Play, The Videogame World was the first European exhibition on videogames. It was held at
Palazzo delle Esposizioni
The Palazzo delle Esposizioni is a neoclassical exhibition hall, cultural center and museum on Via Nazionale in Rome, Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Euro ...
, one of the main contemporary art museums in Rome - Italy, from 24 April to 10 July 2002. The exhibition was visited by over 50,000 people.
The exhibition
Displayed on 1300 square meters, it showed over 300 videogames starting from the 1961
Space War
''Space War'' is a video game cartridge released by Atari, Inc. in 1978 for the Atari Video Computer System (renamed to the Atari 2600 in 1982). The game is a version of '' Spacewar!'', the 1962 computer game by Steve Russell. It was released ...
to the latest hits for
PC,
PlayStation 2,
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...
and
GameCube.
There were also more than 40 different consoles, including the
Magnavox Odyssey
The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console. The hardware was designed by a small team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates, while Magnavox completed development and released it in the United States in September ...
, the
Vectrex
The Vectrex is a vector display-based home video game console–the only one ever designed and released for the home market, developed by Smith Engineering. It was first released for the North America market in November 1982 and then Europe an ...
, the
TurboGrafx-16
The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, thoug ...
, and over 50 handheld consoles from the 1970s to nowadays.
Play tried to show the evolution of video games not only from a technical point of view, but also the interactions between them and society.
This was illustrated through interviews with important game designers such as
Shigeru Miyamoto,
Hideo Kojima,
Tetsuya Mizuguchi
is a Japanese video game designer, producer, and businessman. Along with ex-Sega developers he is the one of the co-founders of the video game development firm Q Entertainment. He formerly worked for Sega as a producer in their Sega AM3 'arcade m ...
and the biographies of many other leading personalities in the games industry, through the advertisement campaigns, and though highlighting the relationships between games and sports, politics, Hollywood and the military industries.
The exhibition was mainly organised in a chronological order and divided in five main areas.
The first area went from the beginnings of video games till the raise of
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
, whose playing cards dated 1900 and few electrical toys from the 50s where shown. The second area was characterized by the 16-bit consoles. The third one was dedicated to
PlayStation
is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...
,
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...
,
Nintendo 64
The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and Au ...
and other minor consoles such as
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and the ...
, whilst the fourth one was on PC games, from the first
Id Software
id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and ar ...
productions to the recent
Mmorpg
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
(Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games). The last area was focused on PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube.
Curators
The curators of Play were Jaime D’Alessandro, journalist of
La Repubblica
''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arnoldo ...
, and Maria Grazia Tolomeo, with the collaboration of Andrea Cuneo, Francesco Fondi, Diego Malara, Sergio Pennacchini.
The exhibition design was done by Studio Ma0.
Play couldn’t have been done without Luisa Ammaniti, marketing manager at Palazzo delle Esposizioni.
External links
Palazzo delle EsposizioniStudio Ma0Il Corriere della SeraLa StampaMediamente RaiInteractTvNext GameiTv
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Video game museums