Gaming Museum of Finland to open in Tampere

Finnish gaming culture deserves a dedicated museum. At Epiphany 2017, Museum Centre Vapriikki in Tampere will open the Gaming Museum of Finland displaying the many decades of history of Finnish gaming in worthy settings. Tampere will make museum history by launching a crowdfunding campaign for the project.

Premises of approximately 400 m2 have been reserved for the exhibition. The museum will be the first museum in Finland focusing on gaming and one of the few in the whole world.

The Gaming Museum of Finland is the result of a co-operative project by Rupriikki Media Museum located in Museum Centre Vapriikki, Pelikonepeijoonit - the Arctic Computer & Console Museum and the University of Tampere.

Support from the Open Tampere -programme and some financing from the Museum Services of the City of Tampere, guarantee the creation of an exhibition in Vapriikki displaying gaming culture. Meeting the minimum goal of €50,000 set for crowdfunding would enable turning the museum into an authentic experience for visitors where you also get to play. If the sum is exceeded, the money will go towards more extensive research work and the creation of more diverse museum experiences. The crowdfunding campaign will be implemented via the Mesenaatti.me service.

– The Gaming Museum of Finland will display how digital gaming started out in Finland, how it has developed over the years and how it came to its current position, says Researcher Outi Penninkangas of Rupriikki.

– Although the focus of the museum lies in digital games, we will not forget other games, such as board games and role playing games.

Experiencing is a vital part of the Gaming Museum of Finland: museum visitors will get to try out the displayed games in their authentic environments. The museum will host, for example, an amusement arcade with arcade games starting with the electromechanical devices of the 1970s and rooms of gamers from the different decades.

– In addition to this, we want to make the Gaming Museum of Finland a meeting place. It will offer premises for seminars, gaming marathons, various fan meetings, electronic sports and even game jams, says Penninkangas.

A group of three collectors, Pelikonepeijoonit - the Arctic Computer & Console Museum, has preserved Finnish gaming history since 1999. The Arctic Computer & Console Museum will donate its collection of hundreds of devices and thousands of games for use by the Gaming Museum of Finland. Visitors will get to explore the devices and, where possible, also try them out.

– Museum Centre Vapriikki will offer a setting worthy of our collection. We can finally display the more familiar and rare artefacts of the Finnish gaming history to the public, says Mikko Heinonen of the Arctic Computer & Console Museum.

The University of Tampere represents the top of Finnish gaming research. The expertise of university researchers will bring a deeper insight to building the exhibition, and the museum and its exhibitions will also serve as an important excursion site for gaming research students.

In addition, the campaign is supported by several other parties, such as the Pelit video games magazine, Dome.fi gaming website, Skrolli computing culture magazine and V2.fi as well as several Finnish gaming companies. The Open Tampere programme of the City of Tampere, coordinated by the Tampere Region Economic Development Agency Tredea, has already financially supported the preparation of the project.

Further information:
Researcher Outi Penninkangas, Rupriikki, tel. +358 50 341 3262
Mikko Heinonen, Arctic Computer & Console Museum, tel. +358 50 558 0976

Images: http://siiri.tampere.fi/ (> Tiedotuskuvat > Pelimuseo)

Video (in Finnish):

Translation: Lingoneer