The Video Game History Hour

We share the details of our recent field trip to The Strong Museum of Play to celebrate their newest video game focused expansion. In this travel log episode: travel woes; Wegmans toilet paper; Transformers’ shrieks at a cocktail event; a giant, playable Donkey Kong cabinet; video games ARE real; Level Up and High Score; touring…

Brandon Butler, Director of Information Policy at the University of Virginia Library and Law and Policy Advisor at the Software Preservation Network, joins us to talk about a major new study published jointly by the Video Game History Foundation and the SPN which shows 87% of classic games released in the United States are now…

Author and historian Kevin Bunch returns to the familiar guest chair to educate us all on a somewhat obscure 1970’s consolputer from his recent video, The History of the Bally (and Astrocade) Professional Arcade: Archive Annex Episode 4. In this episode, tears are shed, wrapping these things in useless metal, accidental historical revisionism, what’s in…

Frank gets a bit reflective and shares how he got where he is today; not just the video game stuff, but the life stuff, too. In this episode: a youth in Las Vegas, underage drinking and overage smoking, dropping out of school, the Wild West of game cataloging, Frank can do it better, how to…

Historian and game developer Andy Cunningham shares his fantastic new book The World of Nintendo Book, Volume One: A World of Wonders, a visual history of Nintendo merchandising. This first in a series goes deep into the creation of Nintendo of America’s merchandising team of the late 80’s and early 90’s, something often overlooked in…

Kyle Orland, author of the new Boss Fight Books’ Minesweeper, joins the show to talk about one of the most prolific 90’s games by the same name. In this episode: the Minesweeper generation, how Bill Gates got addicted to it, the ultimate time waster, it was a mouse tutorial, Microsoft’s internal conflicts, the moral panic…

Writer, journalist, and ‘several’ time returning guest Jack Yarwood shares his research on two video game logos with stylized R’s, which were subsequently made to be physical objects, as recently published in his articles “It Became Almost Like A Cult” – The Untold Story Behind Rockstar’s Iconic Logo and The Origin Of Rare’s Iconic “Golden…

Kelsey and Frank hit record on a Friday afternoon for an impromptu, off-the-cuff discussion about a scary recent development in the world of video game preservation regarding the preservation organization Forest of Illusion. Total bummer topics include how much we rely on individual people to work for free, how many fragile points of failure there…

Jirard Khalil, aka “That One Video Gamer”, aka “The Completionist,” aka “Dragonrider,” joins us to talk about his recent video I bought EVERY Nintendo Wii U & 3DS game before the Nintendo eShop closes. In this episode: what happens when an E-Shop closes and why it shuts down, preserving games for toddlers, libraries collecting like…

(Content Warning: this episode deals with the topic of death) Collector, preservationist, and founding board member Steve Lin joins us to illuminate the realities of dealing with a collection after the collector has passed away. In this episode: balancing preserving history and helping a family left behind, what you can implement immediately, what is a…