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 […]
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Looking for Labor, Listening to the Archive
The artist and photographer Taryn Simon once opened an exhibit with a now-widespread observation: “Archives exist because there’s something that can’t necessarily be articulated. Something is said in the gaps between all the information.” Simon gets at something important here, I think. We tend to think of the gaps in archives as, at best, markers of where we need to “fill in” the historical record in the pursuit of some absolute, final body of total knowledge. But gaps can also […]
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Pampered Pooches: Anthropomorphized Dolls
The Strong recently acquired a few anthropomorphized fashion dolls. A dog with a human-like body and an extensive wardrobe is really something to behold. As much as I admired these dolls, I could not help but to ask why did these show-up in the toy aisle and were they successful?
Giving human characteristics to animals has existed for centuries. Ancient gods were frequently presented as hybridized human-like animals. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as naturalists discovered and classified new species […]
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Heroines Just as Interesting as Heroes
The video game company Her Interactive adopted the slogan “For Girls Who Aren’t Afraid of a Mouse.” The firm’s fan letters and focus group collections informed my research on how video games are a technological construction of human expression. Her Interactive was a company focused on creating games based on the reception they received from their audience—girl gamers. They wanted to make video games based on the Nancy Drew series of novels more story driven so that girls would be […]
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The Strong Museum: Past & Present
As a child, I used to frequent The Strong museum and its many exhibits. I recall having no small amount of fun. Since then, the museum has changed quite a bit. The most iconic exhibits like Sesame Street and Reading Adventureland are still here, but some that I remember have been replaced over the years with other exhibits. However, there’s still a lot to love about the museum and everything therein.
A favorite part of The Strong from my childhood was […]
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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Remembering Play Scholar and Advocate Joe L. Frost
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 […]
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Replaying Pandemic in a Pandemic
Back in earliest months of the U.S. COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, you may have missed the flurry of board game articles all recommending the same game: Pandemic, the 2008 cooperative game where players race around a world map to cure four simultaneous infectious epidemics before the world is lost. Great minds think alike; The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Mashable, NPR, and more outlets raced to publish articles on the resonance of playing Pandemic in an actual pandemic. Most of […]
From the Page to the Playroom
In 1976, scholar Barbara Bader defined a picture book as “text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a commercial product; a social, cultural, historic document; and foremost, an experience for a [reader/beholder]. As an art form it hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning page.” I am fascinated by these works of art. Picture books serve as visual and tactile experiences. Many […]