Slashdot Mirror
The World Video Game Hall of Fame 2016 Inductess
Reader Dave Knott writes: The World Video Game Hall Of Fame has announced its inductees for the year 2016, the second group of games to be so honoured since the award's inception in 2015. The Hall Of Fame "recognizes individual electronic games of all types -- arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile -- that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general". This year's six inductees are: Grand Theft Auto III, The Legend of Zelda, The Oregon Trail, The Sims, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Space Invaders.The Sydney Morning Herald has more details.
Dammit !!
Here lies andy; peperony and chease
I'll take this Hall of Fame seriously when they induct Nethack.
I mean, really, if *any* game deserves to be in a hall of fame, it's the longest-lived and longest continually maintained game of 'em all... not to mention one of the most complex and hardcore.
I can see the fnords!
Turn-based RPGs in general have been jobbed: no MUDs, Zork or Final Fantasy...yet. But the hall's criteria of "on popular culture and society in general" might keep those classics out until after we see Angry Birds, Candy Crush and that crappy farm game on Facebook who's invites finally drove me off that social platform get in.
How in the world can they be taken seriously if they did not induct Galaga, Asteroids, and Zork?
It's a troll. The exact same message is getting posted in all the stories.
While these are nice picks for the hall of fame, they do have a 40+ year history to pick inductees from.
I wonder how many years before they exhaust the obvious picks and start scraping the barrel? Like the Guiness Book did with the recent "world record for time spent in VR".
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Same reason Doom got added instead of Wolfenstein. Wolf3D was the first. But DOOM was a bit more revolutionary. And became a broader household name.
SimCity was the first, but The Sims was a larger commercial success. We nerds played Sim City, all the average folk played The Sims. I can see World of Worldcraft being one of the most successful Multi-User Environment games. But I agree that a few others are critical enough to have come before GTA3 or Diablo.
I would consider the following noteworthy:
- Zork and in mention it being the pre-curser of MUDS/MOOs
- Civilization, was pretty noteworthy in it's mass appeal as an online strategy game.
- Pitfall, this was the super-Mario of it's day. For the resources, this game offered amazing complexity
- Minecraft - this game has altered children's childhood. If you're not a parent, you do NOT understand.
- Gauntlet, this kind of was the go-to 4 playerco-op arcade game. Not sure if it was the 1st 4-player co-op game. But it was the most common one if it wasn't.
- Myst (this brought the Zork text based games into a visual realm on a mainstream level)
- Final Fantasy - mainstream RPG-esque game. This game sold consoles in it's day.
- Angry Birds for the phone platform. This game really made game purchasing on phones common in mainstream, I mean it basically was the commercial for smart phones as game consoles. It opened the door to many of other genres.
- Halo, no not the first person shooter. They were on PCs for ages. But arguably the first first person shooter on a console to replicate the dynamic that was expected on PCs and to become so mainstream, that it essentially foot the bill for the Xbox marketing wise.
Eve, not mainstream enough, but perhaps unique enough for a 3 or 4th round pic
Driving Games, Need for Speed, what? I think no one has held this role for long enough, but it's a key genre. But is there really a best of class entry?
Spy Hunter - Why oh why, but I want this game here. In the day, it was far cooler than so many other games. It was the go to C64 game. Is it noteworthy? But the music...in a day and age when there wasn't music. And let's be honest, who of you reading this is not now hearing the "neeeeeener....neee neee neeeh neh neh neeeeerrrrhhhh" sound in their head. And now cursing and swearing at me for getting it stuck there. So perhaps we could give it credit for most brain sticking 8-bit soundtrack. But let's be honest, what was so unique about Spy Hunter, especially on the C64? I think it was the fact that every C64 featured that game, and no one paid for it. It was like the poster child of cracker groups unlocking games for free (albeit illegal) distribution.
Tom Raider - marketed to girls, I mean to us overweight geeks stuck at home with not friends to hang out with.
Their argument for GTA about games letting you do anything and breaking the mold to say that video games were just for adults. Well gee, Leisure Suit Larry? So really I think their biggest criteria is mainstream, at least in a given era. And I think all of the above were mainstream in their day.