Investment by a Canadian returnee

In the growing niche of urban tourism, an inventive business move was made by returnee and philanthropist Damir Šlogar, who opened the Video Game History Museum in Zagreb at a time when our selection of 12 game manufacturers is presenting at the current EXPO in Osaka as part of the July Learning and Playing themed week.

The Video Game History Museum, which opened these days in the heart of Zagreb at Draškovićeva 10, was founded by IT entrepreneur and returnee from London, Canada, Damir Šlogar, who has been in the global gaming industry for more than four decades. It is a first-class urban attraction with a unique display in this part of Europe, and is the result of Šlogar's private investment worth more than two million euros. Thus, on 800 square meters on three floors, you can enjoy and view a variety of interactive museum materials containing more than 3,000 exhibits from the world of video games, which this native of Zagreb has collected since childhood on two continents. Exclusive exhibits reflect the technological progress of humanity from a key time period for this specific industry from the late 1950s to the early 2000s, showing how video games are a part of contemporary culture and in which Croatians have also made their contribution. For example, the initiator of the museum, Damir Šlogar, whose creations are woven into around 150 video game titles, achieved his business success in this industry in Canada where he founded the video game studio Big Blue Bubble, whose most popular game was My Singing Monsters, which attracted more than 100 million players in 13 languages around the planet.

Entrepreneur Šlogar returned with his family to a quieter European port, after two decades of overseas business challenges, first to France and then to settle in our beautiful country. He sold his video game studio to the Swedish company Enad Global 7 for 76 million Canadian dollars (2020), after which he continued his career at a different pace in Zagreb, where we remember him as a pioneer of video game shows in the 1990s on a commercial television station.

This Šlogar museum aims to educate, inspire and entertain visitors during an exciting journey into the history of video games. It seems that high-standard urban tourism as a part of cultural tourism was among the first to be affirmed in our beautiful country by returnees from the diaspora as part of the irresistible tourist offer of European and world capitals, so it is not surprising that members of Generation Z are interested in and recognize the potential of this tourist cake, which is also becoming an increasingly visible driver of change in Croatia.

Among the game gems of the Šlogar Museum are playable games, including Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979) and Pac-Man (1980). Visitors are also attracted by one of the rarest games that can be found in such museums, such as Tennis for Two (1958), the first commercially available video game Computer Space (1971), the first home video game console Magnavox Odyssey (1972), the first commercially successful video game Pong (1972) and the rare handheld video game console Microvision (1979), etc., in chronological order of their creation. Damir's collection also boasts one of the most extensive collections of video games from leading publishers and franchises such as Elite (Firebird), Ultimate Play The Game, Diablo, Warcraft, Ever Quest, Strategic Simulations, Cinemaware, Bullfrog, Origin Systems, Lucas Arts and many others. Logically, visitors to Damir's Museum can also try out games on very rare consoles such as, for example, Atari Lynx, Nintendo Virtual Boy or Vectrex. Zagreb's Museum of the History of Video Games can boast of the largest Pac-Man on the planet, but also the world's smallest Tetris. In general, video games - it turns out - are an important part of urban culture and art of the Internet era because they synthesize image, sound, word, movement and, most importantly, personal interaction on mobile devices.

After a turbulent American dream in London, Canada, near Toronto, Šlogar's Croatian dream upon his return did not bring him the longed-for peace, but unexpected serious health problems, so last year he ended up receiving treatment for a malignant disease at Zagreb's Dubrava Clinical Hospital. In gratitude for his recovery after several months at the Department of Hematology, he donated a device worth more than 130 thousand euros to the medical staff. It is a new generation sequencer, which will enable the introduction of new tests and even faster treatment of oncological patients. A philanthropic act – worthy of sincere respect!

We are especially pleased that the Damir Museum opened this summer when Croatia is representing the domestic video game industry at the EXPO 2025 World Exhibition in Osaka. In Japan, the Croatian Audiovisual Center, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia, led a Croatian team of creatives who performed as part of the Learning and Playing thematic week from 17 to 28 July 2025. Along with the Games Croatia project, which brings together the Cluster of Croatian Video Game Producers, Reboot, the Croatian eSports Association and the PISMO Incubator from Novska – Croatia is represented by a selection of 12 video games as part of the national pavilion with an ecological and climate story. With this, Croatia joins leading countries such as Japan, Belgium, Australia and the United Kingdom in promoting its most popular video games.

Source: Vesna Kukavica, Globalna Hrvatska column in new July edition of Matica (Matica 7, 2025)

Photos: HINA, provided photographs