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During the 1970s and 1980s, Atari programmers and designers crafted hundreds of new video game play experiences for millions of people. This summer The Strong will open Atari by Design, a temporary exhibit (June 22 – September 8, 2013) that features one-of-a kind concept art and design documents and explores the designs behind some of Atari’s most significant arcade video games and video game consoles. There are few better examples of Atari’s cutting-edge game and industrial design work during the […]

Continue Reading about Gauntlet by Design: Creating the Four-Player-at-Once Arcade Game Experience Published on:
May 31, 2013

Have you ever heard anyone say “I think I have too many Star Wars action figures”? Of course not. Who would ever say such a thing?
So, you can understand my excitement last December when an opportunity arose to acquire a collection of Star Wars figures. After all, just the month before, The Strong had inducted the iconic action figures into the National Toy Hall of Fame, and we held a big celebration, complete with Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and several […]

Continue Reading about A Galaxy’s Worth of Star Wars Action Figures Published on:
May 28, 2013

Video game music is catchy and memorable. Iconic tunes such as the Super Mario Bros. theme, composed by Koji Kondo, and Tetris’ fast-paced background music, based on the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki,” sound familiar to many gamers and non-games, alike. Hauntingly beautiful songs such as “Scars of Time” by Yasunori Mitsuda, the title theme from Chrono Cross, send chills up my spine. And in Final Fantasy VII, the heart-pounding “One-Winged Angel” by world-renowned composer Nobuo Uematsu—dubbed the John Williams of the […]

Continue Reading about Electronic Baseball and the Nostalgia of Video Game Sounds Published on:
May 23, 2013

Renowned Scottish dramatist James M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, wrote, “The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” Taking the notion a step further, 19th-century art critic and social thinker John Ruskin proffered that “mixing enough play with the work” helps ensure that each of our workdays is a happy one.
I believe that the staff at The Strong follows these precepts. Most of us would characterize a good portion of […]

Continue Reading about Game Time! Play: Lighting the Way Published on:
May 21, 2013

Pretend play often helps us cope. When we’re sad, scared, or depressed, pretend play lets us escape our hurts and gather strength to face our fears and trials. As psychologists Dorothy and Jerome Singer and Sandra Russ explain, pretend play—“such as divergent thinking, the ability to transform one object into another, and the organization of narratives—demonstrate the relationship between play and coping.” Two recent video games, Papo & Yo and The Unfinished Swan, wrap their stories around ways children use […]

Continue Reading about Pretend Play in Video Game Worlds Published on:
May 20, 2013

In his recent interview in the American Journal of Play—“The Why, How, and What of a Museum of Play”—George Rollie Adams, President and CEO, describes the evolution of The Strong as the first collections based institution devoted to the study of play. Trained as teacher and historian and with the skill of an author, Adams narrates the remarkable history of an institution that “too few people cared about” at its low point in the mid 1980s when he arrived and […]

Continue Reading about The Strong-est Story Ever Told Published on:
May 20, 2013

Few probably realize that Rochester, New York, was once home to a large game and toy manufacturer. Henry Alderman and Elmer E. Fairchild formed the Alderman-Fairchild Company in 1900 and initially printed paper goods and cardboard boxes for clients such as Rochester’s Fanny Farmer Candy. The city had grown into an important printing center during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the firm took advantage of local expertise in that field. When the market for luxury goods such […]

Continue Reading about A Rochester Game Manufacturer: The Alderman-Fairchild Corp. Published on:
May 14, 2013

For those of us who grew up during the so-called “golden age” of arcade games (late 1970s through the middle 1980s), the word “arcade” conjures up images of carpeted walls, smoke-filled rooms, black lights, and row after row of brightly colored video game cabinets. For some, the thought of these spaces evoke such vivid memories of playing video games that similar establishments created before and after the “golden age” simply aren’t “arcades.” In fact, most discussions of arcades inevitably hinge […]

Continue Reading about Coin-Op Century: A Brief History of the American Arcade Published on:
May 9, 2013

A vacant piano in an empty room sends me a powerful invitation. It’s like someone has left an Aston Martin DB9 Volante with the keys in the ignition and a sign on the dashboard that says, “take me for a spin.” If I come across an unlocked Baby Grand in a hotel lobby, I find the silence too heavy a burden to bear. I can’t pass it by without sitting down to pick out, let’s say, “Sweet Baby James,” “Killing […]

Continue Reading about Plinking, Performing, and the Paradox of Play Published on:
May 9, 2013