Computers are amazing machines. They can be serious tools for business or scientific research or they can be platforms for play. For many people, this has meant using computers to play games, but computers have also often served as engines for other forms of creative expression. Lucia Grossberger Morales is one example of someone who, in the early 1980s, not only employed the Apple II to create innovative art but designed a program, The Designer’sToolkit, to help others […]

Continue Reading about Lucia Grossberger Morales: Computer Art Pioneer Published on:
March 6, 2019

Every fall, across the United States, young men strap on helmets, crowds gather to cheer, and players smash into each other on the gridiron. Football is one of the country’s favorite pastimes, and today it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry. And yet it’s also a sport that has come under attack for the injuries it can cause players, especially those related to damage to the brain, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). While the long-term effects of these injuries are still being […]

Continue Reading about Football: Redemption through Violence Published on:
January 31, 2019

I still remember my first encounter with a dribble cup. It was at my next door neighbor’s house sometime during high school. Mark, who was in my grade, and his dad offered me a drink of water. I suspected nothing, despite their all-too-evident over-eagerness to see me slake my thirst. They handed me an ornate water goblet. To my surprise, when I took a drink, water spilled down my front. Somehow I was oblivious to their broad smiles […]

Continue Reading about Of Practical Jokes and Silliness Published on:
December 14, 2018

It began with a phone call from Paul Reiche III last summer.
I’ve known Paul since hearing him at the Game Developer’s Conference in 2012 tell the story of the creation of the Skylanders line of toy-to-life video games. I loved his enthusiasm for video games, tabletop games, and toys, a passion that fueled pioneering work in those fields from his time at TSR in the 1970s working on Dungeons & Dragons to his many years in the video game business; […]

Continue Reading about Documenting the Skylanders Story Published on:
September 27, 2018

In our new book from the World Video Game Hall of Fame, A History of Video Games in 64 Objects, we faced a challenge. Which objects should we include? The Strong museum, home of the World Video Game Hall of Fame, has hundreds of thousands of objects related to video games in its collections, and so we needed to include just the right mix of artifacts that were important, helped tell the broader history of video games, and would engage […]

Continue Reading about An Expansion Pack for A History of Video Games in 64 Objects Published on:
August 8, 2018

How do you tell the history of video games?
For more than a decade, The Strong has been collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of video games. Over that time our collection has grown to more than 60,000 video games and related artifacts, as well as hundreds of thousands of video game-related items in our archives. We’ve showcased them in exhibits, featured them in online content like our timeline of the history of video games, and made them available to scholars […]

Continue Reading about A History of Video Games in 64 Objects Published on:
May 22, 2018

The recent decision by the producers of Call of Duty:WWII to return the game’s setting to World War II—after a detour into modern warfare and futuristic science fiction—reflects not only the franchise’s success with this period but also the fact that no other war has so captured the imagination of playmakers and players.

Continue Reading about Playing the “Good War” Published on:
June 23, 2017

In addition to collecting video and other electronic games and materials that document how these games are made and sold, the staff at The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) is also interested in preserving evidence of player culture. Author Chris Kohler recently donated a wonderful collection of more than 350 fanzine homemade magazines with more than 80 different titles that illustrate how players shared their passion for games with others—during a time when few Americans had […]

Continue Reading about Chris Kohler Fanzine Collection Documents Video Game Culture Published on:
June 16, 2017

Today, fantasy role-playing video games—in which players assume the role of heroes wielding swords, casting spells, riding dragons, and battling monsters—are among the most popular and influential of games. Yet if we consider the examples found in The Strong’s trove of 19th-century board games, we see that games with such themes are quite rare. Other styles of modern games, such as sports or war games, existed in great abundance long ago, but relatively few of these old games have fantasy […]

Continue Reading about A Genealogy of Fantasy Play (with a Special Nod to Iceland) Published on:
April 20, 2017