Log in

View Full Version : Museum of Science and Industry Debuts Game On



orangemage
02-15-2005, 04:57 PM
people near chicago might want to check this out

http://wire.ign.com/articles/588/588018p1.html

Game on: The History, Culture and Future of Video Games, will make its North American debut at the Museum of Science and Industry on March 4, 2005. This major exhibition explores the vibrant world of video games from 1962 to today and the effect that these games have had on our contemporary culture.

In an interactive environment full of projected sights and sounds, Game On details the game design process, including conceptual drawing, character design and sound. The exhibit also investigates how geography and culture play a role in game development by examining games in Japan, the United States and Europe. A look at developments in gaming hardware— from the colossal computers of the early 1960s to the recent consoles such as Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation 2—helps to illustrate how content and technologies work together to create amazing new products. Along the way, children and adults alike will be enthralled by the interactive world of gaming as they have the opportunity to play more than 125 games that illustrate the exhibit content.

Game On is powered by Exelon, proud parent of ComEd, and sponsored by EB Games and Pepsi.

"The video gaming industry has had a unique influence on the world's culture," said David Woody, the Museum's director of design and development. "Visitors to Game On will discover how the video game phenomenon emerged from both an artistic and technological perspective, not just in the United States, but around the globe. They will also be able to see how that phenomenon has influenced other aspects of popular culture, including movies, magazines and music."

Game On runs through September 5, 2005. The exhibit consists of 17 "levels" or areas, each one introduced by a different member of the "Game Family"—a mother, father, sister and brother who take museumgoers through an exhibit tour. As guests move through the exhibit, they will discover the key creative people who make games happen, including graphic designers, programmers, 3-D modelers and engineers. The illustrations of Chicago artist David Lee Csisko will bring the Game Family and the exciting, pulsating world of video games to life with a flurry of color, movement and characters.

"Game On gives kids a new view of an industry that has come to the forefront of our popular culture," said Jean Franczyk, the Museum's vice president of Education and Guest Services. "Many children today have grown up with video games, but now they have a chance to learn about the history, science, art and technology that is behind those games."

In Level 1: Early Games, guests will learn about the genres first games. The area features the 1962 game SpaceWar!, the first game to be developed on a computer with a vector monitor; 1972's Pong; and rare artifacts such as original publicity materials and early merchandise.

It takes up to 40 people to build and market a successful game, and in Level 4: Making Of, guests will learn why. The game design process from concept drawing to packaged product will be examined in this area, focusing on some of the most important games of recent times including the Pokémon phenomenon and Tomb Raider. Each display will include original artwork of character sketches and environmental designs.

How does sound and music enhance the game experience? Level 9: Sound will explore early music from the 8, 16 and 32-bit eras, sound effects and composed music for games. Visitors will be able to play games that have made music their theme including Rez and Space Channel 5. Additionally, this area looks at how game developers and publishers are now showcasing new bands and artists in their game titles, and even hiring film composers to write game soundtracks. Guests will be able to listen to tracks that illustrate this music.

Level 10: Chicago Style will demonstrate Chicago's role in the video game world, which has been significant ever since Midway Games starting publishing arcade games in the mid-1970s, including Space Invaders in 1978 and Pac-Man in 1980. Guests can play games like Incredible Technologies' Golden Tee Live, 2005 from these native developers.

A range of emerging technology and content trends will be showcased in Level 14: Future Games, indicating the shape that gaming may take over the next decade. This section will include Japanese "communication games," PlayStation 2 USB camera technology—a revolutionary new type of games interface from Sony— and the latest 3rd generation phone technology.

Game On was organized by Barbican Art Galleries, London in collaboration with the National Museums of Scotland. The exhibit will have an additional charge of $5 per guest. To ensure a positive experience for all ages, Game On will not feature any mature ("M" rated) game content.

