Bafta: "we’re asking players from around the world to help us decide the Most Influential Video Game of All Time."
The most influential video game of all time - Bafta
I bet noone's gonna mention the great grandfathers of modern RPGs. Bard's Tale, Ultima, Dungeon Master... all modern games are standing on the shoulders of giants.
While they're important, I think they've also aged poorly in many ways something like Doom has not. I'd compare their importance more to something like Pong or Galiga. Good games, that pushed the limits of the medium for their time, and are foundational, but more acted as a steping stone rather than something other games were widely inpired by or modeled after.
I wouldn't disagree that Doom is a very good choice here too. The fact that it has become a tradition and challenge to try to run Doom on all kinds of hardware alone proves how influential Doom is. However, I wouldn't say Dungeon Master has aged more poorly than Doom. Both games are really fun today I think. Dungeon Master is just way more niche, it's older, it had fewer players and the franchise has died a long time ago, while Doom is going strong. It's a tough choice and I admit I'm a bit biased here anyway - Dungeon Master was my first true love when it comes to video games.
"Aged poorly" was a bad choice of words. My point was more that the industry has moved on from them, and while some of the conventions are the same, its largely stuff that predates them. If you go back to retro RPGs when you're used to Skyrim, Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, ect. you'll be unfamiliar with much of how the game plays. Not much was carried over from these games specifically. I'd argue that the influential RPG, that would be the genre's equivalent to Doom, would be D&D. While not a video game, thats the model everything referenced, and still references, moreso than even Doom. It's what codified core mechanics like HP, classes, character stats, and more, in the same way Doom codified modern first-person mechanics, ammo management, and exploding barrels.
