Mar 12

Video Games as Cultural Artifacts

Is That Just Some Game? No, It’s a Cultural Artifact: Video games now have an official-ish Hall of Fame.

On Thursday at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Mr. Lowood announced a game canon, an idea that grew out of a proposal submitted to the Library of Congress in September 2006 by a consortium made up of Stanford, the University of Maryland and the University of Illinois. […]

Mr. Lowood and the four members of his committee — the game designers Warren Spector and Steve Meretzky; Matteo Bittanti, an academic researcher; and Christopher Grant, a game journalist — announced their list of the 10 most important video games of all time:

  1. Spacewar! (1962)
  2. Star Raiders (1979)
  3. Zork (1980)
  4. Tetris (1985)
  5. SimCity (1989)
  6. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
  7. Civilization I/II (1991)
  8. Doom (1993)
  9. Warcraft series (beginning 1994)
  10. Sensible World of Soccer (1994)

Wot?! No Project Gotham Racing 3?!? Doooodz, I pwn at that game!!!

All kidding aside, this is a good idea. If we’re going to name films are cultural significant, it’s only a matter of them before video games deserved the same honor.

by Deane   March 12, 2007 9:50 AM   |

Comments

by ccs178 (Chris),   March 12, 2007 11:32 AM  

Hmmm...No Space Invaders? Pong? Pac Man? Breakout?

by Sid Viscous,   March 12, 2007 12:41 PM  

Aaahh....Zork.

I remember it well - played it on my snazzy Commadore 64! Text based version of the game that was really quite impressive. I could type any comment or question and it would have some sort of response that made some sense (especially when I got the reply "real adventurers don't use that kind of language) it was a good laugh!

by confused,   March 12, 2007 1:28 PM  

Sensible World of Soccer? Did I miss something?

by grr,   March 13, 2007 8:38 AM  

Re #1: It looks like these are all computer games and that arcade games aren't included. I guess they're not significant. :p

by Mark Poling,   March 14, 2007 12:11 PM  

I would have included Myst. And yeah, "World of Soccer"? Guess they needed something from the EU.

Add Comment

Want to advertise on this site? Contact FM.
Web Hosting Web hosting, dedicated servers and Web design services
Laser Toner Cartridges UK laser toner, toner cartridges, hp toner, lexmark toner, samsung toner, canon, toner, epson toner, oki toner, kyocera toner, xerox toner, remanufactured toner, compatible toner
Direct TV Deals Free 4 room direct tv deals. no equipment to buy. free fast professional direct tv installation. this is the best direct tv deal available anywhere.
SEO Article Learn from the experts with our SEO article.
rope light Shopping with birddog distributing, inc., gives you access to the lowest prices, the best customer service and the quickest delivery times possible.
Laptop AC Adapter We offer genuine factory direct replacement AC adapters.
Direct TV Best satellite TV deals.
Direct TV Deals Direct TV programming deals are varied and include packages containing from 50 channels up to over 250 channels.
8mm film to DVD Retain family memories with the only frame by frame digital restoration service in the United States for your 8mm film to DVD today
Rubber Stamp Shop for custom self-inking stamps, hand stamps, address stamps, label stamps, check endorsement stamps, check deposit stamps, date stamps, pre inks, pocket stamps, ink and much more!