The Association for Archives and Video Game Preservation Projects (AAPCJV) aims to establish a museum dedicated to video games in Bucharest.
The Video Game Museum will be run with the support of the Romanian Video Game Developers Association and private donations. It aims to preserve and highlight the heritage of both Romanian and universal video games as a cultural phenomenon that has influenced generations since its inception.
The official opening of the Video Game Museum is scheduled for the last quarter of 2024, and the museum's location will be announced soon, according to a press release.
The association asked Andreas Lange, curator of Berlin's Computerspiele Museum, Europe's largest video game museum, to oversee the museum's Universal Wing.
The Video Game Museum takes visitors on a journey through the history of video games, showcasing their evolution from simple pixels to complex worlds that captivate the imagination. The exhibition will include a wide range of artifacts, including gaming consoles, original software, concept art, and interviews with developers, creating an immersive and educational experience for all ages.
“Interactive games are what separates us from primates. Since the beginning of Homo sapiens, humans have played analogously. In the past 50 years, we have begun to play digitally, and we 's reality switches from virtual to real. We have both the new Flappy and Flappy' Bird and the eternal Princess Peach coming to our phones. It's normal to be nostalgic, and it's okay to think of yourself as a video game character. Imagine his journey from Pong to Mario to his Xbox next to Tetris, across from Solitaire. To the left he moves two places and he sees Quake, and above that he sees Prince of Persia as seen through the new Apple Vision,” says the director of creatives. He is a co-founder of the AAPCJV and is 70 declared Milos Jovanovic, a gamer since the 1990s.
The museum will also highlight the significant contributions of Romanian developers to the global video game industry through a wing dedicated to games created in Romania. Among the games on display in the museum, visitors can experience Astro 64, the first game he developed in Romania in 1978 by Viorel Darie for his Felix C-256 computer .
“Globally, the gaming industry continues to expand. In fact, it is expected to surpass the music and film industries combined and approach USD 200 billion in 2024. Romania already has a museum dedicated to gaming. The country deserves to be on the international map” not only because of the legacy left behind by Romanian game and hardware enthusiasts and developers, but especially because brands and companies actively engage in the world of gaming and reach new audiences. “There is a growing interest in acquiring new players,” said gaming industry expert Vlad Popovic. He is an advertising industry veteran and co-founder of the association.
radu@romania-insider.com
(Photo source: Video Game Museum)
