Latest news with #VGHF
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Video Game History Foundation's online library is now open
The Video Game History Foundation has unveiled its digital library, a massive undertaking that makes the organization's own materials as well as some private collections available for anyone to read. This project was first announced in December 2023, and the collection is still in early access. The VGHF said it would continually be working to digitize and add more content to the library. Even though this will be an ongoing endeavor, there is already a whole lot to check out. The library includes out-of-print publications like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power alongside industry trade magazines, which casual players might never have the chance to read otherwise. There are also materials from behind the scenes of game development, such as video recordings of developer Cyan's work on the landmark game Myst and interviews with the team. You can also find press kits, promotional materials and all sorts of other ephemera. Everything is free to browse, just like a regular public library. In short, this is amazingly cool for gaming nerds.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What video game ephemera tells us about ourselves
I just finished writing a feature about the Video Game History Foundation in Oakland, California, and how it is preparing to share its digital archive of games magazines. From 30 January, you'll be able to visit the institute's website and explore a collection of about 1,500 publications from throughout the history of games, all scanned in high detail, all searchable for keywords. It's a magnificent resource for researchers and those who just want to find the first-ever review of Tetris or Pokémon. I can't wait to visit. While researching the article, I spoke to John O'Shea and Ann Wain from the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield, which is also collecting games mags and other printed ephemera. They said something that really fascinated me. The museum is looking for donations to build its archive, but its focus is not so much on the magazines themselves, but on who brings them in. 'We're particularly interested in fan perspectives,' O'Shea told me. 'We're not intending to develop an exhaustive collection of every video game magazine ever made – we're interested in the full suite of an individual's video game experience … in how games connect to their lives.' Wain continued: 'We're interested in the stories of why – why did they collect these particular things, what were they looking for? It's that kind of social context we're after.' Collections are about memories more than facts – and this applies to games and the cultural matter about them. I'm writing this letter to you in my little cellar office, surrounded by piles of games, game magazines and game books. There are things in here that I cherish, including a copy of Devil May Cry signed by game designer Shinji Mikami, and my father's Sega Mega Drive; there are also some endlessly useful and fascinating things, such as Steven Kent's seminal book The Ultimate History of Video Games, and an old Sony personal video monitor, for which I bought special cables allowing me to connect very old consoles. What does all this stuff mean in the end, and what does it say about me? I'm not sure. All I know is, when I happen on TikTok videos of people's games collections I watch transfixed, over and over. I look at the console formats they've bought and the magazines they read. It helps me to picture their journey through games history, which may be very different than mine. I think that's why the National Videogame Museum (VGHF) wants this sort of sociocultural context in its collections: the choices other people make are fascinating. It's such a shame that museums and academic institutions have only relatively recently been given the resources to collect material about video games. Although classic games are now being carefully archived, the VGHF estimates that 87% of classic video games released in the United States are critically endangered – I'm sure the situation is the same elsewhere in the world. Games discs and tapes deteriorate and become unplayable; the machines they ran on break down. Games magazines were considered ephemeral and throwaway, and are only now being seen as cultural artefacts in the same way as music and movie publications. There's a lot of history to catch up on. If we really want to remember the youth culture of the 1980s, we need to think just as much about Jet Set Willy and Crash magazine as we do about the Smiths and NME. As O'Shea said in our chat, cultural memory exists in the detritus of our lived lives. Last year, a good friend and I went to the Naomi Campbell exhibition at the V&A. In one area, the curators recreated the model's dressing room – a chaotic explosion of discarded clothes, wet wipes and makeup. It told us as much about her as anything else on display. We are what we surround ourselves with, and what we're passionate about. All my books and games are, in the end, me. Perhaps this is why I felt emotional when O'Shea and Wain talked about how games mags are important for their social and personal context: I had a very recent experience of their intimate value. A couple of weekends ago, I help my mum clear out a few old things at her house. In a dusty corner, we found a plastic bag that had obviously been safely stored away by my dad, who died in 2003. I discovered it contained a pile of games magazines that I had worked on – Edge, DC-UK and others, as well as some copies of my first stories for the Guardian. I used to post him these things because he was interested in games and cool new gadgets. I thought he'd have a quick flick through and chuck them out. But there it