Representing the old school, new school and multiple generations in between, six influential games were honored Thursday as the inaugural World Video Game Hall of Fame class.
“Doom,” “Pac-Man,” “Pong,” “Super Mario Bros.,” “Tetris” and “World of Warcraft” comprise the first group of inductees, the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., announced. The class covers everything from first-person shooters to arcade classics to massive multiplayer online role-playing games, giving a nod to gamers of all ages.
The field wasn’t without controversy, of course. Nobody is more passionate about superficial things (like hall of fame inductions) than hardcore video game players, and the list of supposed snubs is lengthy.
Popular games like “Pokémon,” “Halo” and the “Madden” series were left out, as were more modern games like “Minecraft” and “Angry Birds.”
“‘Pokémon’ got a lot of comments in particular because of its longevity and because it’s become such a pop-culture phenomenon,” Shannon Symonds, associate curator for the Strong, told the New York Daily News. “‘The Legend of Zelda’ was another because it has also been around for so long.”
This is just the inaugural class, so we’d stress patience to anyone getting too worked up over which collection of 1s and 0s made it into the hall of fame this time. We’d also stress that those people go outside for a change.
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@GameInformer
