Video Game History Foundation

@gamehistoryorg

Non-profit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and teaching the history of video games. Our free digital archive is now open to the public!

8 Siguiendo68.965 Seguidores979 Publicaciones

Patreon YouTube YouTube YouTube Bluesky

gamer

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y gamehistoryorg.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 21d

Another highlight: E3 Show Daily, the daily magazine for E3, has all sorts of trade-only advertisements, which targeted a different audience than the usual game ads. This ad for the Atari Jaguar ran in E3 Show Daily 1995. "We put the GROSS in your income." archive.gamehistory.org/item/ac3901f...

A two-page spread for the Atari Jaguar. "WE put the GROSS in your income."
"If your 16-bit inventory is making you sick to your stomach, and you're wondering how you're gonna make your numbers look good this fall, here's the best medicine you can find: Atari Jaguar.

Jaguar's the only 64-bit, next-generation system you can find that can deliver 50 new titles and a $159.95 MSRP. Best-selling titles like Doom, AVP, Iron Soldier, Tempest 2000 and Troy Aikman Football feel just right. And new games like HoverStrike, Burn Out and Rayman are the newest antidotes for the 16-bit blues.

No other system on earth delivers so much game-playing fun for anywhere near this price. It's up to you: keep playing the victim with old 16-bit systems and it'll hurt all year long or get well fast with Atari Jaguar."

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 21d

We have good news for you 🐱 This comes from Tronix Multimedia's E3 1996 videotape, starting at 1:36:27 archive.gamehistory.org/item/1ae0183...

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 21d

And just for fun... here's another 10 hours of E3 and CES footage at the highest quality it's ever been online archive.gamehistory.org/folder/07c45...

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 21d

PLUS: We also digitized more issues of E3 Show Daily, the daily newspaper handed out at E3. Read daily updates coming out of the event, like this announcement at E3 1997 for a new first-person shooter called "Half-Life" archive.gamehistory.org/folder/ae5ac...

E3 Show Daily 1997. One of the top stories is "Sierra and Valve to Publish First-Person Shooter."

"Sierra On-Line has announced an agreement with Valve game developers to publish their upcoming first-person shooter, Half-Life. Premiering Wednesday night at the CUC media show at the Inforum, Half-Life boasts impressive 3D graphics and multiple levels of strategic, innovative gameplay.

Technically, Half-Life boasts several major advancements in its genre and in PC entertainment software as a whole; 16-bit color, sophisticated lighting effects, and environmental effects such as translucent walls, mirrors, and metallic shine. Additional support for MMX and 3D video cards, as well as up to 32 player multiplayer levels, round out Half-Life's list of features.

At Wednesday's media show, it was revealed that Half- Life would play as one, continuous level, creating a gigantic playing environment with specific missions and goals at each juncture in the game besides avoiding death at the hands of human soldiers and alien attackers. 3D boards are supported, but not required to play.

"Our goal with Half-Life was to build the most exciting and technologically advanced game possible," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and Managing Director of Valve. "When it came to selecting a publisher, it was very clear that Sierra was the most committed to leap-frigging the current generation of games and giving gamers a product that will be head and shoulders above anything else shipping this year."

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 21d

And even more: we've completed our digitized collection of E3 show directories! Every booth, every map, and every panel at E3 from 1995–2006. If you're researching who was at E3, this is *the* starting point archive.gamehistory.org/folder/53778...

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 21d

Also joining our archive: the Anthony Parisi event tapes! This collection from an E3 attendee has 12 hours of footage from the early years of E3, including pre-release game footage and press conferences archive.gamehistory.org/folder/b4d8e... Below: Sony's legendary "299" price mic drop at E3 1995

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 21d

Today, we launched multiple collections in our digital archive about the history of E3. Including: the Carolyn Rauch event ephemera collection, from the founding organizer of E3, one of the largest collections of E3 promotional material in the world archive.gamehistory.org/folder/e2f96...

A brochure for E3 1996. "If it's interactive... it's inside."

