National Videogame Museum, UK’s permanent games museum in Sheffield

The National Videogame Museum (NVM), the UK’s only permanent games museum that celebrates videogames and the people who make them, is opening in Sheffield on November 24, 2018.

The NVM hosts scores of playable consoles and arcade machines, innovative exhibitions of studios, their games and how they are made, as well as cultural festivals, clubs for kids and parents, and a host of events. The NVM will feature unique exhibitions reaching back to the industry’s birth and forward to games still in development.

Following an acclaimed run in Nottingham as the National Videogame Arcade, the new museum will build on a pedigree of strong review scores, consecutive TripAdvisor awards and 50,000 visitors a year.

“We’ve always tried to do more than just put out games for people to play”, said Iain Simons, Culture Director of the BGI, which runs 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.”

Following the success of previous exhibitions featuring Football Manager, Dizzy and Monument Valley, the Museum is working with games companies to create new, more ambitious shows. “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.”

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.”

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.”

The NVM has been supported by patrons including Ian Livingstone, Andy Payne, Sumo Digital, Rebellion, Rami Ismail, Masaya Matsuura and many others over the years.The non-profit NVM is seeking help from the sector to take videogame culture to hundreds of thousands more visitors”.

About the National Videogame Museum

The NVM is a museum that aims to educate the public about the art, science, history and technology of videogames. The NVM celebrates videogame culture and allows the public to play a significant portion of its exhibits, which include heritage games consoles, arcade machines, virtual reality games and other interactive experiences, including games unique to the Museum.

The Museum displays the UK’s only permanently accessible collection of videogame memorabilia and ephemera, based on the National Videogame Archive in Bradford. The Museum has welcomed over 100,000 visitors, including hundreds of school visits, since it opened in 2016. The Museum presents a mixture of permanent and temporary exhibitions that are scheduled up to 2 years in advance, some of which tour the UK.

The NVM is operated by the BGI, a new national agency for games culture. The BGI is an industry-led initiative that was announced in January 2017 to win new funding for games production, culture, diversity and skills, in collaboration with new and existing partners.

For more details about the NVM, please visit: http://www.thenvm.org