all was: my career in a plastic bag, as collated and archived by my dad. Those magazines are in my collection now – once they were about me, now they're about him. We all have a natural ability to share and ascribe cultural meaning and emotional value. As well as bringing us joy, the things we collect are a message to others. This was important once; take care of it and you'll understand why. When is a news article not a news article? Um … when it's a game? Reuters has just run a lovely introductory article about cosy games such as Spiritfarer and Animal Crossing, which have proven mental health benefits for stressed or anxious players. The Reutuers feature is also an interactive role-playing game, Cosy Comfort, which allows you to guide a cutesy anthropomorphic Radish around the teeny village of Rootersville as you read, customising its clothes and house en route. This is such a lovely, relevant way to present a positive story. Available on: PC, Mac and smartphone Estimated playtime: 10 minutes There are rumours that Electronic Arts is preparing to rerelease The Sims and Sims 2 to celebrate the game's forthcoming 25th anniversary. Kotaku reports on teases from the publisher and I hope they've got it right: the origins of this 200m-selling life sim haven't been available to download and play for many years. I wonder if my old saves will work? Alice Bell has written a beautiful article for Eurogamer about how video game spaces have become memorials to friends we have lost. This makes complete sense in the digital era when so many relationships play out online and in virtual worlds. Yet more games industry job losses this week as Ubisoft announced it is closing its Leamington studio and downsizing Ubisoft Reflections in Newcastle, Ubisoft Düsseldorf and Ubisoft Stockholm. According to 185 staff will lose their jobs. Scans for the memories: why old games magazines are a vital source of cultural history – and nostalgia The 15 best Xbox Series S/X games to play in 2025 Bundle of Joy, a game about the frantic monotony of early parenthood Can Assassin's Creed Shadows save Ubisoft? Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders – fun ski-run challenge has a few bumps along the way | ★★★★☆ This week's question comes from Martha, who asks: 'My friend and I live together and we are avid gamers. Not into sport or platformers but we love all the modern greats; GTA, Last of Us, Uncharted, Days Gone, Horizon ZD and FW, Spider-Man (and Stardew Valley). You get the picture! A friend of ours – who hasn't gamed since the 90s – wants us to help get her into gaming again. So it needs to be something we enjoy with a good learning arc. What would you recommend? We are PlayStation gamers.' Of the games you've mentioned, Spider-Man, Uncharted and Horizon are all excellent introductions to modern games – and they all have good easy modes. If they were playing in the 1990s, they might recognise a few of the franchises still going today, so Rise of the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil Village might be a good idea. I also love Stellar Blade and The Quarry, which have quite a 90s gaming vibe to them. Also, as you mentioned, Stardew Valley, which has a real Super Nintendo look and feel, I'd recommend Tunic and Roots of Pacha, which both look as if they've come from that wonderful era. If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
What video game ephemera tells us about ourselves
I just finished writing a feature about the Video Game History Foundation in Oakland, California, and how it is preparing to share its digital archive of games magazines. From 30 January, you'll be able to visit the institute's website and explore a collection of about 1,500 publications from throughout the history of games, all scanned in high detail, all searchable for keywords. It's a magnificent resource for researchers and those who just want to find the first-ever review of Tetris or Pokémon. I can't wait to visit. While researching the article, I spoke to John O'Shea and Ann Wain from the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield, which is also collecting games mags and other printed ephemera. They said something that really fascinated me. The museum is looking for donations to build its archive, but its focus is not so much on the magazines themselves, but on who brings them in. 'We're particularly interested in fan perspectives,' O'Shea told me. 'We're not intending to develop an exhaustive collection of every video game magazine ever made – we're interested in the full suite of an individual's video game experience … in how games connect to their lives.' Wain continued: 'We're interested in the stories of why – why did they collect these particular things, what were they looking for? It's that kind of social context we're after.' Collections are about memories more than facts – and this applies to games and the cultural matter about them. I'm writing this letter to you in my little cellar office, surrounded by piles of games, game magazines and game books. There are things in here that I cherish, including a copy of Devil May Cry signed by game designer Shinji Mikami, and my father's Sega Mega Drive; there are also some endlessly useful and fascinating things, such as Steven Kent's seminal book The Ultimate History of Video Games, and an old Sony personal video monitor, for which I bought special cables allowing me to connect very old consoles. What does all this stuff mean in the end, and what does it say about me? I'm not sure. All I know is, when I happen on TikTok videos of people's games collections I watch transfixed, over and over. I look at the console formats they've bought and the magazines they read. It helps me to picture their journey through games history, which may be very different than mine. I think that's why the National Videogame