National Videogame Museum

We run the UK’s only museum dedicated to videogames, an award-winning cultural centre for videogames based in Sheffield.

We welcomed 35,000 visitors in 2019 to the Museum. Our visitors are families with children aged 8-18 and videogames enthusiasts who visit from across the North and Midlands and contribute over £600,000 to the local economy (AIM 2019) every year. We are very proud that the Museum met or exceeded the expectations of 95% of visitors.

The Museum houses 300 exhibits and 80 playable games spanning from the 1970s to the present day, including unreleased games still in development. Visitors can discover hundreds of fascinating objects of videogames history including unique hardware, first editions, memorabilia and other treasures from our 5,000 object Collection.

The Museum’s vision is to:

  • Create unique interactive exhibitions about games culture
  • Inspire thousands of schoolchildren in engaging workshops
  • Reveal careers in the UK’s fastest growing creative industry
  • Encourage everyone to play and make games

We have developed many original exhibitions including playable retrospectives on Monument Valley, Football Manager and Dizzy and an exhibition on gravity called Jump. More recently the NVM has hosted Made in Sheffield, Platform 14 which explores 14 playable versions of the seminal Donkey Kong, and Animal Crossing Diaries, a hybrid online/physical oral history exhibition charting how players broke out of the isolation of lockdown using an online game.

Forthcoming exhibitions include the National Videogame Gallery, which charts the hidden diversity of videogames art and animation; and Playing with Power, a residency project in which Biome Collective help refugee communities chart their folklore through videogames.

We host events and talks bringing luminaries from the games industry to talk to the public. Most recently, we invited Masayuki Uemura, one of the lead designers of Nintendo NES, to the Museum to talk about his work with the seminal games console in the 1970s-1990s.

The National Videogame Museum first opened in 2015 as the National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham. In 2018 we moved to Sheffield and rebranded as the National Videogame Museum. The museum was acquired by the charity The BGI in January 2020, closed and reopened through multiple lockdowns between 2020 and 2021, surviving the pandemic through the generosity of the public, patronage from games companies and support from the Arts Council England’s Culture Recovery Fund.

The museum is on the pathway to formal museum accreditation and has featured exhibitions and projects funded by Arts Council England, the Association of Independent Museums, Art Fund, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Museums Association and UKRI.

Visit the museum

 

“An important part of UK gaming heritage” Tim White on JustGiving

“We love the NVM! Really want it to still be there after Covid-19.” Keith Bailey on JustGiving

Such a wonderful, unique place. I’ve really enjoyed my visits and it would be devastating if others couldn’t experience the NVM in future. (Also, you guys are doing great work with the livestreams!)” Anonymous donor on JustGiving

“This MUST be kept alive considering the UKs contribution in the development of home micros and the gaming industry.” Matt Carpenter on JustGiving.