They release a free online library with thousands of files and magazines about the history of the video game

The Videogame History Foundation (VGHF, for its acronym in English) is a non -profit organization that has been working for 8 years for the preservation of the Videogame history. Among the activities he performs, he manages in California A library/museum with countless related material. Now, a good part of that collection becomes available to everyone with the opening of a Free Digital Library containing more than 30,000 files To see, read and relive with them several decades of video game history.

VGHF has digitized for this library ‘More than 1,500 exhausted video game magazineswith full text search capacity, also commercial magazines of the game industry that are rarely available to the public ‘, which date back to 80, together with ‘Game development materials never seen’ and ‘Artwork, press kits and promotional materials of iconic video games’.

In a blog post, the VGHF highlights things like the collection provided by the retired video game producer Mark Flitmanproduction materials of developers Myst, CyanCD digitized with press for the press received by Gamepro and a collection of promotional materials of FROMSOFTWARE. Among the headwaters of available video games, a total of 33 currently stand out complete collections of Game PC, Game Inform, Gamepro or the official magazines of Xbox, PlayStation and Dreamcast.

In a video published by VGHF, Phil Salvador, director of the Library, says that this is only the ‘First wave of open access content’ And that VGHF will continue to build the library ‘In the coming years’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tysm_wf60Q

The founder of the organization, Frank Cifaldihas shown some of the library functions in a Bluesky thread. On the web you can search by text, organize by chronology and allow users to filter magazines by region, platform, editor and more. Cifaldi gave as an example Find ‘all video game magazines in our collection in chronological order that say “Metroidvania”‘.

Over on the @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social discord we’ve been showing off and playing with ur work-in-progress digital library (Soon!), This is going to be soh a great resource. I Just Asked It To Show Me Every Video Game Magazine in Our Collection in Chronological Order That Says “Metroidvania.”

(Image or Embed)

– Frank Cifaldi (@Frankcifaldi.bsky.Social) January 22, 2025, 21:11

Started in 2017the Video Game History Foundation has numerous projects dedicated to protecting the history of video games. This includes the preservation of source code, video game education, helping file restoration and recovery and physical library, which goes back further than its digital equivalent, until the 70s.

In 2023, the VGHF conducted a study that concluded that only 13 % of the history of video games is ‘represented in the current market’ and the remaining 87 % is inaccessible without resorting to piracy or traveling to a file. Last year proposed changes in the DMCA, the law that regulates copyright in the United States, to allow the remote exchange of ‘exhausted’ video games by libraries and collections, an exemption that the US copyright office. UU. He rejected.