National Videogame Museum 1.0 Settles in Texas

Mike Hoffman

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Sep 25, 2013
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National Videogame Museum 1.0 Settles in Texas

The National Videogame Museum 1.0 will celebrate and document gaming history in Frisco, Texas this April.

The [a href="http://www.vghmuseum.org/"]Videogame History Museum[/a] has existed as a traveling exhibit since [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111886-The-Videogame-History-Museum-Needs-Your-Help"]it was funded in 2011[/a]. The collection includes over 20,000 from decades of gaming history, all stored in various facilities across the country. Since its inception, the Videogame History Museum has taken portions of its collection to events like E3, GDC, and PAX. Even before The Videogame History Museum existed, the group behind the non-profit used their collections to start the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, way back in 1999.

The local government in Frisco approved the museum last week and committed to spending $800,000 to help prepare the location. The museum is required to provide $200,000, which Sean Kelly, one of the founders, said the money was already collected. Once established, museum officials intend to look to companies in the games industry for financial support to create a bigger facility.

The museum will take over 10,000 square feet in the Frisco Discovery Center, but even this won't be enough space for the entire collection. Officials plan to rotate exhibits in order to share everything they have, but a classic arcade room will likely be a permanent fixture.

Kelly and John Hardie, another co-founder, said education is an important factor for the museum, such as the science, engineering, and math that goes into game development. Workshops focused on making games - classic games, that is, are also planned.

The museum isn't the only geek-culture collection planned for the near future. The [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135667-Star-Wars-Museum-Will-Go-To-Chicago"]Star Wars Museum[/a] is heading to Chicago and the [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135484-The-Hollywood-Science-Fiction-Museum-Is-Just-Getting-Started"]Hollywood Science Fiction Museum[/a] might become a reality in, well, Hollywood. In fact, even the [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130698-First-Videogames-Added-to-Smithsonian-Museums-Permanent-Collection"]Smithsonian Museum[/a] has added a couple video games to its collection.

Source: [a href="http://friscoblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/board-oks-agreement-to-bring-videogame-history-museum-to-frisco.html/"]Dallas News [/a], via [a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2014/09/20/national-videogame-museum-finds-a-home-in-frisco-texas/"]Joystiq[/a]

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Thaluikhain

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They settled on Texas?

Noooo...should have kept trying, they must have been able to find somewhere better.
 

Metadigital

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This could be either extremely cool or extremely lame. Anyone seen what they've done in the past to get an idea? I'm excited about the possibilities, especially considering that it's going to be just around the corner from me. I'm glad to see something like this popping it, though, considering its import on our culture (I think video games are actually the main export of the US currently).
 

Chemical Alia

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Feb 1, 2011
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thaluikhain said:
They settled on Texas?

Noooo...should have kept trying, they must have been able to find somewhere better.
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.

I've seen the collection a few times and it's pretty neat, especially if you like history. It's good to see more people working on archiving the history of games and the games themselves.
 

ZZoMBiE13

Ate My Neighbors
Oct 10, 2007
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That's awesome news. As a resident of Fort Worth, it'll be nice to have something like this within driving distance.
 

J.McMillen

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Sep 11, 2008
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Chemical Alia said:
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.
Well, compared to most of the popular places on the west coast, you can get a house twice as big for 1/4 the price around the DFW area.
 

iblis666

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Sep 8, 2008
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From a historical stand point I see putting a video game museum in Texas as a silly idea since Texas has basically had zip to do with the development of the gaming industry.

There are many better places such as New Jersey birth place of the first video game, New Hampshire birth place of the first home video game system, or California where much of the video game industry called home for a long time just to name a few.

From a financial stand point this is an understandable choice since Texas is cheap and no one sane person really wants to live there.
 

Kyoh

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Oct 12, 2010
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thaluikhain said:
They settled on Texas?
Chemical Alia said:
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.
iblis666 said:
Texas is cheap and no one sane person really wants to live there.
I'm curious, why all the hate on Texas? I agree that it lacks the historical relevance that some other states may have for video games, but some of the comments make it sound as though they had set up shop in Mordor.
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

Better Red than Dead
Aug 5, 2009
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Texas is so far away though... :<

Well, I shouldn't be too bitter. Gaming is getting a motherfucking museum after all! :D
 

