Chuck E. Cheese’s is updating its mascot in an effort to reach a new generation of people who love pizza, video games, and the combination of the two. As a parent whose children have attended many functions at Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurants, I wish them the best of success in their new branding efforts. As a video game historian I can’t resist thinking about the origins of the chain.
As many video game fans know, Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari, also […]
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Nearly 600,000 guests come to The Strong annually, and many consider a visit to the arcade in eGameRevolution the highlight of their trip. Some visitors favor new games—slashing fruit on the giant touch-screen version of Fruit Ninja, munching opponents in the four-person Pac-Man Battle Royale, or playing the only Sega Giant Tetris game in North America. Old-school players make a bee-line for classics like Lunar Lander, Asteroids, or Gauntlet. The dozens of games featured in the exhibit give guests plenty […]
Minecraft and the Building Blocks of Fun
Recently, Minecraft fever struck my house. All four of my children now play the game and one Saturday morning my kids showed me the houses, sheep farms, mines, and other creations they built in the game using blocks they mined or harvested from stone, ore, wood, or other materials. The buildings were creative, beautiful, and strong enough to survive late night monster attacks.
While Minecraft is relatively new, what strikes me most about it is how ancient the game play is. […]
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Fun with Video Game Versions of Archaeology
Temple Run, an iPhone game, was recently the rage at my son’s school, so he downloaded it to my phone. It’s a basic survival game in which the player, an explorer, flees with the idol from a jungle temple. The game rewards quick decisions as the player tries to stay on the path and jump or slide under obstacles while attempting to outrun a pack of man-eating monkeys. The monkeys always win, but it’s a lot of fun trying to […]
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Do You Think Video Games Are Worth Saving?
We do! Recently, news reports cited as wasteful spending a $113,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games to preserve video games. We disagree. We believe video games not only are the most dynamic, exciting, and innovative form of media today but also an important form of play and a driver of cultural change.
Games sharpen people’s ability to solve problems and overcome challenges. Games teach people […]
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Entering the Dragon’s Lair (into ICHEG’s Collections)
The more than 140 arcade cabinets ICHEG owns are key components of our tens of thousands of video games and related artifacts. Our arcade cabinets range from early pioneers like Computer Space and Pong to rare titles like a stand-up Discs of Tron and the only copy of Sega’s giant Tetris in North America. Still, one game remained on my wish list until only recently: Dragon’s Lair. Now we own an original, working version!
I remember when Cinematronics debuted Dragon’s Lair […]
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Steve Jobs, Breakout Pioneer
One of my favorite games in ICHEG’s collection is Atari’s 1976 arcade classic Breakout, an elegant, one-player elaboration of Pong. Players move a paddle side-to-side to keep a bouncing ball in play long enough to knock down multicolored layers of bricks. A tone sounds each time a ball strikes a brick. The ball speeds up with each successive layer of bricks, making it harder and harder to hit. Breakout is a seductive game, easy to learn, difficult to master.
Steve Jobs, […]
Bill Kunkel, 1950-2011: Video Game Journalism Pioneer
On September 4th, the video game industry lost a true pioneer. Bill Kunkel, founder of Electronic Games magazine and longtime video game journalist, passed away at the age of 61.
Kunkel began his career writing comic books and covering the wrestling industry, but he made his greatest impact as a journalist chronicling, celebrating, and critiquing video games. Over the years he worked on numerous publications, designed games and taught about them, and in 1981 cofounded, with Arnie Katz and Joyce Wetzel, […]
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Ten Good Books on Video Game History
This summer three students provided important assistance to ICHEG. Two Rochester Institute of Technology game design majors, Ned Blakely and Matt Fico, upgraded equipment in our research lab, captured game footage for archival purposes, and created multimedia experiences to include in our eGameRevolution exhibit opening this November. Josh Keaton, a student from the State University of New York at Brockport, assisted with background research for the exhibit. Here, in no particular order, are ten books Josh found helpful:
#1. Replay: The […]