Video Games Archive

A century ago, Max and Dave Fleischer, two brothers from Brooklyn, developed a device that allowed animators to capture live-action events frame by frame. They tested their system on the roof of Max’s apartment building, where Dave, wearing a black clown suit, cavorted in front of a white sheet. Max captured the movements on film and projected them onto a glass plate that he then used to trace out pictures of individual movements. The result was rotoscoping, an animation technique […]

Continue Reading about Jordan Mechner Collection Documents Revolution in Game Graphics Published on:
October 29, 2014

Biologists who study the fossil record note that dramatic blooms in the number and diversity of species interrupt long periods of stasis or gradual change in animal forms. Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould termed this phenomenon “punctuated equilibrium” and wrote a book, Wonderful Life, about the sudden efflorescence of fossils during the Cambrian period about 550 million years ago. Interestingly, despite the drastic difference in timescales, this phenomenon has a parallel in the history of games, for at certain times the […]

Continue Reading about A Second Revolution in Game Distribution Published on:
October 9, 2014

Homer and Cicero wrote about incidents involving sea robbers that threatened the trading routes of Ancient Greece and Rome more than 2,000 years ago. Since then, each era has encountered new brands of pirates. Popular culture today glorifies the picture of a band of outlaws who are guided by the wind and their own set of rules—consider swashbuckler Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. In recent years, many video game designers adapt tales of the sea to […]

Continue Reading about Pirates Sail on the Video Game Screen Published on:
September 25, 2014

Frequently my two-year-old daughter Sidney greets me with two words: “chase, Daddy.” It’s a request that usually leads to lots of laughter and me circling around tables and chairs as I chase her throughout our house. In psychologist Peter Gray’s book Free to Learn, he notes that young mammals of nearly all species play chase games.

Continue Reading about The Lasting Appeal of Chase Games Published on:
September 11, 2014

Physicists and astronomers tend to maintain two schools of thoughts on space exploration. The first school focuses on cost management and quick results and concludes that robotic, unmanned missions prove the best approach to space exploration. The second school advocates for humans to travel to space. “It’s our prerogative as an intelligent species, our cosmic mandate, children love it, and love science for it,” physicists and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser pronounced in a NPR article. Yet few individuals meet the requirements […]

Continue Reading about Study or Visit Space with this Video Game Series Published on:
August 22, 2014

I recently read Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One. The story captivated me and likely appeals to other gaming fans, especially those who—like me—happen to love 1980s pop-culture. Although the book takes place in the future, the plot encouraged me to think more about games from the past.
In Ready Player One, America becomes a wasteland. To escape the onset of depression, the vast majority of citizens flee into Oasis, a virtual video game world. When the creator (James Halliday) of […]

Continue Reading about Hunting for Easter Eggs Published on:
August 15, 2014

ICHEG collects a vast array of materials. Sometimes they come in groups of thousands, like the archives of the Atari Coin-Op divisions we acquired, and sometimes they come in ones and twos, like John Romero’s first Apple II+ computer and design notebook that he donated. John recently joined us in installing these items in The Strong’s eGameRevolution exhibit.

Continue Reading about Preserving John Romero’s First Computer at ICHEG Published on:
August 1, 2014

Recently The Strong acquired a colossal collection of materials related to Atari’s coin-operated video game and pinball divisions.
The task of processing and preserving such a collection is multi-faceted, and in the coming months, The Strong’s curators, conservators, catalogers, and archivist will continue to evaluate, stabilize, conserve, and archive the collection. When archivist Julia Rossi and I inventoried a portion the collection, I was struck by the Atari coin-op game advertising mock-ups and proofs—materials used to draft, edit, and demonstrate how […]

Continue Reading about Inside the Atari Coin-Op Divisions Collection: What’s in an Ad? Published on:
July 7, 2014

Some video games make us want to throw our controllers against the wall and swear never to play again. But somehow we always seem to find ourselves plopped back on the couch, controller clutched tightly in our hands, determined that this time will be different.
Frustration and challenge are part of the appeal of a good game and that fits with much of what we know about what makes good play. More than 50 years ago, Benjamin Spock (the pediatrician, not […]

Continue Reading about Difficulty in Video Gaming Published on:
June 27, 2014