The contributions they're looking for are apparently games and not monetary donations.
What exactly they're doing with the archive isn't stated. The FAQ doesn't explain, other than vague intentions to have the ability to do research and possibly some sort of museum (I think?)
What other archives or museums are there for video games that are accepting donations of physical game media? There are probably a lot of HN readers with old games in the attic that are bound for the landfill once they get around to it.
Their Library Director Phil Salvador is a serious historian, who extensively researched, interviewed people, and wrote a comprehensive deep dive into the history of Maxis's serious games division, Maxis Business Simulations, John Hiles, and SimRefinery.
It was such an widely read, well received investigation, that it led to the recovery of SimRefinery when a reader discovered an old floppy disk of it that had been sitting in a drawer for decades!
We'll miss it, now that it's moved from Baltimore to a larger space in Pittsburg. I have donated to it, and hope it continues on well past my lifetime.
So sorry, I am just a block away right now. I should go and take a photo. It's a great place. They have a Vetrix vector game computer, but they said it was
... Delicate... And I said and probably irreplaceable.
It’s like the seed bank, except all the seeds are effectively dead, because no one can use them. But, they have the seeds’ pretty shells and can imagine what plants they once were.
Personally, I think there should be a non-profit that works with non-profits like this, computer and console equipment museums, Internet Archive, and a spacefaring company to ensure that history is protected in a logical way.
They do state that researchers are welcome to visit and use the material. I think that makes the collection not-entirely-useless to the public. Presumably any research they enable will be published.
What exactly they're doing with the archive isn't stated. The FAQ doesn't explain, other than vague intentions to have the ability to do research and possibly some sort of museum (I think?)
https://embracergamesarchive.com/#faq