LysanderNemoinis

Noble and oppressed Kekistani
Nov 8, 2010
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Kyoh said:
thaluikhain said:
They settled on Texas?
Chemical Alia said:
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.
iblis666 said:
Texas is cheap and no one sane person really wants to live there.
I'm curious, why all the hate on Texas? I agree that it lacks the historical relevance that some other states may have for video games, but some of the comments make it sound as though they had set up shop in Mordor.
Because Texas is the place of all evil. Didn't you know that? It's the place where southern, white people live. And they may be...religious! And...oh dear God I'm afraid to even say, but...c-c-conservative... AHHHHHH!!!! *runs away screaming*
 

iblis666

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LysanderNemoinis said:
Kyoh said:
thaluikhain said:
They settled on Texas?
Chemical Alia said:
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.
iblis666 said:
Texas is cheap and no one sane person really wants to live there.
I'm curious, why all the hate on Texas? I agree that it lacks the historical relevance that some other states may have for video games, but some of the comments make it sound as though they had set up shop in Mordor.
Because Texas is the place of all evil. Didn't you know that? It's the place where southern, white people live. And they may be...religious! And...oh dear God I'm afraid to even say, but...c-c-conservative... AHHHHHH!!!! *runs away screaming*
dont forget the worst part that religious "conservative"(they are not really) southerners tend to be some of the loudest voices against video games and who wants to pass a bunch of "god hates gamers" picketers on the way to a museum. Plus most of Texas might as well be Mordor with how crappy it is and I expect will be almost unlivable in the next twenty years from all the fracking they are doing, unless they consider the water you can light on fire and the micro earth quakes as part of gods testing of them.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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Kyoh said:
I'm curious, why all the hate on Texas? I agree that it lacks the historical relevance that some other states may have for video games, but some of the comments make it sound as though they had set up shop in Mordor.
Just the wording of the title for me.

"Settles on Texas" sounds like they can't do any better. If it was "decides on" or "arrives at", no issue.
 

JSoup

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Jun 14, 2012
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thaluikhain said:
They settled on Texas?

Noooo...should have kept trying, they must have been able to find somewhere better.
Once you're familiar with the history of this particular project, you'll find that...no, they couldn't do better. For a variety of reasons. "Settles on Texas" is about right, as they got what they got and are lucky as hell they got it.
 

antidonkey

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Dec 10, 2009
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Well, the microchip was invented in Texas. If it wasn't for that, gaming as we know it might not exist.
 

Metadigital

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Chemical Alia said:
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.
Simple. No state income tax. It's the same reason so many businesses are based out of Texas.
 

Chemical Alia

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Feb 1, 2011
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Metadigital said:
Chemical Alia said:
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.
Simple. No state income tax. It's the same reason so many businesses are based out of Texas.
Yeah, I know that's the actual, PRACTICAL reason there area lot of businesses there, and (traditionally) game developers. Maybe now that there's gonna be a sweet museum in Frisco, studios will have an easier time attracting talent to the DFW area. Maybe even retaining it!
 

Saltyk

Sane among the insane.
Sep 12, 2010
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LysanderNemoinis said:
Kyoh said:
thaluikhain said:
They settled on Texas?
Chemical Alia said:
Welcome to how I felt about the existence of the entire Dallas game dev industry presence for many years. WHY HERE.
iblis666 said:
Texas is cheap and no one sane person really wants to live there.
I'm curious, why all the hate on Texas? I agree that it lacks the historical relevance that some other states may have for video games, but some of the comments make it sound as though they had set up shop in Mordor.
Because Texas is the place of all evil. Didn't you know that? It's the place where southern, white people live. And they may be...religious! And...oh dear God I'm afraid to even say, but...c-c-conservative... AHHHHHH!!!! *runs away screaming*
I'm... a white... Southern... conservative... Also I'm a male.
.....
I'll show myself out...
 

Baldr

The Noble
Jan 6, 2010
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iblis666 said:
From a historical stand point I see putting a video game museum in Texas as a silly idea since Texas has basically had zip to do with the development of the gaming industry.

There are many better places such as New Jersey birth place of the first video game, New Hampshire birth place of the first home video game system, or California where much of the video game industry called home for a long time just to name a few.

From a financial stand point this is an understandable choice since Texas is cheap and no one sane person really wants to live there.
Austin has quite a sizable portion of the industry, half of it is mostly business and customer relations, but there are some development studios there.
 

iblis666

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Sep 8, 2008
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Baldr said:
iblis666 said:
From a historical stand point I see putting a video game museum in Texas as a silly idea since Texas has basically had zip to do with the development of the gaming industry.

There are many better places such as New Jersey birth place of the first video game, New Hampshire birth place of the first home video game system, or California where much of the video game industry called home for a long time just to name a few.

From a financial stand point this is an understandable choice since Texas is cheap and no one sane person really wants to live there.
Austin has quite a sizable portion of the industry, half of it is mostly business and customer relations, but there are some development studios there.
Thank you, I still might not like Texas as a location but you have given me a reason to recheck my data and it turns out that Texas at 23% has the second largest game industry in the US with only California at 40% of the industry beating it(statistics are iffy had to find on different sites). What is more Austin developers co developed with New Hampshire developers one of the most influential online games in history Ultima Online so they do have some history on their side.