As The National Videogame Arcade opens in Nottingham, co-director Jonathan Smith talks us through the visual history of gaming in five key objects.
A hub for videogame culture in the UK, the newly opened National Videogame Archive aims to facilitate the research and enjoyment of gaming with a range of public and educational programmes and, of course, access to its huge wealth of material. Part of the permanent programme is A History of Games in 100 Objects, an interactive exhibition that maps both the cultural and technological changes to games development from 1951 to the present day. To celebrate its opening, we caught up with co-director Jonathan Smith to talk about five objects with a particularly graphic bent that sum up the rapid changes within the industry over the past sixty years.
1951 Festival of Science Exhibition Brochure
The story of videogames in Britain begins in 1951 with the creation of the world’s first digital computer designed to play games – the Ferranti Nimrod, shown as part of the Exhibition of Science at the Festival of Britain. The exhibition brochure, with its beautiful cover image designed by Abram Games, heralds the game-playing accomplishment of this “electronic brain”.
1981 BBC Welcome Pack
A whole generation was introduced to the power of computers through the BBC’s digital literacy campaign of 1981. The corporation’s endorsement encouraged schools to incorporate BBC Micros into their lessons, and brought programming into homes across the UK.
1984 Jet Set Willie Copy-Protection Card
The proliferation of home computers in the early Eighties and the ease with which cassettes and disks could be copied created thriving communities of piracy and game-sharing. Games publishers embarked on ever-more-elaborate attempts to thwart the copyists, including this notable colour code array, designed to resist black-and-white photocopying.
1997 Grand Theft Auto Review Disc
A pre-release copy of the game which launched one of videogames’ best-known franchises. Grand Theft Auto elicited choreographed outrage for its casual attitude towards in-game violence; but its extraordinary combination of arcade savvy and immersive environments established the platform for a series whose living cities continue to break new ground in virtual architecture.
2014 Oculus Rift Headset
Virtual reality has been tried many times before - but a new generation of technologies, spearheaded by the Kickstarted Oculus Rift, is placing it in the hands of developers eager to produce new kinds of interactive content, on platforms which will be affordable and robust.