Museum (VGHF) wants this sort of sociocultural context in its collections: the choices other people make are fascinating. It's such a shame that museums and academic institutions have only relatively recently been given the resources to collect material about video games. Although classic games are now being carefully archived, the VGHF estimates that 87% of classic video games released in the United States are critically endangered – I'm sure the situation is the same elsewhere in the world. Games discs and tapes deteriorate and become unplayable; the machines they ran on break down. Games magazines were considered ephemeral and throwaway, and are only now being seen as cultural artefacts in the same way as music and movie publications. There's a lot of history to catch up on. If we really want to remember the youth culture of the 1980s, we need to think just as much about Jet Set Willy and Crash magazine as we do about the Smiths and NME. As O'Shea said in our chat, cultural memory exists in the detritus of our lived lives. Last year, a good friend and I went to the Naomi Campbell exhibition at the V&A. In one area, the curators recreated the model's dressing room – a chaotic explosion of discarded clothes, wet wipes and makeup. It told us as much about her as anything else on display. We are what we surround ourselves with, and what we're passionate about. All my books and games are, in the end, me. Perhaps this is why I felt emotional when O'Shea and Wain talked about how games mags are important for their social and personal context: I had a very recent experience of their intimate value. A couple of weekends ago, I help my mum clear out a few old things at her house. In a dusty corner, we found a plastic bag that had obviously been safely stored away by my dad, who died in 2003. I discovered it contained a pile of games magazines that I had worked on – Edge, DC-UK and others, as well as some copies of my first stories for the Guardian. I used to post him these things because he was interested in games and cool new gadgets. I thought he'd have a quick flick through and chuck them out. But there it all was: my career in a plastic bag, as collated and archived by my dad. Those magazines are in my collection now – once they were about me, now they're about him. We all have a natural ability to share and ascribe cultural meaning and emotional value. As well as bringing us joy, the things we collect are a message to others. This was important once; take care of it and you'll understand why. When is a news article not a news article? Um … when it's a game? Reuters has just run a lovely introductory article about cosy games such as Spiritfarer and Animal Crossing, which have proven mental health benefits for stressed or anxious players. The Reutuers feature is also an interactive role-playing game, Cosy Comfort, which allows you to guide a cutesy anthropomorphic Radish around the teeny village of Rootersville as you read, customising its clothes and house en route. This is such a lovely, relevant way to present a positive story. Available on: PC, Mac and smartphone Estimated playtime: 10 minutes Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion There are rumours that Electronic Arts is preparing to rerelease The Sims and Sims 2 to celebrate the game's forthcoming 25th anniversary. Kotaku reports on teases from the publisher and I hope they've got it right: the origins of this 200m-selling life sim haven't been available to download and play for many years. I wonder if my old saves will work? Alice Bell has written a beautiful article for Eurogamer about how video game spaces have become memorials to friends we have lost. This makes complete sense in the digital era when so many relationships play out online and in virtual worlds. Yet more games industry job losses this week as Ubisoft announced it is closing its Leamington studio and downsizing Ubisoft Reflections in Newcastle, Ubisoft Düsseldorf and Ubisoft Stockholm. According to 185 staff will lose their jobs. Scans for the memories: why old games magazines are a vital source of cultural history – and nostalgia The 15 best Xbox Series S/X games to play in 2025 Bundle of Joy, a game about the frantic monotony of early parenthood Can Assassin's Creed Shadows save Ubisoft? Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders – fun ski-run challenge has a few bumps along the way | ★★★★☆ This week's question comes from Martha, who asks: 'My friend and I live together and we are avid gamers. Not into sport or platformers but we love all the modern greats; GTA, Last of Us, Uncharted, Days Gone, Horizon ZD and FW, Spider-Man (and Stardew Valley). You get the picture! A friend of ours – who hasn't gamed since the 90s – wants us to help get her into gaming again. So it needs to be something we enjoy with a good learning arc. What would you recommend? We are PlayStation gamers.' Of the games you've mentioned, Spider-Man, Uncharted and Horizon are all excellent introductions to modern games – and they all have good easy modes. If they were playing in the 1990s, they might recognise a few of the franchises still going today, so Rise of the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil Village might be a good idea. I also love Stellar Blade and The Quarry, which have quite a 90s gaming vibe to them. Also, as you mentioned, Stardew Valley, which has a real Super Nintendo look and feel, I'd recommend Tunic and Roots of Pacha, which both look as if they've come from that wonderful era. If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
The Guardian
28-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Scans for the memories: why old games magazines are a vital source of cultural history
