The National Media Museum. Yorkshire... obv.
Earlier this year we sadly had to report that the UK's Museum of Computing in Swindon was closing down - losing an archive of video game-related items. Later this year, in short now, we are chuffed as all heck to report that the National Videogame Archive is to be housed at the National Media Museum, in Bradford - in Yorkshire.
The archive, which is still in the planning stages, presents "some real challenges, not least in the area of preservation", according according to the NMM's head of collections and knowledge, Paul Goodman.
“We must balance the necessary conservation requirements of these materials, with the need to allow the public to understand and interact with them both now and in the future, which is really the cornerstone of what we are trying to do", he states.
Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Contemporary Play is going to manage the archive - and according to Dr James Newman said: “We don’t just want to create a virtual museum full of code or screenshots that you could see online.
“The archive will really get to grips with what is a very creative, social and productive culture.
"It will not only be a vital academic resource to support growing disciplines in video game studies but will also be something that the general public can fully engage with."
As far as we can see, a serious attempt to catalogue and preserve our heritage is worth several thousand more bonus points than any navel-gazing about games being 'art'. Time to support the cause we say.
The archive, which is still in the planning stages, presents "some real challenges, not least in the area of preservation", according according to the NMM's head of collections and knowledge, Paul Goodman.
“We must balance the necessary conservation requirements of these materials, with the need to allow the public to understand and interact with them both now and in the future, which is really the cornerstone of what we are trying to do", he states.
Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Contemporary Play is going to manage the archive - and according to Dr James Newman said: “We don’t just want to create a virtual museum full of code or screenshots that you could see online.
“The archive will really get to grips with what is a very creative, social and productive culture.
"It will not only be a vital academic resource to support growing disciplines in video game studies but will also be something that the general public can fully engage with."
As far as we can see, a serious attempt to catalogue and preserve our heritage is worth several thousand more bonus points than any navel-gazing about games being 'art'. Time to support the cause we say.