The Museum of Science and Industry's mission is to inspire the inventive genius in everyone by presenting captivating and compelling experiences that are real and educational. Located at 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive, the Museum is open every day of the year except December 25. Regular Museum hours are 9:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. General admission pricing is $9 for adults, $7.50 for seniors and $5 for children ages 3-11. City of Chicago residents receive a discount on general admission; general admission is free on Mondays and Tuesdays through March 15, 2005. The Museum is supported in part through the generosity of the people of Chicago through the Chicago Park District. For more information, visit the Museum's Web site at www.msichicago.org or call (773) 684-1414 or (800) GO-TO-MSI outside of the Chicago area.

I'd love to go to Chicago just to see this exhibit. It seems like it's well done and would be a great time to spend a few hours.

Goodwill Hunter
02-15-2005, 08:58 PM
people near chicago might want to check this out

[i]Game on: The History, Culture and Future of Video Games, will make its North American debut at the Museum of Science and Industry on March 4, 2005.

What an unreal coincidence....the wife just told me to take 3/4/05 off so we could take my daughters to the Museum of S&I, as they have the day off school! I don't think I'll mention this to her in advance :devilish:

Rich

MegaDrive20XX
02-15-2005, 09:02 PM
Man that kicks ass...if they ever show up to Texas, I'm so there...

Captain Wrong
02-16-2005, 10:28 AM
You're kidding me? Heh, I'm going up there next weekend for the girlfirend's birthday and guess where she already said she wants to go? :evil:

kevincure
02-17-2005, 05:51 AM
This show (in a modified form) was in the UK a couple years ago. I bought the "Game On" book that accompanied it (perhaps Amazon still has it) - some interesting content, but a lot more about how videogames affect culture than about the culture of videogames.

digitalpress
02-17-2005, 07:11 AM
This show (in a modified form) was in the UK a couple years ago. I bought the "Game On" book that accompanied it (perhaps Amazon still has it) - some interesting content, but a lot more about how videogames affect culture than about the culture of videogames.

Indeed. Our own Mat "Mayhem" Allen has been to this at least once, see here for an OLD review:
http://www.digitpress.com/archives/arc00117.htm

Mayhem
02-17-2005, 07:56 AM
Heh was just about to mention that Joe ;)

And, should I hopefully visit our lovely QoF during the summer, no doubt she'll want to go and I can compare there to when it was here (and that was 2002!).

Xantan the Foul
02-17-2005, 08:16 AM
Sounds pretty awesome, wixh I could go.... :(

Sniderman
02-17-2005, 08:42 AM
I just might have to do a summer road trip. I wouldn't mind driving to Chi-town to see it. My wife likes Chicago anyway, so we could kill two birds and make a weekend of it.

Darth Sensei
02-17-2005, 09:19 AM
Oh, I'm going. Anybody else from West Michigan want to carpool?

rolenta
02-17-2005, 09:42 AM
If you can't make it to Chicago, the show will be in San Jose at the Tech Museum of Innovation from September 26 2005 through January 2006. It's too bad it couldn't be there a month earlier so those of us who are attending CGE could also stop at the exhibit.

Queen Of The Felines
02-17-2005, 11:05 AM
Oooo, between this and the exhibit with the plastizised (I know I spelled that wrong) corpses this is the perfect time to go! :D

Kristine

furor
02-17-2005, 11:11 AM
While you're there, make sure you get tickets for Body Worlds...

http://www.msichicago.org/bodyworlds/index.html

anagrama
02-17-2005, 11:15 AM
I was meaning to go see this when it was on in Scotland (much closer than London for me), but never got around to it. :( I think Edge magazine did a write-up about it when it first opened a couple of years back aswell.

Enjoy it, folks!

atomicthumbs
02-17-2005, 01:16 PM
Just a short drive from Madison. I'm in (If I can convince my girlfriend to go).

