



Sam Machkovech









































































































FRISCO, Texas—Finally, there's a museum made for people like me.

The National Videogame Museum (yes, they spell it as one word) has been open since April of this year in the Dallas-area suburb of Frisco, and it houses an incredible collection of gaming memorabilia. The rarest cartridges, systems, and prototypes are all here, protected as if they were the Mona Lisa (and for some game collectors, they may as well be). Come here to marvel at one-of-a-kind finds like a Nintendo World Championship cartridge, a mint-condition Ultra Hand toy, or the only known white-molded Atari 2600 in the world.

Sam Machkovech

Sam Machkovech



































Sam Machkovech



























































































































But fear not; the giant museum houses a ton of playable games from every era imaginable, along with a lot of interactive exhibits. "We hate museums," NVM co-founder John Hardie told me while he gave me a tour of the space, and he emphasized that he wanted his creation to feel different than any other museum in the world.

Hardie, along with two other collaborators, began as avid retro-gaming collectors, before taking their collection to conventions and expos for years. Three years ago, plans for a brick-and-mortar museum started taking shape, and Gearbox Software founder Randy Pitchford became instrumental in getting Hardie, whose New York accent is unmistakable, to move the trio's museum operations down the road from Gearbox's Frisco headquarters. (Pitchford's touch on the joint isn't subtle; he erected an entire shrine to himself in the center of museum, which replicates his own office.)















































Most of the collection was gathered years ago when various systems and prototype cartridges were valued at zilch, Hardie insists, though in more recent years, the museum's best finds have come as explicit donations from people who want their rarest gaming treasures preserved for future generations.

Though Hardie let me go camera-crazy, I left more than a few tidbits undocumented. You really gotta see this collection up close. I have seen this NVM collection in bits and pieces at conferences like GDC and E3 over the years, but those glimpses at retro goodness pale in comparison to what the full NVM feels like to walk through.

Listing image by Sam Machkovech