{"id":122528,"date":"2020-12-25T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-25T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2020\/12\/best_of_2020_now_is_a_great_time_to_support_your_local_retro_computer_museum"},"modified":"2020-12-25T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T16:00:00","slug":"best-of-2020-now-is-a-great-time-to-support-your-local-retro-computer-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/12\/25\/best-of-2020-now-is-a-great-time-to-support-your-local-retro-computer-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Of 2020: Now Is A Great Time To Support Your Local Retro Computer Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Retro<\/a>\u00a9 Nintendo Life<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Over the holiday season we’ll be republishing a series of Nintendo Life articles, interviews and other features from the previous twelve months that we consider to be our Best of 2020<\/a>. Hopefully, this will give you a chance to catch up on pieces you missed, or simply enjoy looking back on a year which did have some highlights \u2014 honest!<\/em><\/p>\n

This feature was originally published in April 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

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In 2020, the majority of our interactions with video games is virtual \u2013 games are easily accessible and available online 24\/7. However, there are plenty of people who have fond memories of the more physical<\/em> side of games, whether that be browsing racks in dedicated video game shops, visiting sensory-overload arcades or getting a monthly magazine drop through the door.<\/p>\n

Bar the odd game launch being delayed, the consumption of the former is not massively affected by the current coronavirus pandemic \u2013 but the same can’t be said for the last remnants of physical gaming. Independent video game shops were a rare occurrence in the UK prior to this situation, but we fear that they will be all but extinct by the time we get back to normality \u2013 and that could well be the case all around the world.<\/p>\n

Local to Nintendo Life’s UK headquarters is Leicester-based Retro Computer Museum<\/strong><\/a>, a charity which has a permanent venue dedicated to allowing gamers to experience all manner of retro computers and video game consoles. While it’s described as a museum, the machines on display are all hooked up and ready to play \u2013 making it a truly unique venue. Over the years we’ve gotten quite close with the people behind this noble venture and paid our first visit to one of the RCM’s events way back in 2010<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We recently reached out to RCM Chairman Andy Spencer to see how they were getting on at the moment.<\/p>\n

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Nintendo Life: Firstly, bring us up to speed, how have things been going prior to the pandemic?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andy Spencer:<\/strong> The Retro Computer Museum was set up twelve years ago by myself and my wife Linda. The idea behind the museum was to share my humble collection with other like-minded people. Over the past twelve years, though, this has changed to something much bigger than even I envisaged. We moved around for a few years until we found our home in Leicester.<\/p>\n

Since moving to Leicester, our footfall has risen significantly and our visitors range from toddlers to grandparents! We normally open on Saturdays (from 10 am until 4.00 pm) and Sundays (from 11 am until 5.30 pm) to the public and also during the week we did some evenings (for Scout visits, Corporate visits and other private events). We are very much a hands-on, ‘help yourself’ sort of place and often get complimented on this.<\/p>\n