Sheffield to host National Videogame Museum

The UK’s only permanent games museum, the National Videogame Museum, will open in Sheffield on November 24.

The venue, set up to celebrate games and the people behind them, will include plenty of playable consoles and arcade machines along with exhibitions on studios, games, and behind-the-scenes elements.

There will also be cultural festivals hosted, clubs for young and old to attend, and plenty of events to be hosted at the NVM. Everything will cover gaming past, present, and future – not just Pong and Pac-Man.

The NVM comes from the original National Videogame Arcade, originally located in Nottingham, which was announced as being relocated to South Yorkshire, Northern England – the United Kingdom’s – greatest city* back in June.

“We’ve always tried to do more than just put out games for people to play”, said Iain Simons, Culture Director of the British Games Institute, founder of the NVM, “In our dynamic new space, we’re bringing videogame creators into the Museum to meet their players, showing visitors what games mean and responding to our community’s requests and ideas for new exhibits.

“We’re delighted to launch a test lab with Boneloaf’s Gang Beasts and we’re talking to publishers and developers about showcasing their work to our broad audience.”

NVM patron and BGI chair, Ian Livingstone CBE, said: “The NVM is the games industry’s own museum, celebrating our games, our studios and our sector’s achievements over 40 years. I invite anyone who cares about the cultural life of video games to join leaders from across the industry and support this amazing project with content, evangelism and funding to help expand the programme in the years to come.”

Kath Bidwell, founder of State of Play Games, said: “I’m really excited about the launch of the National Videogame Museum at its brand new home at the heart of Sheffield city centre. The games industry is fantastically creative and culturally significant and now we have a great place to celebrate and embrace that.”

*Please note: your author may be from Sheffield. Bias is to be expected.