Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
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Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Most Recent: Retro
ICHEG adds largest collection of Japanese games in the world to its archive
The International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG), which is located in Rochester, NY, has accepted another large donation to increase the size of their already massive archive of games and related items. Andre and Sylvio Hodos, who reside in France, contacted the museum’s curators and offered them a collection of over 7,000 Japanese games that span 22 plaforms. With this acquisition, the ICHEG believes they now own the largest collection of Japanese video games in the world.
Spanning the 1980s and 1990s, the collection covers a crucial period when Japanese video game designers were pioneering many of the most important technologies and styles of play that influenced game design and spurred interest in Japanese culture globally.
The collection is comprised of nearly 7,000 Japanese video games spanning 22 systems, and includes home consoles, handhelds, peripherals, and accessories manufactured by Sega, Nintendo, NEC, and Pioneer. The items, many of which are rare, are in mint or very good condition and include all relevant packaging and instructions.
Like the remainder of the ICHEG’s collection (which now numbers more than 50,000 pieces), the Hodos’ donation will be used by curators for future museum exhibits and the games will be made available to researchers who request to play them.
Pac-Man is a finalist for the National Toy Hall of Fame’s Class of 2013
The National Toy Hall of Fame, which is part of the National Museum of Play at The Strong, has announced the 12 finalists that are up for induction this year. Two toys will be selected as part of the class of 2013 and the classic ghost-chomper Pac-Man is among the contenders.
Pac-Man will be competing against bubbles, Chess, Clue, Fisher-Price Little People, Little Green Army Men, Magic 8 Ball, My Little Pony, Nerf toys, the Rubber Ducky, scooters, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure line for the right to be called a Hall of Famer. A national committee will choose the two inductees, which will be announced during a special ceremony on November 7.
If Pac-Man makes the cut, it will join Nintendo’s Game Boy (2009) and the Atari 2600 (2007) as the only other representatives of the video game industry in the National Toy Hall of Fame.
Nintendo files new trademark for downloadable Eternal Darkness game
Precursor’s Kickstarter campaign to fund Shadow of the Eternals, a spiritual sequel to Eternal Darkess: Sanity’s Requiem, is now entering its second week. Backers have pledged $164,517 to the project, almost 22% of Precursor’s goal. They just might make it. But Nintendo may beat them to the punch with an official sequel.
The publisher filed a new trademark application for “Eternal Darkness” with the US Patent and Trademark Office on July 23. But wait a minute, you might ask, doesn’t Nintendo already own the trademark to Eternal Darkness? It’s true, Nintendo already owns the trademark to Eternal Darkness, but this new application specifically adds “downloadable electronic game programs” and “downloadable electronic game software” to the list of products the trademark would apply to.
Before we all jump to conclusions, this application could be something as uneventful as Nintendo covering their bases in case they someday wanted to create a downloadable Eternal Darkness expansion. But it could also mean that their plan to add GameCube games to the Wii U eShop is finally coming together. Or, yes, it could be that Eternal Darkness sequel we always wanted.
I guess we’ll just have to sit back and wait.
Posted in News, Retro
Tagged Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
“The Legend of Zelda” (sort of) stumps 2 of 3 contestants in Final Jeopardy!
Alex Trebek has asked many questions inspired by video games over the years on Jeopardy! But yesterday’s episode likely marked the first time that Final Jeopardy! would test a contestant’s knowledge of joysticks, pixels, and 1-Ups.
The category was “Video Game History” and the clue read, “The title princess of this game, which launched a best-selling franchise, was named for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife.” Have you figured it out? I hope so. The answer is “(What is) The Legend of Zelda.” All three players knew the answer (though Trebek kept asking the three contestants if they knew the name of the franchise), but only one got credit for it.
Champion Mark Japinga was able to come up with the game’s full title, but challengers Ken Dasher and Toby Crew both answered “Zelda.” If this were the Jeopardy! or Double Jeopardy! round, the host likely would have asked them for clarification, but because it was Final Jeopardy!, the wrath of Trebek was delivered (“Gotta pay attention,” he told both losing contestants).
I think we all know how Sean Connery would have responded to that.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro
Tagged The Legend of Zelda
PBS Inventors profiles Ralph Baer, the Father of Video Games, on his 91st birthday
Before Cliff Bleszinski… Before John Carmack… Before even Shigeru Miyamoto… there was Ralph Baer. While not known as a game designer, Ralph Baer gave the video game industry something much more important: the first home console.
Today is Ralph Baer’s 91st birthday and PBS has decided to celebrate with the “Father of Video Games” by profiling him as part of their Inventors digital series.
Baer began work on his “Brown Box” console all the way back in 1966. It would eventually be released to the public in 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey. The prolific inventor is also responsible for the first light gun and the first light gun game, Shooting Gallery as well as the Simon handheld game. Happy birthday Ralph! Never stop inventing.
I’d also like to wish a happy birthday to Warp Zoned’s Senior Editor, Nicole Kline. I’ll bet she had no idea she shared a birthday with video game royalty.
Speed of Sound: The Music of Sonic the Hedgehog
Let’s pretend the year is roughly 2000. It’s Sonic’s tenth anniversary. It’s his first real debut into the third dimension. The game is Sonic Adventure. It will be heralded as a general success. It will set some major tropes for the future of the 3D series to come, though it’s a bit of an oddity. At worst, it will later be looked back upon as “good for its time.” You advance through the levels – suddenly you’re on Speed Highway. The dark of a city forever trapped in the night – highways impossibly bent and stretched along the sides of buildings, through the air. Clear signs of construction that is, considering the landscape, entirely unfinished. This, gamer, is your music. (more…)
The Scientifically Proven Top 100 Video Games of All Time
We greatly expanded and updated The Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time as The Video Game Canon in 2017. You should check it out!
When it comes to deciding which video games qualify as the best of all time, everyone has an opinion. And sometimes those opinions result in a violent argument over the mental faculties (or lack thereof) of the listmaker. So we thought we’d add a little science to the equation to find out exactly which games can be considered the “100 Best Video Games of All Time” and which ones have been fighting above their weight class all these years. (more…)
GameStop to start selling retro games?
Ever wonder what GameStop did with those old games you traded in back when you were a little kid? Well, it looks like they’ve been sitting on them, and now are getting ready to start selling them via the GameStop website.
Speaking to The Verge, GameStop CEO Paul Raines talked about their plans for those old cartridges and CDs:
“”We think there’s a vintage sales opportunity, so we’re accumulating some inventory. It’s a big idea, and there’s a few problems with it. The first one is sourcing the product, the condition, the refurbishment, all that stuff. But there’s a customer for it. And we’re working on some stuff we haven’t announced yet.”
“If you go to eBay and look at all of the gaming stuff that’s on there, it’s unbelievable. Collector’s stuff. We’ve got to be in that business. We will be.”
So what does this mean for us? Well, if GameStop’s recent Retro Game Vault deal is any indication, expect to pay an outrageous price for games you can find at your local garage sale for a few bucks.