We are a project of the Herní historie (Game History) association, aimed at preserving gaming culture within the Czech and Slovak Republic. Our main activities are cataloging, archiving, and digitizing artifacts connected to gaming history – whether it's the games themselves, media such as magazines, period hardware, or other related historical artifacts. We believe that gaming history is not just about famous games and major developers, but that this history belongs to all of us, and that even small projects, forgotten experiments, and seemingly marginal games deserve to be preserved.
Missions and goals
Although interactive entertainment has become a fundamental part of the cultural life of almost half of us, it is still a relatively young field. Despite their cultural relevance, video games do not receive the same care as other areas of culture, such as film, literature, or visual arts.
The need to archive gaming history is driven not only by its cultural value, but also by the technological nature of this medium. Digital data is not permanent. Optical disks, hard drives, floppy disks, audio cassettes, and other media gradually degrade and may lose their stored data. For specialized backup technologies, such as data tapes, hardware support for reading them is gradually disappearing. And even when a digital medium is preserved, recovering data from outdated formats can be technically very challenging.
The history of games extends beyond the medium of video games itself. Therefore, it is important not only to archive and back up the games themselves, but also to digitize magazines, gaming literature, and visual materials, record interviews with authors and other witnesses, and collect developer materials.
Equally important is to actively popularize gaming history and the effort to preserve it, build contacts with similar organizations, and create conditions that facilitate archiving and follow-up efforts. In the future, an official institution will need to be established to systematically oversee our cultural footprint in the field of game culture. What it will look like is an open question, but until then, we will try to pave the way for it.
For this reason, we are already working to collect historical data, systematically digitize it, and create new archival copies. Our goal is not only to make archived games playable here and now, but to ensure that future generations can enjoy them too.
Collaborating institutions and projects
We consider it important to build contacts and share knowledge and methods with organizations that have similar goals to ours. We collaborate with numerous domestic and international organizations and continuously strive to establish an official institution that would systematically oversee and preserve the local footprint of this significant cultural sector.
I have materials related to games – can I donate them to you?
Yes! Although we don't have the capacity to accept all game-related materials, you can try contacting us at info@herniarchiv.cz to see if we would be interested in the contents of your collection.
Can I visit your physical archive?
Currently, our physical collection is only accessible to researchers. If you are interested in visiting the archive for research purposes, please contact us at info@herniarchiv.cz.
Can I support you somehow?
You can support us, for example, by subscribing on HeroHero or by contributing to our transparent bank account. HeroHero supporters also get early access to some content that we publish to others a few weeks later. And although it won't give you early access to our content, we would also be very happy if you set up regular contributions to our account. Any regular support, even small amounts, helps us with long-term budget and investment planning.
How can I get involved?
Anyone can help – volunteering with us doesn't require any special skills or knowledge, just a willingness to learn new things and get involved. Volunteers help us with a wide range of tasks, such as inventorying and maintaining the collection, digitizing gaming materials, software development, repairing historical hardware, transcribing interviews, translating our materials, and helping with PR, communications, or administration. But this is far from everything – we are also open to your ideas and what specifically interests you. Although most of the materials we work with are in the Czech and Slovak languages, we welcome and accomodate members who speak with us in English.
Can I do an internship or work placement with you?
Absolutely! We appreciate the help of every capable intern. If you are interested in an internship or work placement with our association, please contact us at info@herniarchiv.cz.
Your magazine database is missing scans or records. Why?
Digitizing magazines is a long process, so we add scans gradually. We also often cannot scan everything because we are missing some magazine issues. If you find a magazine in our database for which we are missing a scan or record and you would like to donate it, we would be happy to hear from you at info@herniarchiv.cz.
