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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.
I disagree with WoW being on the list. All others are legit entries.
Life is not for the lazy.
when did a hall of fame for games get created that wasn't just some guy's opinion?
Where is this?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
No love for Maniac Mansion? It was the 1st game using the scumm engine... WOW being there is weird indeed.
Duke Nukem Forever!!!
Missle command, asteroids, Battle Zone, after burner, Tempist, Defender, centipeede, Warlock, Tron, SeaWolf, Rally-X, gauntlet, mortal combat, track and field, street fighter, q-bert, shamus, Ali-baba and the 40 thieves, Star raiders, Lode runner, ???
I'm personally curious about why they started with such a short list of inductees. I strongly support WoW's inclusion, but it does seem weird to include in the first six versus the history of gaming itself. Angry Birds being on the list of finalists angries up my blood. Why Doom instead of Wolfenstein?
a small division of the Universe.
No Battletoads?
Space Invaders, Defender and Tempest see the obvious omissions to me...
Anyone play Grave Robbers on C-64 datasette, that's the best game ever.
look how many gamers found out about girls because of just one game!
No Half-Life or CS? or Unreal for that matter.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
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.
[...]
Of the 15 finalists that were announced in late April, nine did not have what it took to be inducted at this time. Those titles included: The Legend of Zelda, Minecraft, The Oregon Trail, Angry Birds, FIFA, Pokemon, The Sims, Sonic the Hedgehog and space Invaders.
I question whether any sports game will ever truly belong in the video game hall of game; if anything it would probably be Golden Tee, which probably has done more to bring video gaming to old white farts than any other title. But I think it's clear that Zelda, Minecraft, Pokemon, The Sims, and Space Invaders all belong in the hall of fame by this criteria.
Back on the subject of sports games, since I feel I have to defend my statement; the games don't influence society, the sport does, and the games are one of the results. For the USA, NBA JAM is one possible contender. The NBA JAM video game jokes have [just] begun to leak out into popular culture, naturally via comedy. But I was just at the Salvation Army facility at Lytton Springs, doing a little crap shopping, and one of the things that fell out of a bin while I was rummaging was a little minecraft pick icon about 2" across. That shit is everywhere. Space Invaders is a common meme, Zelda is goddamned Zelda, Pokemon WTF seriously it's Pokemon, and holy shit The Sims. Probably better than a 1 in 10 chance that any random woman you meet on the street knows what a plumbob is.
I propose the following criteria: if you can break the internet by searching for cosplay of a particular video game, it gets into the HoF. That means Zelda is definitely in.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You are so right about that one, AC. Specifically, SF2, which is where it really went nuts in the market with all the modded machines and so on. That game really created the modern fighting game phenomenon. I know, people out there are now pounding tables and shouting about MK, but SF was a major thing before MK.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Doesn't matter. It was nominated because it broke down barriers and opened up MMO's to the mainstream. All MMO's prior to WOW were niche and pretty much only played by nerds and hardcore gamers. WOW shattered that, opened them up to mainstream, and had a 10-year run. While I don't agree with what WOW has become in the latest expansion (it's a terrible game now), you can't deny the influence it's had on the market and it had a very successful run (that is now ending, but that's also beside the point).
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.
Personally I think XCOM should have been picked over WoW. It's super iconic, consistently ranks as one of the best videogames ever made, and I would argue has had more influence on video game development than WoW.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
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.
It was also the best selling console game of the year for two different years, if I remember correctly, which is saying a lot.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Doesn't exist. Look at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: https://rockhall.com/inductees.... Do you agree with all of these? Can you name some that should be there, or perhaps should be there instead?
It looks to me like the first 6 inductees are all games even many non-gamers would have heard of. MY MOM knows about WoW, she's in her 70s and the only video game she has ever played is Words with Friends. I guarantee you that she and most people like her wouldn't know any other MMO.
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).
The only reason it was even remotely popular is because it's a blizzard game.
You can tell how boring and flash-in-the-pan it was by the way half the people who played that game were subscribed for more than a year.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
It's at 6 megasubs right now. No fucking past tense dude. I'm not a fan of their recent changes (and I turned off all my accounts months ago), but get your shit together. It's hugely popular right this second.
