14 DAY TRIAL // As video gaming gets bigger as an industry, more and more people point out that it’s a quite a young one, with the first video games coming in the early years of the 1970's. But even if it’s only roughly 40 years old, gaming has a lot to show, both in terms of quantity and of quality, so it's no real surprise that the National Media Museum in Bradford has partnered up with academics from the Nottingham Trent University in order to create the National Videogame Archive of the United Kingdom.
The National Media Museum will house the new institution while the Trent University will take care of the management of the archive. A host of academics, from such different fields as psychology, cultural studies and computer science, will use the games gathered to support their own studies while also contributing to its development.
The National Videogame Archive will house not only CDs, DVDs and cartridges, but also items that are connected to the videogame culture. They plan to get their hands on pieces of advertisements for videogames, magazine reviews, artwork related to major titles and other objects which reflect the medium in which videogaming developed and the culture of those that play them.
Part of the newly created archive will be open to the public, which will have a chance to interact with the objects that are on show while also getting a quick history lesson regarding videogames as entertainment, social statement and communication medium.
In a world where mainstream media reports regarding videogames is dominated by the perceived dangers that they pose, in relation to violence or to indecency, the creation of a National Videogame Archive is a welcoming sign that there are people who understand that a 22 billion dollars industry surely plays an important role in today's society and that it can only be understood by studying its past as well as its present.