Berlin Game Museum Opens in New Location

A new video game museum opening in Berlin today claims over 300 exhibits and an archive of over 14,000 games tracing the history of the nascent medium. The Computerspielemuseum is the latest public effort from Andreas Lange, a former German game rater who quickly outgrew the space that housed his first public game collection, opened in 1997, according to a Spiegel report. Lange's collection reopens today in its new East Berlin location thanks in part to the patronage of German-American Ralph Baer, creator of the Magnavox Odyssey and widely acknowledged as one of the fathers of the game industry. Other funders for the museum include the Germany Lottery Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund, according to the museum's web site. Exhibits at the new museum include a Wall of Game Milestones, displaying dozens of titles that moved the industry forward in some way, and others that examine connections between gaming and real world artists, thinkers and technology trends. Rochester, New York's Strong Museum of Play opened the National Center for the History of Electronic Play in early 2009, housing a collection of over 15,000 games. And in 2008, the UK launched its first national video game archive as part of Bradford's National Media Museum.