14 DAY TRIAL // The Strong National Museum of Play, which is located in Rochester, New York, has announced that it is planning to create a new exhibit called Videotopia, set to be opened on May 30 and which will remain at Strong until November 1 before going on tour. The main aim of Videotopia is to offer visitors a chance to witness the way arcade games evolved and the way they provided entertainment to players.
Videotopia should have more than 100 arcade cabinets and it's impressive to hear that all of them are ready to offer entertainment to the visitors. There are also information kiosks and other interactive elements set to tell the story of videogames and especially of arcade cabinets, which were very popular in the fourth quarter of the 20th and are now facing a steady decline (although sales of the Street Fighter IV arcade game were one reason for the good results posted by Capcom recently).
All those who visit the Strong National Museum of Play have free admission to Videotopia. But all the arcade cabinets that can be found in the exhibition require tokens to be played. These can be acquired either by paying for them or by answering trivia questions related to videogames at the various Power Up stations that can be found at the exhibition. It's a good way of balancing the financial needs of the exhibition while also offering visitors a chance to test their knowledge related to the history of videogames and arcade games.
Some of the arcades that will be found in Videotopia are hits like Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Blasteroids, Marble Madness and RoadBlasters but also some more exotic experiences like the holographic interactive movie Time Traveler created by SEGA. There are many more other cabinets presented and Videotopia is just one of the exhibitions that can be checked out while at the Strong National Museum of Play, which is dedicated to charting the way Homo Ludens expresses himself through play.