NPCs are having a moment. That raises, of course, an existential question: can an NPC have a moment?
For those not familiar with the term, NPC stands for Non-Player Character. It refers to some living, sentient being in a game that players interact with in a way that’s not purely hostile. A monster you encounter and fight in a game, with little or no conversation outside the moment of combat, could perhaps be considered an NPC, but in practice monsters seem […]
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Game Saves: Rock It Man—A Punny Unreleased SEGA Genesis Game
With a growing collection of digital files, it can be a challenge to identify what every file does. But you never know what you may find, including completely unseen games like Rock It Man for the SEGA Genesis.
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Japanese Games at The Strong,Part I
The Strong is home to thousands of video game related objects. Among them is a large collection of Japanese games, sourced from France in a purchase the museum made in 2013. That encompasses more than 6,000 Japanese video games, mostly in excellent and complete condition. When I knew I was joining the museum in December 2021, I felt particularly eager to see what Japanese exclusive games we had, especially for older systems such as the Super Famicom.
The collection didn’t disappoint—at […]
The Strong’s Comprehensive Collection Chronicles More than a Century of Coin-Operated Games
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 […]
How Does a Game Get into the World Video Game Hall of Fame?
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 […]
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The Laserdisc Playland: Atari’s Lost Arcade Game
By Andrew Borman
When Ars Technica journalist Matt Paprocki discovered a lost Atari laserdisc title Playland, I decided to dive into the Atari Coin-Op Division corporate records at The Strong to see if we could learn more about the game, and who worked on it.
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I Wanna Hold Your Hand(held Game)
Finally, an area where Millennials and Gen Z have an advantage: both generations have consistently had access to gaming on the go. From the Nintendo Game Boy to Tamagotchis to smartphones, if you needed to kill some time before meeting your friends (or wanted to ignore your siblings on a long car trip with the family), you could grab a portable gaming device from your backpack and voilà—instant entertainment. Our Gen X comrades remember when this wasn’t always the case. […]
Pinball Playfields: A Flippin’ Good Time
Pinball is a game that dates back nearly a century, with many companies in the industry rising and falling and designers creating icons of the ever-evolving superstar of non-digital gaming. The Strong museum’s Pinball Playfields exhibit showcases some of the finest machines that the industry has ever seen and, while this is by no means a complete collection, there’s no doubt that these machines are icons in their own right.
Dancing Dolls
Take a step back in time to the oft romanticized […]
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