The UK's National Videogame Museum (NVM) is being threatened with permanent closure as a result of the coronavirus. The museum has launched a JustGiving page where interested parties can make donations to help save it.
The NVM says it had 40,000 visitors in 2019 but that it has "no safety net of funding" to ensure its new charity makes it through a prolonged closure. The UK has just had newer, tougher lockdown measures imposed on it by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government, including mandatory closures of public places like libraries, schools, and museums. Naturally, this means the NVM has had to close, but it doesn't have any kind of funding available to it in order to weather the storm of fewer donations and patrons.
In order to be rescued from closure, the National Videogame Museum is asking for £80,000. At the time of writing, the campaign has achieved 4% of that goal spread across 53 supporters. If successful, the Museum will be able to continue its "important cultural and educational work", according to the JustGiving page. The museum is currently the home of a huge collection of heritage objects relating to videogame history and is also an important force in helping children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Ian Livingston, the founding patron of the NVM as well as the former co-founder of Games Workshop and onetime Eidos President, shared the following, "Coronavirus threatens the very existence of this unique place. The UK’s only museum dedicated to videogames is now under threat. As a new charity which uses videogames to inspire the next generation, we have no safety net to help the Museum weather the storm. We’ve had the support of some patrons and companies, but without visitors the museum is in grave danger. If you care about videogames, please donate in any way you can”
If you'd like to donate to the National Videogame Museum's fundraiser, then you can do so right here. Whether the museum is still here or not when the coronavirus dust settles remains to be seen. If it is, you can visit it by heading to Sheffield in the UK. Here's hoping the museum raises enough to continue its important work. We've reached out to the National Videogame Museum for comment on this story.
Have you been to the National Videogame Museum? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!
