News
The National Center for the History of Electronic Games Upgrades
The National Center for the History of Electronic Games® (NCHEG) at Strong National Museum of Play® in Rochester, New York has changed its name and logo to more accurately reflect the global impact of electronic games on society and culture. The center has been renamed the International Center for the History of Electronic Games™ (ICHEG).
According to Jon-Paul C. Dyson, director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, “Our world is connected in ways it never has been before, and we must acknowledge those international connections both in the scope of our collecting and preservation efforts and in our interpretive activities. It is impossible to understand the history and impact of electronic games without considering their role in the global exchange of ideas, technology, commerce, and culture. Our center is situated in an American museum, but the history of electronic games is inherently an international story.”
The International Center for the History of Electronic games collects, studies, and interprets electronic games and related materials and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography. ICHEG’s collection is the largest and most comprehensive public collection of electronic games and game-related historical materials in the United States and one of the largest in the world. ICHEG’s collection includes more than 20,000 electronic games, platforms, and related materials that illustrate how the games have been conceived, developed, sold, and used. These materials include packaging, advertising, publications, electronic-game-inspired consumer products, literary and popular inspirations of electronic-game imagery, personal and business papers, and other associated artifacts and documents that represent or illustrate the impact of electronic games on people’s lives.
The ICHEG collection is housed within Strong National Museum of Play, whose collections include more than 100,000 role-playing games, board games, dolls, toys, and more, along with a research library of 100,000 volumes, including vintage comics and children’s books and the largest collection of toy catalogs in the world. The games, toys, puzzles, books, comics, and other materials in these museum collections helped inspire the design and development of electronic games.
On-site access to the full ICHEG collection is currently limited to researchers by appointment. Individual artifacts from the collection are incorporated into a variety of exhibits and displays at Strong National Museum of Play, where numerous examples are available for guests to play. In fall 2010, museum guests will be able to explore the history and future of electronic games and their impact on people’s lives in eGameRevolution, an expansive, artifact-rich exhibit where guests can play classic video games, the latest console games, and everything in between.