserved the Skylanders collection or a new group of materials arrived from the estate of Ralph Baer. Or sometimes it’s a subject that piques my interest because it’s in the news but I also think that there’s a larger historical context that is being missed—that’s why I wrote about how violence is an inherent part […]

Continue Reading about Randomly Generated Artifact: 106.387 Published on:
January 21, 2022

We’ve recently opened Skyline Climb, a high adventure ropes course that soars high in our cathedral-like glass atrium. Physical play like this is important, not only as part of the museum experience here at The Strong but as a contributor to well-being in general, especially for children. This attraction offers guests more than just the opportunity to test their agility and balance; it also is a playground for building resolve, courage, and confidence. Asking guests to navigate narrow beams at […]

Continue Reading about The Benefits of Risky Play Published on:
November 23, 2021

“To err is human, to forgive divine” — Alexander Pope  
Somebody had blundered. It’s a truism of most organizations and most human initiatives. It’s especially true in wartime. Alfred Lord Tennyson stamped the phrase indelibly into the English language in his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”: Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and […]

Continue Reading about Can a Computer Blunder? Published on:
September 16, 2021