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First Games Inducted Into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

An anonymous reader writes: From 15 finalists, the first inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame were picked for 2015. Only one of the titles added to the list of legends was launched in the last 15 years. The six games inducted this year are: Pong, Pac-Man, Tetris, Super Mario Bros, Doom, and World of Warcraft. The World Video Game Hall of Fame says it recognizes games across all platforms, and all have the possibility of being included.

12 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. what? when did this happen? by Karmashock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    when did a hall of fame for games get created that wasn't just some guy's opinion?

    Where is this?

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  2. Re:WoW? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Name the single most iconic MMO of all time. WoW. "They have to be iconic, have longevity, have reached across international boundaries and also have exerted influence on the design and development of other games, on other forms of entertainment or on popular culture and society." Yes it strongly fits in all of those categories. You can't say that for any other MMO.

  3. Re:WoW? by ogdenk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What about EverQuest? It predates WoW and had quite a following. Both games suck IMHO but people liked them. I would also argue that Everquest influenced WoW's development.

    WoW is too modern to be a "Hall of Fame" contender and many games like it have existed over the years.

    Personally I think BattleZone, Tempest or the Star Wars Arcade Game should have been on the list. Vector games never get any love in popularity contests targeted at today's 12 year olds though.

  4. Re:WoW? by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What about EverQuest? It predates WoW and had quite a following.

    EverQuest and Ultima Online have the same problem. Outside of gamers, only in one or two countries do people other than gamers know anything about them. But WoW is culturally pervasive across much of the world. The same logic must have placed Doom over Wolf3D.

    Personally I think BattleZone, Tempest or the Star Wars Arcade Game should have been on the list. Vector games never get any love in popularity contests targeted at today's 12 year olds though.

    The problem with any of those games is that they don't have cultural influence. Only gamers know about them. (The SW arcade game is still one of my favorites of all time, if I could own just one cabinet...) Space Invaders, on the other hand... that's got some influence, I think it ought to have made the list.

    --
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  5. Re:WoW? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They probably disqualify anything that has that 'cool guy' stigma attached to it. Anything that was 'the first' before a genre became mainstream would fit that category. As a result, all the thousands of people who have posted "pah! WoW! I played Everquest..." in forums for years now hurt the chance of everquest ever making it into the hall.

    Also, everybody who is carping and whining about the choices made this year: just like the Baseball Hall of Fame, every year all your particular favorites will have a chance again to make the list.

  6. Re:WoW? by Akaihiryuu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WOW wasn't included because it was the first, or even close. It was included because it broke MMO's into the mainstream and had a 10-year run. Prior to WOW, MMO's were an extremely niche thing, that only nerds and hardcore gamers ever played. While I don't agree with what WOW has become in the last expansion (in fact, I will go so far as to say it's a terrible game now), you can't deny that it broke down barriers and opened up MMO's to people who had never even considered playing them before.

  7. Re: What about Goldeneye 007? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Goldeneye was never the best game by a long shot. It might have been the best FPS on N64, but that's saying very little.

  8. Re:WoW? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Bullshit. You obviously didn't grow up in the late 70's/early 80's.

    EVERYBODY played Pac-Man.

  9. Missing? by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Zork. It just has to be there. It's like having a basketball hall of fame, and not having Michael Jordan in it.

    Miner2049er. Again iconic.

    Myst, I'm not a big fan, but in it's time it was iconic.

  10. Interesting list of game choices by BevanFindlay · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmm. That list seems to make sense, though WoW is perhaps the outsider.

    But, what about Asteroids, Space Invaders, even Street Fighter? Civilization or Sim City? No love (yet) for strategy games at all, which should probably start with either those or Dune II, or perhaps something from the Command & Conquer series (either C&C1 or Red Alert 1). Although, maybe I'm a bit too much of a geek - quite likely, Age of Empires would beat some of those to the list.

    However, these, and most of the other suggestions being made, are more about iconic or revolutionary (started a genre) games, as opposed to simply famous. And, they put the requirement of it influencing outside culture (so recognisable by more than gamers). The Sims, Minecraft, Sonic, and yes, as much as we geeks don't want to admit it, Angry Birds (as derivative as that is - i.e. there's no Scorched Earth, a much earlier artillery game) are all legitimate nominations I think. Perhaps they might have had less ire if they kept to solely classic games for the first round, although I do remember hearing something about an unofficial WoW theme park in China... Interesting that WoW gets in before Warcraft though.

    I can see how difficult it would be to be objective on something like this, so I applaud their attempting it, even if I don't entirely agree with the choices. Maybe they included WoW to try and have something relevant to a modern audience? (Although, arguably Minecraft is more recognisable today, if perhaps still a little new. I expect it will get there soon enough though).

  11. Re:WoW? by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wouldn't have existed if it weren't for adventure games either. At least one of them should have been on the list. Either Zork or Colossal Cave. MMOs are too new, with huge fanbases that go after each others' throats like it was politics. Adventure games was a full genre that includes later RPGs and MMOs and MUDs, and whatnot.

  12. Re:WoW? by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't believe they didn't include Goldeneye on those criteria. The game made more money than the movie, and brought the multi-player deathmatch model to the masses

    No, stop right there. The masses didn't have an N64, so the masses couldn't even play Goldeneye. It was the least popular platform of the generation. That the game made so much money on it is a testament to its popularity, but it's another thing that nobody but gamers knows about. If you say Goldeneye, they will say "movie".

    Goldeneye was also an awful game compared to FPSes on the PC at the time. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Goldeneye was the defining moment in the "Console vs. PC Master Race" war, although we didn't call it that. That's the precise moment at which the split occurred. Console gamers were all excited by their new toy, and PC gamers were looking at them like "are you new?"

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"