"E3 is the one show for interactive education and entertainment.

There's only one place to be if you're active in interactive and that's E3. As the world's largest trade show for digital entertainment and educational products and technology, it's the one show where everybody in the $19 billion interactive digital software industry comes together. And that makes it the one show you can't miss.

E3 is the most intensely interactive experience you'll have all year. E3 is about entertainment, education, information, music, reference and other interactive software titles for video and computer systems. It's about on-line content. It's about deals between buyers, sellers, authors, artists, agents, publishers, packagers and developers.

It's about coming together as an industry: a huge, powerful, growing, multi-billion-dollar interactive media industry. Your industry and only your industry. No car stereos. No phones. No TVs. Just the products and people you want to see.

E3 is the place to buy.

If you're a trade buyer, E3 is where you go to buy everything in the multimedia market. It's the one show that covers all leisure time digital interests, age groups and demographics. It's one-stop shopping for every new multimedia entertainment and educational product at the perfect time of year. And with everything on display, you can see, try and buy the best hardware and software without going to a dozen different shows."

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 23d

ICYMI: VGHF's collab with iam8bit, Mega Cat Studios, and Retrotainment Games on Chris Oberth’s long-lost NES game Xcavator is currently in (cartridge!) stock on iam8bit's website: https://www.iam8bit.com/products/xcavator-2025 (Profits go to us, hurray.)

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 24d

This humorous illustration from Marvel's short-lived Blip magazine in 1983 (https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/da656e05-14c0-4e5f-9ac5-04974063f4c3) miiight have been goofing on the number of Pac-Man spinoffs already in the market, huh?

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 26d

It's Friday, time to post the stupidest thing in our whole collection Ubisoft's Webby Award nomination for "Burp"

A framed certificate that reads "The International Academy for Digital Arts & Sciences congratulations you and recognizes your work as a selection in the 12th Annual Webby Awards.

2008 Official Honoree, Bet Sound Design, Burp, presented to Ubisoft Creative Services."

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· 29d

Today's random pull from the VGHF Digital Archive: this binder was sent to retailers in 2004 to promote new titles and hardware from Nintendo archive.gamehistory.org/item/e2698ea...

A sell sheet for Super Mario Sunshine. "Catch some rays and some baddies with everyone's favorite vacationing plumber! mysterious stranger has polluted a tropical paradise, and this diabolical evil-doer bears a striking resemblance to our beloved Mario!"

Features include:
"Use a trusty portable water pump to douse would-be enemies and affect the surrounding environment in order to help clean up Mario's muddied reputation."
"Mobility is the name of the game, and Sunshine has it! Mario will be able to run, jump, climb, slide, and fly his way to even the most seemingly unreachable areas of the game."

A weirdly defensive flyer for the Game Boy Advance SP, with includes common questions that retailers might receive about the SP. Questions include "Are you going to stop producing the current Game Boy Advance? Will you drop the price of Game Boy Advance?" and "Is this an acknowledgement that your strategy of releasing the original GBA without a light was a mistake?"

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 9

1990's Buck Rogers: Countdown To Doomsday saw SSI adapt the classic comic & TTRPG into a complex tactical video game RPG.

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 6

This 1990 UK print ad from the VGHF archives is for the evocative Eye Of The Beholder-style first person RPG Captive.

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 5

Look, we don't make the rules, we're federally mandated to show you more VGHF-digitized Sega Channel fan art sent to Sega in the mid '90s: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/9709692d-7ec3-4d73-b776-0441cda27990

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 4

Happy 4th of July from President Michael Wilson archive.gamehistory.org/item/499489d...

A sticker with the fictional Seal of the President of the United States from Metal Wolf Chaos. The eagle on the seal is a mecha holding a minigun and a missile.

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 4

This pre-U.S. release tease for the Nintendo 64 (printed in Nintendo Power in the Summer of 1996) trails it as 'fun'. Also, 'fun'. And finally, 'fun'. (Killer Instinct is the only game mentioned here, huh?)

