I am a child. I am a child that can buy beer and drive a car — not at the same time mind you — but a child nonetheless. Over the years, I’ve had to equip myself for the adult world, and in turn, have had to sedate that child. These days, he only wakes up every once in a while, usually when someone or something undeniable grabs his attention; and when I took a look around the new eGameRevolution exhibit on the second floor of the Strong National Museum of Play, well, naptime was over.

The eGameRevolution exhibit, which opened Nov. 20, is completely dedicated to the history, development and cultural impact of electronic gaming. The exhibit contains a remarkable and diverse collection of games from all throughout the medium’s history. These include a prototype of the first game ever designed for a home television screen built with original parts by the original creator and “Computer Space,” the first commercial arcade game. There’s a full-on ‘80s-style arcade, complete with black lights and over a dozen impeccably maintained original units that include “Tron” and “Missile Command.” There are displays addressing the cultural impact of video games and how they’ve evolved to impact our modern world ­— and that’s just for starters.

But have video games become such a part of our world that they warrant a place in a museum that boasts the National Toy Hall of Fame? Have they reached a point where their evolution and impact have legitimized them as their own medium of play? How does RIT fit into all of this? And what’s it like to have the whole history of electronic gaming at your fingertips?

Compiling History

There is a collection of arcade cabinets in the eGame Revolution exhibit; one of the games available is “Crystal Castles.”
Robert Bredvad

The Strong Museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1982, is a one-of-a-kind institute that focuses on the study and exploration of a special field: play. A stroll through the first floor reveals a vast stretch of exhibits and play areas that spotlight different ways kids across the world keep entertained. All of the exhibits are highly interactive, creating countless ways to get your hands on anything and everything. You can stroll down a replica of “Sesame Street” and sing a song with Elmo and the Count, wander through the year-round tropical butterfly garden, or read your way through the comic book library. While most of the exhibits are geared towards younger visitors, the sheer volume of the Strong Museum’s many collections should yield something of interest for patrons of any age.

The Strong Museum is independent and not-for-profit, and it carries out its mission through five programming branches: The National Museum of Play, The National Toy Hall of Fame, The Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, The American Journal of Play, and The International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG). The ICHEG put together eGameRevolution, and over the past 18 or so months, they had been designing the exhibit when they enlisted the help of Stephen Jabobs, an associate professor of Interactive Games and Media at RIT.

Jacobs was brought on by ICHEG as a visiting scholar in the spring of 2010, and he has been involved with the Strong Museum since 1995 as a web consultant who helped RIT students develop the original websites for major museums in the area. Jacobs also conducted tours and designed exhibits for museums in Washington D.C. as a teenager, an experience that made him even more valuable to the ICHEG when it came time to design eGameRevolution.

“Starting with my generation, these games started to show up. So from then on, what people do for play, video games are becoming more and more a part of that,” says Jacobs. “You can’t really have a museum of play without video games. It just makes sense.” Jacobs says that after NFL and NBA stars, the number-one career grade school students want to pursue is game design. As ICHEG amassed more and more of their current 22,500 purchased and donated electronic games and artifacts, they decided that the time was for a gaming exhibit, which was something that the board of trustees and curators had been discussing for years.

ICHEG put together a board of about 15 people, which included Jacobs and two RIT students, to design the layout and content of the exhibit. The RIT students, third year Game Design and Development major, Matt Fico and third year New Media Interactive Development major, Ned Blakely, worked as full-time co-ops for six months to develop displays, games and videos for the exhibit.

The board wanted to narrate how games evolved both technologically and culturally. Jacobs’ job involved outlining the general gaming landscape, helping decide which 30 of ICHEGs 120 arcade games would make it to the main floor and providing industry contacts. According to Jacobs, this selection process was based on the question: “What kind of story are we trying to tell about the game industry through the objects and through the games themselves?”

A Trip Back

Several children play “Dodgeball” on the exhibits LED Lightspace game floor at Strong Museum.
Robert Bredvad

In addition to the arcade, there is a timeline full of artifacts showing how games have changed over the past five decades, an interactive LED dance floor, and a series of stations that allow you to play through the four main generations of gaming consoles, from the Ralph Baer’s original Brown Box home gaming system to a PS3. There are displays that address cultural issues such as the effects (or lack thereof) of video game violence on young minds, the history of educational games, and the way gaming changes how we interact with each other in the real world. And yes, there’s more.

Now, I don’t know how tall Pikachu is supposed to be in real life, but if he’s anywhere near as big as the four- or five-foot figurine at the entrance to the eGameRevolution exhibit, my childhood dreams of being a Pokémon trainer would have been short-lived. Pikachu is flanked by an oversized Sonic the Hedgehog and a ready-for-action model of Link from “The Legend of Zelda.” But before you even lay eyes on this trio of gaming idols, the swell of an electric symphony accompanies your approach. Spaceship thrusters, epic theme songs, thunderous explosions and streaking lasers weave and clash, while the rhythm is kept with the percussive smashing of buttons and slamming of joysticks. The din seems chaotic until you actually cross over into the exhibit and witness all the vibrancy and energy of eGameRevolution. Then, you couldn’t imagine listening to anything else.

I’m not a gamer. In fact, I haven’t sat down and played a video game for more than 15 minutes in over two years. But there was a time in my life — before student loans, parking tickets and ex-girlfriends — when video games were the social focus of me and my friends. We didn’t have Facebook or iPods. We had Game Boys and PlayStations. All-nighters weren’t for essays or beer pong; they were for “Mortal Combat” and “Zombies Ate My Neighbors.” So, when I laid eyes on an arcade version of the classic “X-Men” game that consumed my childhood, well, the grin on my face must have looked like it belonged on a 12-year-old.

