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The Strong’s World Video Game 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.
Inducted: 2024 In 1978, Taito/Midway’s Space Invaders filled Japanese and North American arcades, knocking Atari off its throne as the king of coin-operated video games. Atari could have capitalized on the Space Invaders […]
View DetailsInducted: 2024 Most games reward action, but Myst was something altogether different. The brainchild of brothers Robyn and Rand Miller, it gave players the chance to explore a haunting world in order to […]
View DetailsInducted: 2024 Although not the first horror-themed video game, Resident Evil (or Biohazard as it was known in Japan) was the first game to popularize what game publisher Capcom called the “survival horror” […]
View DetailsInducted: 2024 Simulations are some of the oldest forms of video games, but few have had the popularity, influence, or staying power of SimCity. The germ of the idea for SimCity came from designer Will […]
View DetailsInducted: 2024 Ultima: The First Age of Darkness designer Richard Garriott seemed almost destined to create immersive video game worlds. The son of a professional artist and a NASA astronaut who had spent 60 […]
View DetailsUltima
Inducted: 2024 Ultima: The First Age of Darkness designer Richard Garriott seemed almost destined to create immersive video game worlds. The son of a professional artist and a NASA astronaut who had spent 60 days on the Skylab space station, Garriott grew up in a community of engineers and scientists who, like his father, worked at the Johnson Space Center near Houston, TX. As a boy, Garriott began making immersive Halloween and other holiday displays after entering a recreated witch’s chamber […]
View DetailsSimCity
Inducted: 2024 Simulations are some of the oldest forms of video games, but few have had the popularity, influence, or staying power of SimCity. The germ of the idea for SimCity came from designer Will Wright’s earlier work on the game Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984), in which he found playing with the map editor he made as much fun as playing the game itself. Fueled by an interest he developed in the ways cities grow and evolve—and the impact city planning […]
View DetailsResident Evil
Inducted: 2024 Although not the first horror-themed video game, Resident Evil (or Biohazard as it was known in Japan) was the first game to popularize what game publisher Capcom called the “survival horror” genre. Created by game director Shinji Mikami and released in 1996, Resident Evil’s combination of cheesy B-movie dialogue, engrossing gameplay, and chilling suspense made it a favorite of gamers searching for more mature video games. In 1993, Capcom producer Tokuru Fujiwara tasked Mikami with remaking the company’s 1989 […]
View DetailsMyst
Inducted: 2024 Most games reward action, but Myst was something altogether different. The brainchild of brothers Robyn and Rand Miller, it gave players the chance to explore a haunting world in order to decipher the mystery behind its creators. Featuring more than 2,500 beautiful, evocative screens, it boasted a level of depth and immersion never before seen in computer games. In the 1990s, consoles dominated the video game market but as it turned out 1993 was an annus mirabilis (wonderful year) […]
View DetailsAsteroids
Inducted: 2024 In 1978, Taito/Midway’s Space Invaders filled Japanese and North American arcades, knocking Atari off its throne as the king of coin-operated video games. Atari could have capitalized on the Space Invaders craze by producing yet another clone, but when Atari executive Lyle Rains discussed with designer Ed Logg his idea for a new and different space-themed video game, they planted the seeds for one of the most popular video games of all time, Asteroids. Released in November of 1979, […]
View DetailsWii Sports
Inducted: 2023 If Atari’s Pong (1972) helped usher in the video game revolution with a simple tennis game, more than three decades later Nintendo’s Wii Sports returned video games to the masses with simple, though unique versions of tennis, bowling, baseball, boxing, and golf. Released in 2006 and bundled with Nintendo Wii home video game consoles sold outside of Japan, Wii Sports best demonstrated how the company redefined the way video games could be played. Relying on a motion-sensitive Wii Remote, Wii […]
View DetailsThe Last of Us
Inducted: 2023 Post-apocalyptic settings and zombie enemies have cropped up in countless popular video games, not to mention books, films, and television shows. So it can be difficult to imagine how a newcomer could put a distinct stamp on the genre or offer an original experience for experienced gamers. In 2013, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us accomplished this feat. The game brought together motion capture technology, skilled voice acting, and layered storytelling to create an affective, character-centered journey of survival […]
View DetailsComputer Space
Inducted: 2023 There was no video game industry in 1970. The games that we’d now call video games were still mostly locked away on computers in university and research labs, inaccessible to the public. Engineering student Nolan Bushnell played the most popular of these games, Spacewar! (1962), in a computer lab in the 1960s. The game’s spaceships—dueling in cosmic combat while orbiting a star—captivated the young Bushnell. Having worked summers at a Utah amusement park managing coin-operated pinball and arcade games, […]
View DetailsBarbie Fashion Designer
Inducted: 2023 In 1996, at a time when most games were marketed toward male players, Barbie Fashion Designer proved that a game designed for girls could succeed. Widely acknowledged as the first market success in games for girls, in two months the game sold over 500,000 copies, outselling contemporary market leaders like Quake and DOOM. A market success, the game made $120 million in the first year. Barbie Fashion Designer bridged the gap between the digital and the physical. Players used the […]
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