Inducted Games

Sid Meier’s Civilization

Inducted Year: 2022 Steeped in the tradition of early strategy board games from companies such as Avalon Hill, including one called Civilization from 1980, Sid Meier sought to develop a computer game that allowed players to “build an empire to stand the test of time.” The game had a scope far vaster than that of other simulation games of the era, such as SimCity or MicroProse’s own Railroad Tycoon.Spanning centuries from 4000 BC to AD 2100, Civilization offers a unique opportunity […]

Ms. Pac-Man

Inducted Year: 2022 In 1980, Pac-Man captivated popular culture around the world with its mesmerizing but accessible gameplay and its cute, dot-munching hero. Millions of players fell in love with this simple maze chase game. And yet, most video game critics would agree that Ms. Pac-Man, which came out in 1982, is not only the better game but the more culturally significant one as well. In terms of playability, Ms. Pac-Man improved on its predecessor in several ways. There were now four […]

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Inducted Year: 2022 Released in 1998 for Nintendo 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the first of the series to feature 3D graphics. Led by Shigeru Miyamoto, Ocarina of Time set a new standard for games with its freedom of movement in a three-dimensional world that felt expansive and vast, laying the foundation not just for the action games that would follow it, but for the gaming industry as a whole. As implied by its title, Ocarina of Time […]

Dance Dance Revolution

Inducted Year: 2022 Music has been an integral part of human life since prehistoric times, so it comes as no surprise that musical games enjoy a unique popularity that spans ages, genders, and regions. Children play “Musical Chairs” and “Hot Potato” at birthday parties, while adults compete in karaoke competitions and “Name That Tune” trivia contests. Rhythm games invaded the electronic market in the 1970s, with many early games following the “call-and-response” method popularized by Ralph Baer’s Simon (1978). In 1987, Human […]

DOOM

Inducted Year: 2015 DOOM shaped the course of gaming history. Led by John Carmack and John Romero, the development team at id Software created a landmark game in 1993 that popularized the first-person shooter genre. Games like GoldenEye 007 (1997), Half-Life (1998), and Halo (2000) followed in the footsteps of DOOM. DOOM was more than just a commercial success—it also pioneered key aspects of game design and distribution that have become industry standards. The game’s designers created a game “engine” that separated the […]

Pong

Inducted Year: 2015 By most measures of popular impact, Pong launched the video game industry. A simple game involving two paddles and a ball, Pong introduced millions to the joys of playing video games. Although it was not the first electronic game, and the Magnavox Odyssey home console already featured a similar tennis game, Pong was the first game to grab wide-scale public attention. Its success launched Atari into a preeminent role in the video game industry. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell conceived the […]

Grand Theft Auto III

  Inducted Year: 2016 Grand Theft Auto III’s vast open world made it famous while its mature content made it infamous. It wasn’t the first 3-D “sandbox” game to allow players to freely interact with an open virtual world, or even the first game in its juggernaut franchise. But the 2001 game was the first of its kind to achieve massive mainstream popularity and widespread critical acclaim by appealing to millions of players who relished the freedom to push the boundaries of what […]

The Oregon Trail

Inducted Year: 2016 As the longest-published, most successful educational game of all time, The Oregon Trail has blazed a path for the use of video games in learning. Three student teachers, Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger, created The Oregon Trail in 1971 to help Minnesota schoolchildren learn American History. First programmed on a primitive teletype printer, the game challenged students to assume the role of Western settlers crossing the continent on the way to the Pacific coast. Players had to […]

The Legend of Zelda

Inducted Year: 2016 Inspired by creator Shigeru Miyamoto’s childhood expeditions through woods and caves, The Legend of Zelda popularized non-linear, open-world exploration games and paved the way for some of the industry’s most famous role-playing and action-adventure games. Originally released in 1986 as a flagship game for the Famicom Disk System, Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy—known worldwide as The Legend of Zelda—became one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises. Zelda serves as a coming-of-age story for the protagonist Link, who must gather […]