Video Game History Foundation releases major new E3 archive collections

The Video Game History Foundation has expanded its E3 preservation work with a substantial new batch of primary-source material covering the show’s early and middle years. The biggest addition is the Carolyn Rauch event ephemera collection, donated by Rauch, who helped found the IDSA and oversaw E3 for nearly its entire run.

That collection spans more than 1,000 pages of flyers, brochures, press kits, guest passes, photographs, panel transcripts, and industry reports from 1996 through 2011, along with material from E for All and the Game Marketing Summit. For teams that care about how games were positioned, pitched, and revealed, this is the kind of reference material that shows the mechanics behind the spectacle.

VGHF also released nearly 12 hours of video shot by Anthony Parisi, who filmed the first four E3s on a camcorder. The footage includes press conferences and gameplay capture, with early looks at Super Mario 64 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Additional additions include a complete run of digitized E3 directory books from 1995-2006, scans of E3 Show Daily from 1995 and 1997, footage from defunct outlets like Subspace Publishers and Tronix Multimedia, and a Nintendo B-roll tape from 1997 with unreleased Conker’s Quest footage.

VGHF has also interviewed Rauch and IDSA founder Doug Lowenstein on its podcast about E3’s origins, and collected written reflections from longtime event director Mary Dolaher. More material is expected in the coming weeks. With E3 now gone after the cancelled 2020 show and the costly 2021 digital event, the archive is becoming one...