National Video Game Day 2027 is on Thursday

About National Video Game Day

National Video Game Day is an unofficial day for playing, sharing and talking about video games, from early arcade machines and home consoles to today's releases. Players use it to revisit old favorites, introduce friends and relatives to games they love, and look back at how the medium has changed over the decades.

Its origin was obscure until game historian Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation traced it to Chase's Calendar of Events, a long-running reference book whose listings are submitted by their sponsors. The earliest entry he found, in the 1991 edition, set the day on July 8 and named its sponsor as David Earle, president of a group called Kid Video Warriors. Little else is known about Earle or the group, and the day has never been an official public observance.

The date did not stay put. Later editions of the calendar moved the listing to July 12 and then to September 10, and by 1997 it appeared as National Video Games Day on September 12, with Earle no longer listed. As a result, both July 8 and September 12 now circulate as video game days, and players and game companies use either one. This page follows the original July 8 listing.

Sources: PCGamesN: Today is National Videogame Day because of David Earle and the Kid Video Warriors (2019), Screen Rant: Why there are so many National Video Games Days (2019). How we check dates.

How to mark National Video Game Day

• Replay a game from your childhood and see whether it holds up.
• Play a cooperative or party game with relatives who don't usually play.
• Try a genre or era you have never explored, such as a text adventure or an early arcade game.
• Read about video game preservation and the groups working to archive old games, magazines and development materials.
• Balance a long session with breaks: stand up, stretch and rest your eyes every hour or so.

National Video Game Day dates