Video Game History Hour

Jacob Salas, of the website Pop History, joins the show to tell us about an ambitious attempt at a Virtual Magic Kingdom CD ROM that, in a lot of ways, is also the story of Hollywood's odd attempts in the 90’s to try to get into the video game market more seriously. In his feature article One Name, Two Games: Virtual Magic Kingdom we learn the story of a massive virtual Disney theme park project w...

Alex Smith returns to the show, this time to talk about Computer Space : a 1971 arcade game often considered the beginning of the commercial video game industry. Continuing the annotation series of his book, “They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry, Vol. I”, Alex Smith has condensed down the history of this first coin-operated video game in his...

Cyberlaw Clinic tech lawyer Kendra Albert and librarian and video game historian Phil Salvador join the show to give us their professional insight into the U.S. Copyright Office's October 2021 ruling which affects how libraries are able to provide access to video games and other software. As we discuss this current event, we hope to provide context as to what this ruling means, how it was reached,...

Rachel Weil started the FEMICOM Museum to catalogue, celebrate, and remix the history of girl games, girly games, and femme games. She joins us to provide insight into how this massive category of video games has been shut out of history preservation (hint: follow the money) and how she’s been countering this trend for the last decade. As Founder and Director, Rachel combines both an online museum...

Executive Director of Hit Save! , Jonas Rosland, joins us to showcase some of the amazing work this fellow 501(c)(3) non-profit does in preserving video game history, especially through community-driven projects. Hit Save! has brought together amazing resources in both their Scanning. Guide! and Dumping. Guide! to aid our community in digitizing existing materials as well as a program facilitating...

Gaming historian and journalist Damiano Gerli shares the details of how exactly Nintendo marketed itself to the Italian consumer in the 80’s and 90’s as laid out in his article Selling Mario to Italians: the untold story of Nintendo in Italy . They really had their work cut out for them as they tried to bring their console into an environment already heavily favoring PC gaming as well as free of s...

Author Tim Lapetino joins us to discuss his new book, Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon . After so many years, why are there still stories to tell about Pac-Man ? During a time when shooting aliens was the hot gameplay on the scene, we find out why this game, with such a different experience, had mass appeal. Tim takes us down the rabbit hole of what is just so fascinating about this iconic character, the...

GlitchCat7, competitive gamer/ROM hacker/full time streamer/Kaizo Mario historian of record, joins us to discuss his extensive blog post, The Complete History of ‘Kaizo Mario’ . GlitchCat7 helps us understand how ‘Kaizo’ was born from exploring glitched levels, wall clipping, and ROM warping. These rearranged, and quite difficult, Mario levels provide a jumping off point for a philosophical journe...

Historian and documentarian Kate Willaert returns to the show, this time to discuss her recent article on “adult” games made under the Mystique banner for the Atari 2600: Porno Hustlers Of The Atari Age . Kate guides us through the very troubled history around these titles’ creation and release, including protests, legal suits, and attempted legislation. She also unravels the complicated company s...

John Rairdin of Nintendo World Report joins us to discuss his ambitious documentary The History and Development of Star Fox Command (Ft. The Original Developers) . He shares the previously undocumented history of this Nintendo DS title, its developers from Q-Games, and its many creators. As a side note: John has some pretty good ideas on how to make a game about space rodents, who may or may not h...

We’re joined, once again, by Norman Caruso to discuss the history of a unique 1990 Nintendo Entertainment System controller, the U-Force. All the rage when it was announced, this hands-free controller uses infrared emitters/detectors to locate your hands in 3-dimensional space for game control input. In his recent video Don't Touch: The Story of the U-Force | Gaming Historian we learn how this dev...

To celebrate the Video Game History Hour’s 50th episode we’ve invited friend of the show, Chris Kohler, to join a thoughtful conversation all about game prototypes. What are they, where do they come from, and what part did they play in forming the Video Game History Foundation? How does the existence of source code affect our feelings about prototypes? We share stories of cool prototypes we’ve com...

Jimmy Maher, creator of The Digital Antiquarian, returns to the show to discuss his article on The Dig , a LucasArts point and click adventure. Jimmy takes us through the rich, but troubled, history of this title in a way that helps us understand how this project ever made it to the finish line and why it wasn’t more popular. Grab your shovel and get ready to solve some alien space puzzles! See mo...

