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How the Video Game History Foundation Preserves Gaming’s Past
Video game history can disappear when hardware fails, stores close, magazines go out of print, or old development files are thrown away. The Video Game History Foundation works to prevent that loss by collecting, preserving, and sharing records of how games were made, sold, discussed, and played.
The nonprofit does more than store old games. Its collections include magazines, design documents, artwork, press materials, event guides, source code, photographs, video, and other records that explain the people and decisions behind gaming history.
What is the Video Game History Foundation?
The Video Game History Foundation, often shortened to VGHF, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and teaching the history of video games. The organization says it has been building its digital library since 2017.
VGHF treats game history as a broad subject. A finished game is important, but so are the documents, magazines, advertisements, interviews, and production files that show how the game reached players.
Its work falls into several connected areas:
- Building a dedicated video game research library
- Preserving source code, development tools, artwork, and documentation
- Collecting press kits, promotional files, and media archives
- Recovering lost materials with developers and publishers
- Teaching gaming history through research, podcasts, and exhibits
- Supporting better preservation rules and industry practices
Why video game preservation matters
Buying an old game again is not always possible. A 2023 study from VGHF and the Software Preservation Network examined a sample of 1,500 games released in the United States from 1960 through 2009. It found that only 13 percent remained commercially available, leaving 87 percent out of print.
Commercial availability is only one part of preservation. A rerelease may keep the finished game on sale while leaving its design notes, source files, marketing plans, magazine coverage, and production history behind.
Libraries also face legal limits. VGHF says U.S. copyright restrictions prevent it from offering remote digital access to out-of-print retail games. The public archive therefore does not work like a playable classic-game subscription. Its strength is preserving and sharing research material around games, companies, creators, events, and player culture.
What the foundation preserves
| Collection area | Examples | What researchers can learn |
|---|---|---|
| Magazines and publications | Consumer magazines, trade magazines, newsletters, and catalogs | Reviews, release dates, advertising, trends, and public reaction |
| Development records | Design documents, correspondence, schedules, source code, and tools | How ideas changed during production |
| Media assets | Artwork, screenshots, press releases, and promotional files | How publishers presented games to the public |
| Events and ephemera | Maps, directories, guidebooks, flyers, and photographs | What events such as E3 looked like and how the industry met |
| Audio and video | Interviews, production footage, conference talks, and tapes | Firsthand accounts from developers and industry figures |
| Special collections | Personal and company archives donated to VGHF | Deeper records of specific careers, studios, and projects |
The foundation’s projects page says its archives have supported restoration work involving Limited Run Games, Bethesda, SNK, Capcom, and Disney. VGHF also says its Game Informer preservation project digitized more than 25 TB of historical information during a five-week effort in 2019.
How the digital archive grew
The VGHF Library entered public early access on January 30, 2025. Its launch collection included more than 1,500 full-text-searchable, out-of-print magazines, the first 100 CDs from GamePro’s art and press-release archive, event materials from the first 12 years of E3, and more than 100 hours of footage from production of the Myst series.
By September 24, 2026, the magazine collection had grown to more than 5,000 issues covering 46 years from 1981 through 2026. VGHF says the collection contains nearly 600,000 pages and represents about 60 percent of its cataloged physical magazine holdings.
Community preservation groups helped make that scale possible. VGHF says it digitized about one-third of the magazines itself, while outside groups and contributors supplied the rest. The organization reported that its archive had already been cited more than 500 times on Wikipedia by the time it announced the milestone.
The archive is still changing. An April 2026 interface update added larger images, faster loading, easier collection browsing, and search snippets with roughly four times more surrounding text.
How to research the archive
Public material is free to view, and VGHF says you do not need academic credentials. Anyone studying video game history can use the archive as a researcher.
- Open the Digital Archive. The main page groups material into areas such as magazines, commercial game materials, development records, press materials, and event guides.
- Search for a specific subject. Try a game title, developer, publisher, person, event, or exact phrase.
- Use the result context. Full-text search can show where a phrase appears inside a document instead of only matching its title.
- Check the catalog record. Read the date, creator, collection, description, and access notes before using an item.
- Review usage conditions. VGHF may own a physical item without owning its copyright. A visible scan does not automatically grant permission to republish it.
- Save the source details. Record the item title, collection, URL, and access date so readers can follow your research.
What the public archive cannot provide
The online collection is large, but it is not complete. Some holdings remain uncataloged, unprocessed, restricted, or unavailable for digital viewing. VGHF says it only shares items it owns and can digitize, or digital copies that donors have allowed it to share.
Access and reuse are also different questions. Public materials are generally available for research or private study, but the foundation usually cannot grant reproduction rights for material whose copyright belongs to someone else. Researchers should read each collection’s conditions before using images or documents in a book, video, article, or commercial project.
Preservation can lead to new games and better research
Archived material can return to public view in unexpected ways. VGHF’s 2025 impact report says materials from its library appeared in projects including Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, GEX Trilogy, Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection, and Atari 50: The Namco Legendary Pack. Its scans also supported digital archives for Electronic Gaming Monthly and Game Informer.
The foundation’s work gives researchers more than a list of old releases. It preserves evidence about who made games, how projects changed, what players read, and how the industry presented itself. Anyone curious about a favorite game, studio, magazine, or gaming era can start with the free Digital Archive and follow the records from there.
Image Credit: Video Game History Foundation
