The Videogame History Museum is a nonprofit charity founded by John Hardie, Sean Kelly, and Joe Santulli. The same creators of the Classic Gaming Expo Archive. It was a traveling group of exhibits that were featured at industry events all around the United States.
According to the museum's official website, plans were to originally house the museum at a facility in Silicon Valley. On Sept. 18, it was announced that the museum will finally have a permanent home just in the Dallas metro area in Frisco, Texas.
It received the final go-ahead from the Frisco Community Development Corporation board in a unanimous decision to spend $800,000 on building improvements and additional parking facilities at the Frisco Discovery Center. The museum will be house in an area of 10,400 square feet inside the center. Pending a public hearing to approve the museum's finances, design, and lease agreement, construction is planned to begin in January with the grand opening set for April 2015.
In addition to the grant from the Frisco board, an additional $100,000 of donations were raised by CDC and Frisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. The Museum matched this amount to go towards making sure that the first museum of this kind in the United States will be the best it can possibly be.
"We're glad to finally have a home," the founders said.
With education as the museum's primary goal, the museum will house decades of collections from consoles, to arcade machines, handheld games, classic games, and more. Due to the size and scope of the hundreds of pieces they have archived and preserved, the museum will likely rotate the collections on the floor for display.
The facility will also have an area for arcade style gaming and workshops where visitor can learn to code and create their own simple games such as Pong.
Co-founder, Sean Kelly, said that archiving and preservation is also one of the goals of the museum. Given the impact video games has had on culture and the modern world, they believe it is important to keep that data accessible.
Future goals for the museum are to invite corporate investors once the space in Texas is open to the public, in order build a bigger and better Videogame History Museum that can be worthy of housing the over 25 years of computer game collections and memorabilia the group has acquired.
