The Video Game History Foundation has access to a large part of its digital archive today, allowing fans an unprecedented look at over 30k video game-related files. The VGHF is a non-profit organization whose goal is to preserve and celebrate the history of video games. As part of its mission, the foundation has amassed a huge digital archive of video game magazines and other content in an effort to preserve the physical media for posterity.
In a blog post on the VGHF website (reported by arstechnica), the foundation's director Phil Salvador announced that a portion of the digitized library has been opened for the general public to peruse, available on the Game History Library page. The digital video game library has been in the works since the foundation's creation in 2017 and includes over 30K files from various "documents, behind-the-scenes content, rare video game publications and catalogs, magazines, memorabilia, ephemera, and more" that the organization has accumulated over the years.
Digitized Video Game Archive Reveals Never-Before-Seen Concept Art, Developmental Materials, And More
Archive Includes Content From Nintendo, FromSoftware, And Many More
The virtual catacludes promotional and developmental materials, concept art, magazine articles, and even audio and video files from many beloved video game companies and franchises. Among the digital files, fans can look through Sonic the Hedgehog concept artwork by lead artist Tom Payne, promo art and flyers for every FromSoftware game from Elden Ring all the way back to King's Field, and many more files from classic game developers like Atari, Konami, Sega, and beyond.
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Fans can even revisit iconic moments in history, like a press release for the original The Legend of Zelda, which apparently used a gold cartridge "for added merchandising value and eye appeal" (as seen in the document from the commercials and developer recordings including over 100 hours of raw development footage from Myst.
All the documents are indexed and cataloged, so the entire library is fully searchable. An accompanying reveal video on The Video Game History Foundation on YouTube shows a glimpse of the process and the massive amounts of physical media that the foundation has digitized, with promises of more to come.
VGHF's Online Archive Is An Important Step Toward Preserving Video Game History
The Foundation Has Many More Files To Go Through
The huge amount of content contained in the VGHF's online library is just a fraction of the information the foundation plans to preserve. "We’re in this for the long-haul," writes Salvador, "and over the coming years, we’ll be adding even more materials to our archive and adding new features to our library system." All the documents contained within the library were added to the archive with the companies' consent, through donations from collectors, and with the help of fans who want to share the historical files.
Video games have become an integral part of our culture over the past 50 years, with many games from Tetris to Minecraft breaking into mainstream knowledge and known even to non-gamers. Preserving the history of video games ensures that we never lose sight of the path that the industry took and all the people that made today's gaming possible. From behind-the-scenes looks at game development to ionate fan-made magazines, the Video Game History Foundation's free online library of searchable historical documents is a valuable resource and I'm excited to discover the gems hidden within it and watch it grow.
Source: VGHF website, arstechnica, The Video Game History Foundation/YouTube, Game History Library page, Nintendo News Release 1987/VGHF
