A Video Game Historian
Alex Hall is a video game historian, esports historian, author, educator, and digital storyteller from Eastern Kentucky. His work explores the history of games, developers, composers, competitive gaming, hardware, gaming culture, and the people whose work helped shape interactive entertainment.
Through Playloreum.org, Hall researches and documents stories from across video game history, from major releases and influential creators to prototypes, forgotten projects, industry turning points, esports milestones, and lesser-known pieces of gaming culture. His approach emphasizes original documentation whenever possible, including developer interviews, archived publications, contemporary reporting, manuals, promotional materials, historical databases, and other primary sources.
Hall’s interest in gaming history developed alongside decades of personal involvement with games and competitive play. He is an experienced speedrunner with numerous verified runs and world-record performances and has competed extensively across multiple games. That firsthand experience with mechanics, optimization, competition, and gaming communities informs his approach to documenting both speedrunning and esports history.
He also serves as the esports coach at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Kentucky, where he has helped develop collegiate competitive gaming opportunities for students. His work in esports combines coaching, program development, mentorship, competition, and an interest in preserving a part of gaming history that is often documented only after records, broadcasts, websites, and communities have disappeared.
Beyond gaming, Hall is an Appalachian historian and the founder of AppalachianHistorian.org, where he publishes research-driven work on the history, folklore, people, communities, and culture of Appalachia. His broader historical background shapes Playloreum’s philosophy that video games deserve the same careful documentation as other forms of cultural history.
Hall earned a B.A. in Pre-Law from Alice Lloyd College and an MBA from the University of the Cumberlands and has continued graduate study in history, education, and technology-related fields. He is also a multi-genre author whose published work spans poetry, religion, regional history, and other subjects.
In 2026, Hall was commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel in recognition of service and civic contribution. His public-facing work has also included speaking engagements, historical research, and an appearance on KET’s Kentucky Life connected to a segment on Appalachian writer Verna Mae Slone.
