Supercade was Van Burnham’s ode to the golden age of video games — a big coffee table book that captured the visual history of games from 1971 to 1984.
Now that golden age is getting a refresh as Burnham’s Supercade book is heading toward a reissue, thanks to a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. As of last night, the campaign had raised $50,347 of its $34,000 goal. More than 259 people have backed it, with 19 days to go in the campaign.
The reissue of Supercade, which illustrated and documented the history, legacy and visual language of videogaming’s golden age, seems like it’s coming so early. I mean, I lived through this history, and it doesn’t seem all that long ago, as the memories of games and arcades are so fresh in my mind.
But this time was decades ago. Thirty years ago, Burnham was working as production designer for a magazine in New York City. The “World Wide Web” was brand new and she found other nerds nesting online who shared her love of vintage videogames.
She would scan and share manuals from my original Odyssey 2 console and get in heated debates about whether K.C. Munchkin! was a better port of Pac-Man than Atari’s official version. She still says it is.
Burnham wondered if any books had been written about the games she played in the 70s and 80s. One day, she went to Rizzoli on Broadway and asked if they had any — on a shelf in the “technology” section were Zap: The Rise and Fall of Atari by Scott Cohen and Game Over by David Sheff (still her favorite book about games). That was literally it.
So she started doing research on Supercade. As she imagined what the book would be like, she caught up on the history of video and computer games and got a publishing deal. The original Supercade book — which I did a short chapter for to chronicle the Xbox history — came out in 2003 with 448 pages. Then Burnham wrote Supercade: A Visual History of the Video Game Age — 1985 to 2001, publishing that book in 2023.
Now Burnham has signed up to do the deluxe reissue of Supercade, which will document the early history of the game industry from 1971-1984 and will be even more comprehensive than the original book with over 500 full-color pages. Burnham is also working on creating a Supercade Museum.
“I’d always wanted to publish another hardcover edition because honestly people have been asking for one for over 20 years,” Burnham said in a message to GamesBeat. “Lol. I also wanted the opportunity to really do it right, the way I’d originally envisioned the book. With the Supercade Museum in alpha at Ayzenberg’s Space Gallery and the next exhibition focused on the second generation and ‘golden age’ of games, it seemed the perfect time.”
She said she will work closely with backers and contributors to be sure every egregious omission is included. Color TV Game. Lazer Command. Wizardry. The reissue will be identical in style and format to the original, though with upgraded print features and new content throughout.
Burnham said she never imagined that it would fund first day, let alone in four hours — one hour faster than the sequel.
“I’m so grateful for the support I’ve gotten from the game industry and Kickstarter community,” Burnham said. “I think this history is really starting to resonate with younger generations… there is almost a deeper appreciation of this technology beyond the kids who grew up with it. Seeing Gen Alpha kids in awe of Microsoft Adventure running on an IBM 5150 makes me so happy and hopeful.”
The more this project overfunds, the more awesome the book will be, she said.
“For the sequel I added an additional seventy pages and increased the print run,” Burnham said. “Anything beyond that will go toward stewarding the Supercade Collection — now one of the most significant archives of video and computer games, artifacts, art, and ephemera — allowing me to celebrate this history and keep original games playable for future generations to experience.”
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