Scrolling? Mini-maps? Complex game play? Proof that gamers were ready for hard-core games? Media coverage at tournaments and long-play events? Half a dozen song references? Game of the Year? 2nd highest grossing arcade of all time?
Left off the list?
Seems legit.
100+ comments, and no mention of Elite?
As the title says: Dungeon Master.
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
No versus fighting games? Blasphemy!
Doom may have been more popular but it didn't really develop the genre. It was an incremental improvement hardly revolutionary.
This game pretty much single handily invented the Real-Time Strategy genre on PC. If it wasn't for Dune 2 game series like Command and Conquer, Warcraft and Starcraft would have never existed.
If a game is still entertaining 20+ years after being released it is a classic in my mind. Some games released today rely so heavily on graphics that they have zero replay value and just aren't that fun to play... but hey they look amazing!!! Dune 2 doesn't have the advanced AI or controls of current RTS games yet it still plays amazingly well for a game released in 1992.
Here's my forgotten nominee: Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer. Another game that brought interest in computers to a whole range of old white men who would otherwise have stuck with fly-tying.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Is it bad that my first thought was wondering which pack of SJWs was behind this excuse to narrate the history of our "thing" and hand out trophies to their friends?
WoW was not the first, but it did something in the modern era that nothing else really did.
It pushed it's presence into a household name. It's marketing was huge. People who didn't know the game, knew of the addiction.
DOOM wasn't the first. I mean Wolfenstein 3D was really more original. But DOOM had a far broader acceptance and influence long term.
***
I could see some others ...
For this era, I think Angry Birds might be a good candidate. Needs a few more years to see. But it went far beyond video game and became a fad.
TETRIS...
Halo Series
Usually, I immediately disagree with picks for this sort of thing. Not this time.
Both of them were first-in-breed and easily arguably best-of-breed for years after they were introduced.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
1) PONG -- the grand daddy 2) Tempest -- vector excellence 3) Pac-Man -- the king of main stream video game acceptance 4) Space Invaders -- the most time and quarters spent by me Honorable mention: Xevious: the second most time and quarters spent by me
because WoW is the only one I've had any interest in playing. My daughter showed it to me 10 years ago and I've been hooked ever since. World of Warcrack!
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Yaay! I loved Pang, with the bubbles and the harpoon and the globetrotting and everything!
Oh...
'Pong'...
never mind.
What about Spacewar!?
It's one of the most influential early interactive digital video games. Atari got started with a clone of it. (Outside of colleges, users found it confusing, but the experience gave Atari a head start.) It also influenced Asteroids, which it has a lot of resemblance to.
Table-ized A.I.
The entire RTS section of the gaming world is missing.
May I suggest Warcraft 1, or the predecessor Dune 2, or even the grandaddy of them all, Populous?
Populous was actually real time _strategy_. The rest were real time _tactics_ and micromanagement.
Just Epic -
Reversing a famous logic fallacy!
: )
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
E.T. better be on the list (Atari 2600)
Doom, but not Quake? Pac-man and Tetris, but not Space Invaders or Defender or Donkey Kong? WoW but not EQ or EVE? And no mention of any of the rogue-likes? Where is Civ, and Halo? I truly hope the curators are not going to commit the same kind of errors around inclusions and exclusions that rendered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame irrelevant. You know what I'm talking about -- The Who, but not Jethro Tull? Kiss, but not Deep Purple? Pink Floyd, but not The Moody Blues, ELP or Yes?
My first video game was Pong and I owned pretty much every console until I got a PC. According to the criteria WoW definitely shouldn't be in there and, IMO, Super Mario Bros too. WTF did WoW inspire? Orcs vs. Humans inspired Warcraft, Starcraft, WoW. We wouldn't even know Mario, Luigi, and crew if not for Donkey Kong. No Sim City? Hello...anyone remember The Sims? I get it that with so many titles to choose from the choices are difficult. This first round of inductees fails. I won't be making any plans to visit this place any time soon.