Addressing the Issues

“PONG,” an old classic console game, and other related artifacts on display at Strong Musuem.
Robert Bredvad

In the 5,000 square feet that the eGameRevolution exhibit occupies, you will find at least one piece of gaming past or present that is worth seeing. There are a slew of rare and valuable artifacts from the early days of electronic gaming, including one of the first modern pinball machines from the 1930s. This machine is so old that it actually didn’t come with flippers; customers were just expected to launch their balls and hope they hit something. There’s one of the first commercial arcade games, “Computer Space,” in all its red, glittery glory. There are flat screens showing the evolution of game graphics over the years, produced by Blakely. They even air an episode of the “The Big Bang Theory” that centers on gaming. But what about how games are changing us?

Director of the ICHEG and Vice President of Exhibit Research and Development at the Strong Museum, Jon-Paul Dyson says that these changes start with how we spend our time. “You could spend 40 hours a week playing WoW, or every once in a while … play a game on your cell phone or play Farmville on Facebook.” The changing landscape of gaming sees more and more people playing games, changing the definition of who is considered a gamer. “Electronic games have become ubiquitous, and in the process they change how we learn, how we relate to one another, and how we interact with one another,” says Dyson.

One of the top conversations about games is the issue of whether or not the increased violence in games leads to more violent players. The display dedicated to the perceived increase of violence contains a series of gun-shaped controllers, including a shotgun for use with Ralph Baer’s 1966 Odyssey gaming system and the evolution of his Brown Box. There’s even a picture of Joe Lieberman holding a cartoonish bright blue revolver. Dyson says that it’s important to provide a historical context for the outcry against violent games. “Every time a new form of media develops, whether it be comic books, the dime novels or even rock ‘n’ roll, people are going to say ‘Whoa, this is causing all sorts of problems,’” explains Dyson. “When put in a broader historical context, people have come to accept these things.” He goes on to mention that there is no research that shows there is any sort of increase in youth violence. In fact, youth crimes have actually gone down significantly over the past few years when games have become more violent and more realistic. As a nod to this fact, the title card for the display reads, almost smugly, “Where’s the crime wave?”

On the Game Floor

The "TRON" arcade cabinet is one of the many features at the Strong’s Museum eGame Revolution exhibit.
Robert Bredvad

While that all seems well and fine, what can you actually play? Plenty. Besides an Xbox 360, a “Guitar Hero” arcade, a “name that video game theme song” quiz game developed by Fico, and six PC gaming stations that show off the history of computer gaming including the classic “Oregon Trail,” the most interactive feature is the LED play floor, which can generate numerous games including dodge ball. I challenged Reporter photographer Robert Bredvad to a game, and even on beginner mode I lost in seconds. And yes, it knows when you’re out. I know this because I tried to cheat.

You can play your way through four generations of gaming consoles, starting with a prototype of a Brown Box. Next, there’s a Sega Genesis with “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” a Nintendo 64 with “Super Mario 64” and a PS3 featuring “Flower.” It was interesting to observe over the course of the trip that Sonic 2 was the most popular of the four. But a day at eGameRevolution couldn’t be complete without stepping into the black-lit retro glory that is the Arcade Room.

The Arcade is bathed in blue light and decked out with over two dozen, well-kept games from the 70s and 80s. The games in here do require tokens, but they’re only eight for a dollar; and the money goes directly to the upkeep of the machines, a task preformed primarily by just two staff members. It doesn’t take long to notice the sci-fi and star-fighter theme throughout the selected games. This is a testament to the culture of both the entertainment and the politics of those two decades. The Cold War was actually an inspiration for the game “Missile Command,” which is included in the Arcade, and the release of “Star Wars” and the moon landing also rocketed America’s fascination with space. There is even a “Lunar Landing” and “Galaga” game. There are also games like “Food Fight,” “Donkey Kong” and the incredibly addictive “Paper Boy.” Just being surrounded by all of these classic games triggered feelings of nostalgia, even though many of those games were released before I was born and were unfamiliar. It’s the chance to be completely immersed in a neon time capsule wherein you’re allowed and encouraged to touch everything inside.

Later on, as Wolverine and I were locked in a fierce battle with the Blob and Magneto, a young father and his young son — likely five or six — joined in on the game. As the father tried to explain the characters and story, the son stuck to giggling wildly and mashing buttons, having a blast even though he kept getting Cyclops killed. And as the father kept feeding in tokens to revive his son, something happened. This once-focused gamer started giggling as well. He abandoned the mission and started hopping around the screen with his son, punching and kicking the air, both being killed time and time again. But they were being killed together, and enjoying it together. I left the two to bond and took another shot at “Paper Boy.”

The ICHEG and the Strong Museum have created a unique exhibit that captures everything people love about video games. It’s hands-on, flashy, loud and fun. It’s informative and responsible enough to address the issues that the medium generates. There’s something there for visitors of all ages and all levels of gaming experience. Jacobs plans to continue to help with any changes that the ICHEG makes in the future, including the rotation of the arcade games. For the time being, the ICHEG, the Strong Museum and eGameRevolution have the premier research and play facility for electronic gaming in the country. And with nearly 25,000 artifacts in their collection, their high score might go unchallenged for a while.

Check out eGameRevolution for yourself at The Strong National Museum of Play, One Manhattan Square Dr.