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 3

Does the VGHF's Sega Channel-related archives from Michael Shorrock include fan-art sent to them in the mid-'90s? Darn right it does: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/9709692d-7ec3-4d73-b776-0441cda27990

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 2

A semi-forgotten mulitplayer expansion to a less-discussed portable spinoff (of a legendary franchise)? That would be 2007's Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus, seen here in this U.S. print ad.

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 1

Apologies, we for got the alt text! Here it is.

This is unfortunate news for those who still prefer buying games on physical media, and is certainly a hit to consumer rights, the resale market, and game creators whose businesses rely on the physical market. But from the perspective of professional preservationists, this doesn't have as much of an impact as you might expect.

The reality is that the vast majority of video games produced over the last two decades were not made for dedicated home video game consoles, let alone pressed to physical media. And even when they were released on physical media, a day-one digital patch was all but guaranteed, meaning that even though a disc is preserving data in an accessible way, it may not represent the game that people actually played. Museums and archives have been preparing for this future for a while, with the expectation that putting discs on a shelf isn't going to be a long-term solution for preserving new games.

What continues to baffle us is what the industry expects institutions like ours to do about it. If platform owners are deciding to eliminate physical media and older digital storefronts, then we'd also like to see trade groups like the Entertainment Software Association offer meaningful solutions for archives and museums to legally preserve digital-only content and make it accessible for research. Everyone agrees this is a serious problem, but the ESA has repeatedly opposed the efforts of cultural heritage institutions to reform digital copy protection laws to make it easier to do this work. The industry needs to meaningfully come to the table on this issue, because asking museums to download a copy of Grand Theft Auto VI and hope it'll run in 50 years is not a preservation solution.

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 1

Statement from VGHF director Frank Cifaldi on the discontinuation of physical PlayStation media, and the closure of the PS3 and PSP digital storefronts.

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 1

We found a lost Indiana Jones adventure from LucasArts! But it probably isn't what you expect. Join Frank Cifaldi for a look at this newly discovered demo as Indiana Jones sets out on the "Quest for Paradise VGA"

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jul 1

Back in Summer 1996, Nintendo's poor old Virtual Boy got a price cut to $99 as it was being discontinued. (Ad via U.S. Nintendo Power.)

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 29

An ad from Aug/Sept. 2003's XBN magazine, who remembers Digital Anvil's squad-based first-person shooter Brute Force? ('Only on Xbox'.)

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 28

ICYMI: we found "Indiana Jones and the Quest for Paradise VGA, the best ten-minute commercial you'll see this week." More over on VGHF's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhTUUmQKmFU

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 27

Did Stan Lee turn up swiftly in Marvel's short-lived 1983 Blip game magazine? You bet he did, in Issue #2, with Spider-Man, to play Spider-Man on the Atari 2600: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/a75803d8-b27c-49a4-84d1-5429efce7d65

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 26

Sanctuary Woods' interactive comic book adventure CD-ROM Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin? Hot in 1992. (Or at least, available for sale in 1992.)

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 25

In the latest episode of the Video Game History Hour podcast, host Phil Salvador interviews Willem Hilhorst at the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision on the Dutch Games Canon & more! https://gamehistory.org/episode-158-whats-your-deal-willem-hilhorst/

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 24

An important find from our library director Phil Salvador: "Beckett Massive Online Gamer had a feature called Skittle of the Month, where they would highlight player characters with rainbow armor."

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 23

Do you recognize the audience member in this recording from CGDC 1989? This might be the earliest recording of game designer Warren Spector! This amazing find from a researcher comes from our CGDC 1989 tape collection: https://archive.gamehistory.org/folder/0b002d20-ab64-4d5b-b612-024fb56988a3

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg· Jun 22

Epyx's seminal dungeon crawler Temple Of Apshai got this less-discussed, more action-y 1983 follow-up, Gateway To Apshai. (Ad via the short-lived Computer Fun magazine - May 1984 edition.)