Video Game History Foundation

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social

Non-profit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and teaching the history of video games. Our free digital archive is now open to the public! http://archive.gamehistory.org

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Jul 22, 2026, 3:00 PM Pinned

New in our digital archive: We're taking you back to E3 like you've never experienced it.

Explore thousands of pages of ephemera and nearly 24 hours of video from the history of the Electronic Entertainment Expo

Read more: gamehistory.org/e3-history/

youtube.comRevisit E3 Like You've Never Seen it BeforeYouTube video by The Video Game History Foundation

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 10:59 PM

You, too could be getting 'hot mags' like this with our 'blind box' retro magazine subscriptions, folks: the-video-game-history-foundation.myshopify.com/collections/...

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 5:01 PM

Myst released on plenty of platforms - but a SEGA CD version was also planned! Here it is being shown at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show back in 1995. https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/c9adc7ca-554b-44ea-bac5-c0998c3e1888

#SEGACD #SEGA #Myst

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 4:35 PM

Innovative controllers? Sure! This video game 'glove' for PlayStation 1, released in the late '90s? Generally considered to be a gimmicky novelty, sadly... (Unless you disagree?)

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 4:30 PM

Grand Theft Auto VI, sure, but (via the VGHF LIbrary!), back in 1998, here's how BMG and DMA Design advertised the original top-down GTA for the PlayStation. (Those JNCO jeans aren't messing around...)

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 9:55 PM

What's the latest from the Video Game History Foundation in Q3 of 2026? Our latest Video Game History Hour podcast gets into '5,000 magazines in the digital library', community research around EULAs, and lots more: https://gamehistory.org/episode-165-vghf-q3-update/

@philsalv.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 10:40 PMReposted by @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social

Hi folks-- We're starting on our next indexing project, and we're building our volunteer team! If you have some degree of Japanese fluency and want to help index periodicals for VGHF, hit me up here

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 4:10 PM

Electronics Boutique's August 1992 catalog - https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/0b364f69-bb09-4f5f-939a-0282bbd46ff3 - devoted one single page to 'Turbo Technologies' (that's TurboGrafx-16 and Turbo Express, aka the PC Engine!) Like what you see?

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 5:06 PM

The Sacred Pools was a FMV game developed by SegaSoft. Posed as an erotic thriller, it apparently had a huge reveal party at E3 1996, though response to the game itself was poor. Here's a quick clip of the booth. archive.gamehistory.org/item/189ba87...

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 8:33 PM

We're continuing to fill out our collection of Videogame Advisor, a trade magazine that covered the game business in the mid-90s. Currently up to 16 issues!

archive.gamehistory.org/folder/be63c...

An article about in-store marketing from the April 1996 issue of Videogame Advisor.

"In all of our actions lies a common goal of motion. I forget the author of that phrase, but he or she has unearthed in a few words the essence of motivation. It translates on a more basic level where we are concerned with videogames, into the term we frequently use, multilevel marketing. All either concept defines is a convergence upon the ultimate transaction, where the product or service is moved into the hands of the person for whom it was made. In short, there are two lines of force that link every individual in the videogame business with every other individual, the product and the consumer.

I realize that this is an oversimplification of the way we do business, and I'm sure there are days you don't quite feel an ethereal bond with your suppliers, but it all ties into the theme for this month's article: marketing on location. The link becomes important as we discover the resources available to us and complete the chain of impetus that compels the consumer to buy.

Okay. This is all well and good, but we need to distill this even further. One of the sources I turned to for help in this matter is a company who has had its hand in nearly every tier of the marketing business for over a decade and has specifically targeted electronic entertainment in the last six years, BDS Marketing. They are the force behind such successful marketing strategies as Phillips' CD-i and the original Panasonic 3DO machine, the FZ-1. You may not be familiar with the company itself, but you positively know the products they have successfully marketed: Hagen Daas Extras ice creams and frozen yogurts, Sharp office products, the Kodak Photo CD, the Videoguide on-TV Programming Guide, and the Miracle Piano Teaching System, to name but a few."

VGA Stock Report from January 1996. The top stock of the month is Matsushita, closing at 157.50. The loser is Atari, closing at 1.25.

@gcbaccaris.itch.io Oct 6, 2026, 5:26 PMReposted by @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social

If you dig this, you're going to love what we're cooking up at the National Virtual Forum for Digital Games in Libraries!

the event is online and free to attend; register now and join us October 29-30: soe.uncg.edu/rdi/dgil/for...

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 4:20 PM

The VGHF's Mark Flitman collection has rare gems like this: Acclaim internal-only newsletters from 1994, ft. the reactions employees get when people find out they work for the Mortal Kombat maniacs: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/ba6adda2-ba65-4da9-8950-d5ef3ca9bad4

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 6:16 PM

why would you dox them like this what the hell

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 6:04 PM

For our Patreon members, we have a preview for the upcoming Colin Williamson photography collection in our digital archive, covering the Japanese game industry from 1999–2001! We've censored this mascot's face to protect their identity

www.patreon.com/gamehistoryo...

A photo of Colin Williamson standing next to a mascot character, whose face has been blurred. The mascot looks suspiciously like Bub from Bubble Bobble, but there's simply no way of knowing without joining our Patreon.

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 4:10 PM

In 1994, PC CD-ROM games were a big deal - hence the Electronics Boutique 'multimedia' catalog at the time - https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/79a705e7-62b3-4cac-8a95-74a3a7cddc00 - devoting an entire issue to titles like Wing Commander III!

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 6:35 PM

Was it "Diddy's Kong Quest" or "Diddy Kong's Quest"? In the final game it's the former, but as we can tell from this 1995 E3 video, it once was the latter! https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/a6df7cf0-ed94-456f-915d-de41e9d67479

#Nintendo #SuperNintendo #SNES #DonkeyKongCountry2

@georgefrankly.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 4:26 PMReposted by @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social

holy shit. I used a clipping of that image from an old EGM as a phone case insert 15+ years ago and kept a scan of it to print new inserts for new phones over the years. I've been using the most deep-fried ancient scan all this time and have NEVER seen this pic in such clear definition.

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 4:20 PM

Official Sega Dreamcast product shots from 1999? We've got those in VGHF's GamePro asset CD collection: https://archive.gamehistory.org/folder/6150e1d0-363d-478d-8d48-c90d1fcb02d6

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 11:49 PM

We’re not flexin’ over here at the VGHF, but…

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 4:00 PM

The Nokia N-Gage was a 'memorable' '00s phone/handheld. And its high-concept magazine ads? Also a tad unforgettable...

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 10:30 PM

This video was uploaded by our library director 17 years ago

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