SoulBlazer
02-17-2005, 04:40 PM
Hey, Boston has a HUGE Museum of Science and Technology -- and they get a lot of things. Any hope of it going over there? :)

mills
07-13-2005, 12:52 PM
I know this is REALLY old but I went to it. One thing I was wodnering is what do they do with everything when the exhibit is over, do they throw it all away? Donate it? Store it away in boxes? Sell it?

punkoffgirl
07-13-2005, 01:14 PM
Not a bad time to bump this, I'm going to be in Chicago this weekend, and may be going to check this out :)

gman100
07-13-2005, 01:38 PM
I went to game on a few months ago it was awesome


they had a prototype odyssey

rbudrick
07-14-2005, 04:38 PM
The Boston Museum of Science has a very cool, yet rather small exhibit of old (REAL old, some of them) computers and such. Just saw it last summer or Fall.

A videogame section would rule.

-Rob

slapdash
07-18-2005, 07:01 PM
I went to game on a few months ago it was awesome

I was a little disappointed myself. For instance...


they had a prototype odyssey

But the production one had Binatone paddles hooked up! WTF?

The two biggest bummers were the lack of real historical info ("this game is important because...") and there were a lot of non-working exhibits.

Mayhem
07-18-2005, 07:05 PM
The two biggest bummers were the lack of real historical info ("this game is important because...") and there were a lot of non-working exhibits.

To answer these points, and actually this comes from Barry the main organiser himself cos QoF and I asked him the same things...

The lack of historical info (especially compared to the UK version) is because most visitors would not read it. Plain and simple. The show's aimed at everyone, so they had to find a common ground. And that meant less placards and less text.

As for stuff not working, well that's life... they try to keep everything going as much as possible but it wears out, breaks down and they have to fix or replace it out of their own time and pocket. With the exhibit open every day, then that doesn't leave much spare time to sort things out.

scooby105
07-18-2005, 08:28 PM
The exhibit kinda sucked. If you're already going to the museum, then maybe it's worth checking out. But don't bother making a trip just for it. Most people here probably have almost all the stuff already sitting in their house. Half of the systems there are just PCs playing emulated games. I don't need to play C64 games with a Gravis PC Pad. I can already do that at home. The exhibit had too much new stuff for my taste as well. And as was mentioned earlier, there isn't much info on any of the stuff. It's pretty much designed to go and play some video games. So, if you're already going to the museum, and BodyWorks is all filled up for the day, then check it out. Or, if you're 12 years old or so and haven't played and old video games, then go ahead and go. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

Mayhem
07-19-2005, 06:13 AM
Another thing because it's being hosted in the US currently. Many of the non-US systems would not work properly in the US (NTSC to PAL differences for a start). Some of the equipment they'd like to run but haven't acquired it yet and have to emulate instead. Some of the equipment would be a pain to run off the real deal (especially if it started going wrong) so emulation is used instead.

Also, there's more new stuff because the focus survey before the exhibition started showed that the general audience would not go for as much retro stuff. Plain and simple. That the Americans for you. Barry would have loved to have kept the same sort of lineup as he had when it was here in the UK, but had to tune it to what people would want to see when it's been Stateside.

punkoffgirl
07-19-2005, 11:18 AM
I, too, was a bit disappointed with the exhibit. I guess I had expected it to be more than just a bunch of emulated games with a few consoles and cabs thrown in. Don't get me completely wrong, I had fun running around playing Pong on a big screen amongst other things, but I guess I thought where it was in the museum that it'd be more than just a playroom for the kiddies.

Kroogah
07-26-2005, 04:52 AM
Who wants terrible pictures?

http://www.livejournal.com/users/captyashiro/97431.html

colicub
02-06-2008, 07:52 PM
BUMP for great justice. And because Barry, one of the organisers, owes me money/Mega Drive games.

Just wondering where it is now, the website's been down for a while and I can't find much out since it was in London last.

I was one of the people wandering about showing people how to play Tetris whilst it was in Edinburgh and frankly when it was here there were a LOT of things that you wouldn't "just have around the house".

Like a PDP-1, Computer Space arcade cab, the original post-it layout of missions from GTA3, original artwork from Final Fantasy, Jak & Daxter, Sonic, Monkey Island, and some sketches by Shigeru Miyamoto. God I want my old job back.