U.K. Celebrates Popular Video Games of the ‘80s and ‘90s with Commemorative Stamps
Image via Royal Mail
Royal Mail recognizes some of the U.K.'s most iconic video games of the '80s and '90s such as Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, Lemmings, Worms, Wipeout and Sensible Soccer and more with a series of twelve special stamps. These video games collectively put the U.K. games industry on the world map for video games, growing into a multi-billion dollar enterprise.
Image via Royal Mail
The collection also showcases different game consoles in use at the time such as the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga and the Sega Mega Drive. The special stamp collection demonstrates how video games are an important part of the country’s culture.
Image via Royal Mail
Tomb Raider has a total of four stamps in the collection, showcasing Lara Croft’s adventures throughout the years.
“The UK has been at the forefront of the video games industry for decades. In the 1980s and 90s young designers grappled with coding on the new microcomputers and set the template for the industry with iconic games. We celebrate some of their landmark creations on stamps.”
Image via Royal Mail
Selected with the help of the gaming industry trade body UKIE, veteran video game journalist Julian Rignall and Sam Dyer, creative director at Bitmap Books, a publisher that specializes in retro video games, the set of twelve stamps starts in the mid 1980s and focuses on the work of studios such as Bullfrog (Populous) and Codemasters (Dizzy, Micro Machines),and then moves into the 1990s with titles from Liverpool-based publisher Psygnosis (Lemmings and Wipeout), Derby’s Core Design (Tomb Raider) and Wakefield’s Team17 (Worms).
Available on January 21, 2020 in the United Kingdom, the special video games stamp collection can also be preordered for £14.25 now at Royal Mail’s online store.