Broderbund founder donates massive collection to ICHEG

Broderbund was one of the most important video game publishers of the 1980s and 1990s, with hits such as Lode Runner, Prince of Persia, and Myst in its catalogue. Now its founder, Doug Carlston, has donated a massive collection of its products and original publishing and development materials to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the The Strong Museum of Play. According to The Strong, the collection comprises nearly 1,500 pieces of software, including almost the entire Broderbund library and large collections of software from its competitors. It also includes "copies of original art, production masters, and other disks used in the production of games, as well as examples of company promotional materials, awards, board game versions of their products, and other related items," as well as internal business materials from correspondence to marketing materials and more, covering the years 1979 to 1997. "In 20 years my siblings and I built Broderbund from an idea in the living room to a 1,500-person company with a market value in the billions of dollars. During that time, we gave little thought to building a legacy, but we still saved every product and every memo," Carlston said in The Strong's statement. The ICHEG has recently had a couple of of significant windfalls: In December 2013, Strategic Simulations, Inc. founder Joel Billings donated his collection, and in October, the museum acquired a collection of nearly 7,000 vintage Japanese video games across 22 systems.