Video Game History Hour

Updated: 17 Sep 2025 • 148 episodes
gamehistory.org

Industry expert Frank Cifaldi, Executive Director of the Video Game History Foundation, brings on fellow content creators, game developers, video game historians, and storytellers to teach us a little bit about video game history. Our casual, “chatting over coffee” style interviews let us see the true life of a researcher: bang-your-head-against-a-wall dead-ends, “I can’t believe no one’s told this story before” moments, the thrill of sharing incredible history with the world, and more. Pull up a chair and join us!

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Host Frank Cifaldi is joined by documentarian, historian, hacker, and all around cool guy SynaMax to talk about their documentary Resurrecting Sinistar: A Cyber-Archaeology Documentary. The 1983 top-down space shooter arcade game’s unique 49-way joystick allowed players to pilot their spaceship to prevent a giant skull

63 min
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We’re joined by pioneer video game historian Leonard Herman, author and publisher of several video game history books including the first comprehensive book chronicling the history of the videogame industry, Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Home Videogames, and its subsequent series. We touch on Leonard’s early career, the

71 min
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Host Phil Salvador is joined by Derek Alexander, of the YouTube channel Stop Skeletons From Fighting, and Zarithya, of the YouTube channel Zarithya, to talk about the fan-restored 16-player mode for the 1991 Game Boy game Faceball 2000 as laid out in My 2 Year Journey to Solve the 30-Year Myth of Faceball 2000 | SSFF.

77 min
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Frank Cifaldi and guest-host Kate Willaert (of A Critical Hit) are joined by Marylou Badeaux to discuss the history of the vitally important Computer Entertainer, also known as The Video Game Update: a monthly newsletter which covered video game availability information and reviews in the 1980’s. Co-created with Marylo

97 min
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It’s time for a little review of what we’ve been up to, so far, this year. With the official launch of our digital library archive, livestreams of game magazine unboxing and EPROM dumping, the newest collections of Craig Stitt and Kirk Henderson, a Trade Magazine Week special event, and teasing some special new acquisi

82 min
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Veteran game designer and author Lawrence Schick shares stories from his early 80's work with the ColecoVision, Atari 2600, and Intellivision. With over four decades of experience in the industry, Schick details how he helped pioneer a multi-discipline, team-based approach to game development designing games like Smurf

64 min
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