National Videogame Museum schedules its Sheffield opening

The National Videogame Museum, formerly known as the National Videogame Arcade, has announced that its move to Sheffield is nearly complete, and that it will be opening its doors on November 24th.

Originally opened in Nottingham as the National Videogame Arcade and having welcomed up to 50,000 visitors a year, the National Videogame Museum has run a range of successful events and exhibitions alongside the attraction of having arcade cabinets, PCs, and games consoles available for play. 'We've always tried to do more than just put out games for people to play,' explains Iain Simons, culture director of the British Games Institute (BGI), which runs the NVM. 'In our dynamic new space, we're bringing videogame creators into the Museum to meet their players, showing visitors what games mean and responding to our community's requests and ideas for new exhibits.'

Having nearly completed its move from Nottingham to Sheffield, the NVM is getting ready to open its doors this November. 'I'm really excited about the launch of the National Videogame Museum at its brand new home at the heart of Sheffield city centre,' claims State of Play Games founder Kath Bidwell. 'The games industry is fantastically creative and culturally significant and now we have a great place to celebrate and embrace that.'

'The NVM is the games industry's own museum, celebrating our games, our studios and our sector's achievements over 40 years,' adds NVM patron and BGI chair Ian Livingstone, best known for his co-founding of the Fighting Fantasy series, Games Workshop, and his time at Eidos Interactive. 'I invite anyone who cares about the cultural life of video games to join leaders from across the industry and support this amazing project with content, evangelism and funding to help expand the programme in the years to come.'

The opening will include a 'test lab' based on the game Gang Beasts, Simons has confirmed, along with the playable machines for which the Museum is best known. More information is available on the official website.