Gamers Fundraiser for Video Game Museum

San Francisco has a museum of fine art, a museum of sciences, another for Asian art, another for contemporary Jewish art, and more for cartoon art, cable cars, craft and design, children, and the African diaspora.

So why not one for video games?

The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment is currently fundraising for a home, hoping to gather $20,000 by mid-April. They're more than halfway there, according to the Examiner.

Backers are going all-out for the project, setting up a booth at this year's Game Developers Conference to connect with the technological descendants of yesterday's consoles.

The MADE museum promises to be different from past failed attempts to assemble video game history. Central to their philosophy is that the exhibits should be playable. Could this signal the return of the video game arcade? With nonprofits struggling to remain profitable, MADE may one day find fundraising success on quarter at a time.

And when historians look back on this time, they may grimace when they read about a failed publicity stunt by low-rent game company THQ. The company released a swarm of balloons all over the city this week bearing ads for GameStop, which quickly found their way into the bay. THQ responded to complaints by pointing out that the balloons are biodegradable -- but of course, everything's biodegradable if you look at it with a geological timeframe. Animals can still get tangled and choke in the balloons before the degrade.

The city is currently unable to pursue THQ for damages, since the water is outside of the city's jurisdiction. The Coast Guard is investigating, according to the Appeal.