Video Game Hall Of Fame

All discussions regarding Board, Card, and RPG Gaming, including industry discussion, that don't belong in one of the other gaming forums.

Moderators: The Preacher, $iljanus, Zaxxon

Post Reply
User avatar
tgb
Posts: 30690
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:33 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ

Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by tgb »

The 15 finalists for the first group of inductees is up and it's already a joke.

Angry Birds, Pokemon, and WoW instead of Civilization, Ultima IV (or any Origin title for that matter), and Adventure? The Sims instead of Sim City?

This list was either compiled by a)a bunch of 20 year olds or b)the people who run the Rock & Roll HoF
I spent 90% of the money I made on women, booze, and drugs. The other 10% I just pissed away.
User avatar
PLW
Posts: 3058
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:39 am
Location: Clemson

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by PLW »

I agree with most of their selections. You need to have a representative for each sub-genre.

MMORPG: Clearly, WoW is the most famous MMORPG and belongs on there.
Action RPG: Zelda
Side-Scroller: You can drop Sonic, since Mario can represent the side-scrollers.
Casual/touch: I think Angry Birds is a perfect representative here
Resource Management: I'm with you.. out with the Sims and in with Sim City or Civ. Maybe a sub-category for each??
FPS: Doom makes sense to me.
Stand-up Arcade: Gotta be Pacman
Proto-game: Pong
Sport: FIFA
Ed: Oregon Trail
Puzzle: Tetris
Micro-Building: Minecraft (Is this a big enough sub-genre?)

Missing:

CRPG: ??? They definitely need a classic CRPG
Adventure: ??? Zork ??? (This genre was dead for a while, but seems to be going through a bit of a rebirth, with Take 2)
User avatar
tgb
Posts: 30690
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:33 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by tgb »

To my thinking the first wave in any hall of fame should be the innovators. Was there a 4X game before Civ or a RTS before Herzog Zwei? I think not. Having Angry Birds in there instead of either of those is like inducting ABBA into the R&R hall instead of Chuck Berry.
I spent 90% of the money I made on women, booze, and drugs. The other 10% I just pissed away.
User avatar
Blackhawk
Posts: 43501
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:48 pm
Location: Southwest Indiana

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by Blackhawk »

It doesn't look like a bad list to me. In the Hall of Fame's own words:
The World Video Game Hall of Fame recognizes electronic games that meet the following criteria: icon-status, the game is widely recognized and remembered; longevity, the game is more than a passing fad and has enjoyed popularity over time; geographical reach, the game meets the above criteria across international boundaries; and influence, the game has exerted significant influence on the design and development of other games, on other forms of entertainment, or on popular culture and society in general. (A game may be inducted on the basis of the last criterion without necessarily having met all of the first three.)
Those games all meet those criteria, and are standout examples of them. Maybe The Sims isn't your thing, but The Sims had a tremendous impact on gaming. It put gaming PCs into a lot of houses that never would have had them otherwise. A quick bit of researchery shows that The Sims 1, 2, and 3 account for three of the top ten best selling PC games of all time.

They may not be something we old timers would call the height of the genres, but it isn't a Hall of Art or Hall of the Best, it is a Hall of Fame. You could walk into any group of people, and there would be someone there who has heard of, and probably played, every game on that list. Herzog Zwei? Whazzat?
(˙pǝsɹǝʌǝɹ uǝǝq sɐɥ ʎʇıʌɐɹƃ ʃɐuosɹǝd ʎW)
Zenn7
Posts: 4447
Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:15 pm
Location: Michigan

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by Zenn7 »

tgb wrote:To my thinking the first wave in any hall of fame should be the innovators. Was there a 4X game before Civ or a RTS before Herzog Zwei? I think not. Having Angry Birds in there instead of either of those is like inducting ABBA into the R&R hall instead of Chuck Berry.
First Reach for the Stars was a 4x? Thought there were a couple more obscure examples earlier than that - all before Civ?

And I've been a fairly avid computer gamers since the mid/late 80s (I was around when D&D Gold box games first started coming out) - don't recall Herzog Zwei though?
User avatar
Hipolito
Posts: 2187
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:00 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by Hipolito »

By the HoF's own criteria, the list makes sense to me. The only one that struck me as weird was The Sims. I know it's very popular, but was it really that far-reaching and influential? But then Blackhawk mentions this:
Blackhawk wrote:Maybe The Sims isn't your thing, but The Sims had a tremendous impact on gaming. It put gaming PCs into a lot of houses that never would have had them otherwise. A quick bit of researchery shows that The Sims 1, 2, and 3 account for three of the top ten best selling PC games of all time.
which I hadn't known. So I guess The Sims does deserve to be inducted.

Future hopefuls not yet mentioned:
Starcraft (for the effect it had internationally, particularly in Korea)
Warcraft III (accidentally invented two genres, the MOBA and the tower defense! Or maybe Starcraft should be credited for this, too)
User avatar
Blackhawk
Posts: 43501
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:48 pm
Location: Southwest Indiana

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by Blackhawk »

Half-Life. It represented a huge change of direction for FPS titles, was the core out of which many very popular games were modded (Team Fortress Classic/2 and Counterstrike come to mind) and was a big, big seller.

Halo. It was a mediocre shooter with a silly story, but it was not only one of the two or three best selling shooter series of all time and included the first and second highest selling XBox games, it was also the reason that shooters on consoles became a thing in the first place.

Either Medal of Honor: Allied Assault or Call of Duty. One is one of the biggest franchises and most popular online games evar, and the other was directly responsible for launching it while again changing the direction of the genre.

The Ultima series was a huge thing, especially if you count Ultima Online and the Underworlds, but they seem to be targeting only individual games, not series as a whole.

Baldur's Gate cast Raise Dead on the whole computer RPG genre.

Elder Scrolls is a huge selling RPG series, and was a major influence in the development of open world games.

Battlecruiser because Derek Smart said so.

Broken Age. Regardless of whether it was good, it launched a whole new business model for games that has led to some really, really great titles.
(˙pǝsɹǝʌǝɹ uǝǝq sɐɥ ʎʇıʌɐɹƃ ʃɐuosɹǝd ʎW)
User avatar
El Guapo
Posts: 41247
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by El Guapo »

What, no Daikatana?

Anyway, Civilization should definitely be a first-round inductee. Otherwise the list seems fine.
Black Lives Matter.
User avatar
Jag
Posts: 14435
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 3:24 pm
Location: SoFla

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by Jag »

If they don't have kingdom RUSH. It's probably the HOF guys.
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Video Game Hall Of Fame

Post by TheMix »

Blackhawk wrote:Battlecruiser because Derek Smart said so.

That got a chuckle. :lol:

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
Post Reply