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; […]
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An Expansion Pack for A History of Video Games in 64 Objects
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 […]
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The First Mobile Game Goes Viral: Pigs in Clover
In the 1880s the toymaker Charles Crandall invented a dexterity game a player could hold in one hand. People had likely crafted similar games, often called “ball-in-a-maze” puzzles, for many years. But Crandall’s creation, titled Pigs in Clover, was the first to become popular, sell thousands of units, and cause enough of a stir to be written about and imitated. How did this happen?
Pigs in Clover consists of three concentric cardboard rings fixed to a wood base. The puzzle challenges […]
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Oral Histories in the Archives
In this age of sharing every idle thought online, younger generations might find it hard to believe that publicly documenting one’s own life wasn’t always the norm. The most ancient forms of memory were kept in the oral tradition, and the keepers of records were individuals entrusted with the task of memorizing details and transmitting them through recitation to others. As writing systems developed and literacy rose across the globe, the written record became the rule (and oftentimes, entire groups […]
A History of Video Games in 64 Objects
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 […]
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Game Changers: The 2018 World Video Game Hall of Fame
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”
Well, almost. Christmas still wins out for me, but this is a close second. And not just because May brings with it Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you!) but because it’s time for the World Video Game Hall of Game inductions!
This is our fourth year honoring the best the gaming industry has to offer, based on criteria that includes icon-status, longevity, geographic reach, and cultural influence. This year, four new […]
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From a Coquette to a Mystery Date?
Fans of The Bachelorette and romance novels might be interested to know that The Coquette and her Suitors recently joined The Strong’s collections. This 1858 game features some of the most detailed design and lithography available at that time and undoubtedly drew its title from one of the most popular novels of that era, first published anonymously in 1797. The Coquette: or, The History of Eliza Wharton was still a best-seller some 50 years later and was not credited to […]
Video Game History is Black History
In historian Carly Kocurek’s recent American Journal of Play article “Ronnie, Millie, Lila—Women’s History for Games: A Manifesto and a Way Forward,” she reveals the hidden histories of three women who played important, but mostly forgotten, roles in video game history. Her study of video game regulation activist Ronnie Lamm, coin-op game route operator Amelia “Millie” McCarthy, and video game company executive Lila Zinter, challenges us to rethink what parts of the game industry we value and to expose the […]
A Flick of the Wrist: Flying Discs and Frisbees
Have you ever had a day when you just want to throw something? Well, it’s probably optimal if you choose an object that is meant to be thrown. Playthings such as softballs, paper airplanes, water balloons, and Frisbees count among the items which get the go-ahead for a wind-up and release. As I mentioned in a previous blog about toys people throw, “Sometimes I like to throw for distance and speed, other times for accuracy. Trajectory, body mechanics, kinetic […]
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