About the Archive

The UT Videogame Archive is a collection component of The Center for American History that seeks to preserve and protect the records of videogame developers, publishers, and artists for use by a wide array of researchers. The Center will strive to collect and provide access to materials that not only facilitate research in videogame history, but also provide materials of interest to those studying communications, computer science, economics, and other academic disciplines that are now, and will for the foreseeable future, be drawn to the processes driving the videogame industry.

Located on the University of Texas’ flagship Austin campus, and in the center of the state's burgeoning videogame industry, the archive is in a unique position to gather primary source materials from various videogame practitioners, as well as the software and hardware that these practitioners have produced for public consumption.

The archive currently includes fifteen collections, including papers, games, and files of the archive’s first three donors Richard Garriott, Warren Spector, and George “Fat Man” Sanger.  These three industry leaders, along with their business colleague Bill Bottorf, conceived of the Videogame Archive as a way to document the many facets of the industry as well as the communities that arise around them.  At the Center for American History, we are committed to facilitating such documentation, especially for communities that have not been well documented in the past. So we joined Richard, Warren, George, and Bill in the endeavor.

But this is all just the beginning.  We are in the thick of building this archive, and we truly appreciate all donation offers.  We would love to be able to accept all offers on the spot, but, due to certain considerations, it may not be possible to accept materials as soon as they are offered.  However, I am eager to meet or correspond with anyone interested in donating not only game software and hardware, but also documents, art, digital records, promotional materials, and business records related to all things videogame.  The archive is also seeking not only materials from game designers and producers, but also documentation related to gamers, gameplay, and advocacy organizations related to the videogame industry.

If you haven't already, you can sign up to our e-mail list for further updates on the archive, or you can check out our news page and our forthcoming blog to keep abreast of recent acquisitions from these guys and other donors.