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The most influential video game of all time - Bafta

www.bafta.org

The most influential video game of all time - Bafta

Video games’ influence on popular culture has never been more prevalent. Their effect is visible and audible in today’s music, across the world of TV and cinema, and on the catwalk. Even your favourite language-learning and fitness apps feature progression systems and rewards popularised by games. To reflect the medium’s universal impact, ahead of the 21st BAFTA Games Awards, we asked the public a provocative question : what is the most influential video game of all time?

As more than one responder said, it’s unfair to have to choose just one. Do you pick the pioneers that shaped the early days of the medium, the innovators that were ahead of their time, the ones that proved formative to your own creative journey, or simply the ones that made you most emotional? As might be expected, among the extraordinary number of responses we received was a staggering variety of games — ranging from titles that launched the industry to contemporary giants released mere months ago. The top ten alone spans multiple genres, from platformers to shooters, sandbox adventures to simulations.

So, without further ado, here are the public’s top 21: each of which, it’s fair to say, has had a seismic impact on games and those who play them…

38 comments
  • I get its a recency and public vote thing but KCD2 being on here is ... A choice. Not saying it's bad but most influencial? Over GTA? Mario 64? Half life 2? Lol

    • I think that one baffles me the most. They make an argument for Shenmue and even if I don't agree with it being on one, I can somewhat see why it's on the list. But KCD2 has no right to be on the list at all. As they state themselves, the game is not even two months old. We can't even remotely say what its long-term influence on the gaming industry will be. Though my money is on "none at all."

    • Yep this is extremely weird. Public voting is reaaaally bad at this. I'm sorry, but Minecraft has sold over 300 million times. That's literally 3.75% of the whole world's population. It's what a whole generation of kids grew up with, what shaped their minds massively.

      Shenmue has sold 1.2 million, I had never even heard of it (which admittedly is not a measure of influence, but it does mean something), and while it apparently was one of the first games with such an extensive open world, open worlds in general were already very desired, Shenmue didn't influence anything really, it just tried to do it on a more massive scale, and even failed spectacularly economically.

      Probably not a person on the world (that does computer games at all) exists who hasn't heard of Minecraft.

      It's quite obvious that Minecraft should be ranked higher than Shenmue, but this questionnaire quite obviously only reached a very old demographic.

      • Zero Punctuation as usual gets to the heart of the matter very effectively: https://youtu.be/g4Dw0Z2Dsts

        That’s for Shenmue 3. He actually made a separate video reviewing the original, but that one covers more of the history and context. TL;DR It has a devoted cult following of people who basically want a very specific type of gaming experience, but the specific game that was the first to give it to them just objectively is not very good at all as an interactive video game, which is why it has never been all that popular outside that little following. Some people trace to Shenmue the lineage of huge cinematic games that emphasize narrative, which I guess could be valid, but even a super-charitable reading shouldn’t put it anywhere near the coveted number 1 spot.

        Oh, you know what happened? I just realized, I hadn’t even read the introductory material and realized it was from a public survey. It’s a “first past the post” problem. Plenty of people had various lists of games they felt passionate about (and you can tell where the boundary is where “I played this game recently and I love it now so it is my favorite” started to distort the placement of some recent games), but anyone who had Shenmue anywhere on their list put it as the number 1 spot. And so, it won by bad voting algorithm. I can almost guarantee that each respondent was only allowed a single choice for most influential game.

        I actually think the list, with some exceptions, is remarkably accurate. It definitely isn’t perfect. There are also some big omissions, notably in old PC games that had a big influence or fleshed out new genres that have mutated since then, or gone extinct or something. I think they’re just outside of too many people’s memory at this point.

        Off the top of my head:

        • Ultima or Dungeon Master
        • King’s Quest or Monkey Island
        • Civilization
        • Battlefield 1942
        • Halo or Goldeneye
        • Counterstrike
        • Warcraft 2
        • Zelda 1
38 comments