Before the internet, if you were an avid gamer then you were very likely to be an avid reader of games magazines. From the early 1980s, the likes of Crash, Mega, PC Gamer and the Official PlayStation Magazine were your connection with the industry, providing news, reviews and interviews as well as lively letters pages that fostered a sense of community. Very rarely, however, did anyone keep hold of their magazine collections. Lacking the cultural gravitas of music or movie publications, they were mostly thrown away. While working at Future Publishing as a games journalist in the 1990s, I watched many times as hundreds of old issues of SuperPlay, Edge and GamesMaster were tipped into skips for pulping. I feel queasy just thinking about it. Because now, of course, I and thousands of other video game veterans have realised these magazines are a vital historical resource as well as a source of nostalgic joy. Surviving copies of classic mags are selling at a vast premium on eBay, and while the Internet Archive does contain patchy collections of scanned magazines, it is vulnerable to legal challenges from copyright holders. Thankfully, there are institutions taking the preservation of games magazines seriously. Last week, the Video Game History Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of games and their history, announced that from 30 January, it would be opening up its digital archive of out-of-print magazines to read and study online. So far 1,500 issues of mostly American games mags are available, as well as art books and other printed ephemera, but the organisation is busy scanning its entire collection. The digitised content will be fully tagged and searchable by word or phrase, so you'll be able to easily track down the first mentions of, say, Minecraft, John Romero, or the survival horror genre. In a recent video introducing the archive, VGHF librarian Phil Salvador explained: 'We wanted to make something that's going to be useful and easy for anyone studying video game history, whether you're an academic writing a book or a creator making a YouTube video, or you're just a curious person.' Founded by game historian Frank Cifaldi in 2017, the VGHF is part of a growing number of archives, academic institutions and museums dedicated to preserving games history. While the focus is usually on tracking down and preserving the games themselves, there is a growing understanding that magazines provide vital context. 'Video game magazines are often representative of people's relationships to video games – they accompany that journey,' says John O'Shea, creative director and co-CEO of the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield, which has a growing collection of printed materials. 'They have a similar lineage to football and music fanzine culture, in that they provide perspectives on the players and the fans and what they were thinking at the time. They also provide insight into particular trends and narratives, what gets emphasised, what doesn't. They provide direct access to a particular historical period.' Magazines then tell a sociocultural story that the games themselves cannot. 'Looking at these magazines now, through the lens of contemporary video game culture, it's not just what is there, but what is not there,' says O'Shea. 'The majority of characters featured in magazines up to the early 2010s are men. I looked at a selection of PC magazines from 2011 and there were the same number of female protagonists represented as there were panda protagonists.' Games mags were often written for very specific, very dedicated demographics, and reflected the focus of the industry itself. Many adverts throughout the 90s and into the early 00s featured skimpily dressed women, even when the games were military shooters or strategy sims. Classified ads for premium rate video game tips lines were accompanied by photos of women in bikinis. 'It's there because that was the demographic they were aiming at – teenage boys,' says the museum's collections officer, Ann Wain. 'The marketing shows who was getting the attention and why. The letters pages also tell us a lot about player culture. What topics were people discussing, what was the conversation around games. It contextualises games in a way that just playing them can't.' Both the VGHF and the National Videogame Museum are reliant on donations: the latter has just received an almost complete collection of PC Gamer from a collector who also kept all the cover demo discs and inserts. They are doing important work because often the magazine publishers themselves have patchy records on preservation. Future Publishing does have an archive at its Bath office but it is not complete, and whole collections have been lost when other companies have shut. In a recent post on LinkedIn, veteran games media publisher Stuart Dinsey recalled that when he sold Intent Media in 2013, the new owner pulped almost the entire back catalogue of its industry publications CTW and MCV. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Looking back on video game history, it's easy to imagine a smooth narrative flow, a sense of inevitability about which games or technologies would be successful and which would fail. But it wasn't usually like that: contemporary reporting reveals a mass of complications and uncertainties. 'Video game magazines provide a lot of resistance to that very linear idea of history,' says O'Shea. 'Especially the technologically deterministic view that more powerful tech would inevitably be more interesting and successful'. When you go to the VGHF's digital archive next month, look at contemporary news around the Sega Mega Drive, the original PlayStation or the Nintendo Wii – there was no agreement at the time over their impending success. Games mags were on the frontline of games history. In this uncertain era for the industry, their voices, dimmed and distant though they seem, are more important than ever.
