Video games are viewed by some people as a frivolous time sink; but for others they are a vital part of art and pop culture, and daily life.

Now a museum in Zagreb is offering carefully curated exhibits detailing half a century of the gaming industry, from its nascent days and the computer systems of the 1960s, to arcade machines of the 1970s, all the way to modern-day home and handheld consoles and mobile gaming.

The largely interactive museum is proving to be a hit with younger visitors keen to see what their parents might have played in their youth, with a significant portion of visitors coming to take a trip down the memory lane.

It is the first of its kind in Croatia and one of the very few museums dedicated to video games in Europe.

The museum is the brainchild of a retired game developer and lifelong game enthusiast, Damir Slogar.

Slogar is a Zagreb native and began working on games in the late 1980s.

In the 2000s he moved to Canada where he worked as a programmer and project manager for some of the largest game companies in the world.

Slogar later founded and ran his own game studio in Canada, where he published hundreds of games, mostly for mobile platforms, and had a big hit with a popular franchise My Singing Monsters.

After selling the studio, he decided to retire from the industry and move back to Europe.

The idea to turn his private collection of games and video gaming paraphernalia into a museum in his hometown was born in late 2023.

Today he says that the response from visitors so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I really did this the way I imagined it, and I found a design studio that put this together exactly how I wanted, so I’m really really happy with it,” Slogar says.

The museum features many playable vintage games and also some rare video game hardware.

Slogar is especially proud of featuring in the exhibition the original Computer Space, an arcade game from 1971. It's considered to be the first arcade machine ever made, and a predecessor to the much more well-known game Pong.

Slogar says the most popular period for middle-aged fans is the 80s. Home computers of that era, such as Commodore 64, Amiga and ZX Spectrum can also be seen here.

Younger visitors are drawn to the 1990s and early 2000s – the era that marked the 3D revolution in gaming and the original PlayStation and Nintendo 64 consoles.

Sprawling across three floors and covering some 800 square meters, the museum offers a chronological overview of the way the gaming industry has evolved and developed.

The museum tells the story through artefacts ranging from arcade machines and vintage boxed games to rare consoles and personal computer systems.

Slogar hopes his museum will continue to inspire both long time gamers and newcomers to explore the roots of an industry that has in many ways shaped modern entertainment.