19 Sep 2014
Videogame history museum coming to Texas
BY Tom Anstey
Plans have gained unanimous approval to bring a videogame history museum to Frisco, Texas – a first of its kind in the US.
The non-profit venture has been approved by the Frisco Community Development Corporation (CDC) and will include a collection of more than 10,000 games, consoles, artefacts and memorabilia surrounding the videogame industry.
Plans call for the National Videogame Museum 1.0, which would take up 10,400sq ft (966sq m) inside the Frisco Discovery Center, to open in 2015. Upon the museum’s establishment, a secondary campaign would start to raise funds for the National Videogame Museum 2.0 – a much larger standalone facility to be located at an as-of-yet undetermined location in Frisco.
The city is planning to spend US$800,000 (€621,000, £488,000) in support of the museum to facilitate more guests to the Frisco Discovery Center, while the CDC and the Frisco Convention and Visitors Bureau board have each agreed to donate US$100,000 (€77,600, £61,000) with the museum having to supply matching funds.
Museum founders Sean Kelly and John Hardie say that education will play a large part in the museum, with exhibitions incorporating maths, science, technology, engineering, art, music and writing. Workshops showing the inner workings of video games are also planned, where guests will be able to do various technical exercises such as construct their own working version of Pong – the first commercially successful videogame from the 1970s.
The CDC will hold a meeting in October on the museum’s finances, while the design and lease agreements are still to be drafted and approved. Work is set to start in January with the facility opening in April next year.
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