VGHF Launches Digital Library / Party Like It's E3 1999

The Video Game History Foundation has launched an impressive new initiative that aims to help out anyone interested in video game history… and you'd better believe that means us! The VGHF's new Digital Archive offers an impressive collection of preserved media that anyone can access without jumping through any hoops! They've got hundreds of issues of gaming magazines like PC Gamer alongside an impressive amount of inside baseball content like promotional CDs and GDC-related publications… and it sounds like that collection is just going to grow. You can read more about the effort in their launch announcement or access the collection yourself here!

Before we look at our first library item, we'll share that we (accidentally) had a very small part in this project! The folks in charge of the VGHF were recently kind enough to help investigate a pair of tapes that I had acquired from a collection of material found in a former Origin employee's garage. One was labeled Ultima VII and the other Special Operations 2. Unfortunately they weren't able to recover anything from the Wing Commander tape but the Ultima ones contained the source recordings for the Guardian's dialogue from Ultima VII: The Black Gate (you know, the guy that flung the Avatar past the Tiger's Claw in Super Wing Commander)! It's pretty fun to listen to and amazing that such a thing could be recovered today. You can access the VGHF entry for the tape here. (And if you are a data backup whiz, drop us a line about that other tape!)

Here's the recording itself. You can download a copy of the source file here.

With that out of the way, we thought we'd start by looking at something from the library's impressive collection of industry material: a biography of Chris Roberts printed in the 1999 E3 Directory. This would've been the little booklet they handed out at the trade show that introduced everyone appearing on panels; this would all be digital today. E3 '99 was held from May 13 to 15th in Los Angeles and Roberts appeared on a panel called "Computer Animations - Are We Talking Again?" which discussed the rise of 3D accelerator cards for gaming. This would've been just as he was changing focus from the Wing Commander film to Freelancer but it's most interesting in the history of Wing Commander for the rare sales numbers it includes!

Chris Roberts
CEO & Co-founder, Digital Anvil

Chris became one of England's best-known game designers and by 1987 had three #1 hits in the United Kingdom: "Match Day", "Wiz Adore" and "Stryker's Run". Prior to founding Digital Anvil, Chris Roberts was Vice President of New Technology at Origin Systems, Inc. as well as Executive Producer for Origin's parent company, Electronic Arts. Roberts' first project during his eight year tenure at Origin was "Times of Lore", which hit #1 on Ingram's Best-Seller List in 1988. He followed that achievement with "Bad Blood", a post-holocaust role-playing game in 1990. His next project, "Wing Commander", skyrocketed to the top of the charts, where it remains today. Chris was instrumental in Origin's growth from a $4 million a year company to nearly $50 million in 1995. His "Wing Commander" product line has accounted for more than 60% of Origin's revenues for the past five years, and has generated over $110 million since its creation. To date, "Wing Commander III" has generated over $30 million in revenue, making it the most profitable single title in Electronic Arts' history. Chris also directed the feature film "Wing Commander", based on his best-selling game series. It opened nationwide on March 12th.