In our final week of our three week hiatus, we’re going back to a conversation we had with David L. Craddock back in episode 33. We covered the Resident Evil demo that had come out and other upcoming games, how our gaming styles have changed as we’ve gotten older, and what styles of game reviews we find useful. We hope you enjoy! See more from David L. Craddock: Website: shacknews.com Twitter: @da...

We’re continuing our brief hiatus, but this week we’re sharing a little after-show chat we had with Alex Smith talking further about the Smithsonian’s oral history project: Video Game Pioneers Archive. See more from Alex Smith: Blog: videogamehistorian.wordpress.com Video Game Pioneers Archive: https://invention.si.edu/node/20723/p/489-videogame-pioneers-archive Project Transcripts: https://sova.s...

The podcast is going to take a brief hiatus for a few weeks in order to better focus on projects at the foundation. But, don't worry; we're not leaving you with nothing! Back in episode 30 we hung out with Ben Hanson after the show and discussed the process of being an interviewer and the challenges that includes. We hope you enjoy this more into-the-weeds convo and look forward to coming back ver...

Greetings and welcome to some quality time with Clint Basinger of Lazy Game Reviews , his YouTube channel dedicated to computer history and software. We originally were inspired to bring Clint on the show to discuss his recent video, Unreal Tournament 22 Years Later: An LGR Retrospective , but we just couldn’t help but expand to the broader topic of 1990’s computer tech, his expertise. From Morrow...

A behind the scenes look at one of our recent home preservation efforts. Sometimes we get the call from someone with a house full of items in need of preservation and we just can’t turn down the opportunity. This time, we traveled to the Chicago area for a couple different collections. We can’t wait to tell you some of the cool things we came across! The Video Game History Hour music is Blippy Tra...

Martin Robinson of Eurogamer brings us the history of the Neo Geo, an interesting console of its time owned by an interesting type of person. Referring to his recent article, When the arcade came home: a short oral history of the Neo Geo , Robinson lays out what it was like at SNK making games for this outlier of a console, longs for the freedom some of these developers had in their creative proce...

Once again, we’re joined by Kevin Bunch of Atari Archive, this time to talk about his 50th episode of said series: Stellar Track (Star Trek): Atari Archive Episode 50 . We learn the history of this very early, very influential game, its many iterations, and its different names along the way. See more from Kevin Bunch: Twitter: @ubersaurus YouTube: /atariarchive Website: atariarchive.org Patreon: /...

We open up the mailbag and answer some of our listeners' burning questions! We cover emulation preservation, the definition of a gaming historian, growing pains of the organization, best dinosaur games ever made, plans for our personal collections, and so much more! Quick note: this is episode 40, but we refer to it as episode 41 in the recording; sorry for the mix up. The producer will have her h...

Fan turned archivist Mat Van Rhoon of Big Finish Games tells the story of the lost Tex Murphy series production tapes in a recent article, Tex Murphy and the Raiders of the Lost Tapes . We hear about the sheer elation, joy, and maddening frustration these adventures in preservation led to, as well as the odd places from which some of these tapes were excavated. From discovery to digitization, Mat...

Norman Caruso is here to share the history of the Sega Mega Modem from his most recent video SEGA Mega Modem: Ahead of Its Time | Gaming Historian . Despite many of its drawbacks and pitfalls, this device pointed to a brighter future that wasn’t able to come to fruition until almost a decade after its lackluster release. Was online, social gaming an inevitability or did the Mega Modem pave the way...

Grace Kramer and Derek Alexander are this week’s guests discussing the Nokia N-Gage from their recent documentary, N-Gage: Cell Phone Gaming's First Big Flop | Past Mortem [SSFF] . While there is some debate on the pronunciation of Nokia depending where you live, there is little doubt to the N-Gage’s major DOA status. Find out what exactly happened, both inside Nokia and out in the marketplace, to...

Game historian, journalist, and content creator Kim Justice joins us to talk about the commercial and critical disappointment, though surprisingly influential, Jurassic Park: Trespasser. In her recent documentary Jurassic Park: Trespasser - A Failure That Stood The Test Of Time | Kim Justice we’re taken through her six part story of its development, its failings, and its lessons learned. While som...