In this edition of Tech Time Warp, we look at how The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York announced this year’s 12 finalists’ induction into the World Video Game Hall of Fame this month.
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.
The organizers invited the public to vote on the finalists. An international selection advisory committee will consider the top three vote-getters. The hall of fame will induct four video games in May, and The Strong will then permanently display them.
The 2024 finalists include Asteroids, released in 1979, and the best-selling Atari arcade game of all time; SimCity, the 1989 predecessor to fellow inductee The Sims, both developed by Maxis. Then there is Guitar Hero, released in 2005 and the first of 14 games featuring a guitar-shaped peripheral. Also, there’s You Don’t Know Jack, the 90s game that gave the Trivial Pursuits of the 80s some edge.
Video game nostalgia
The World Video Game Hall of Fame is quite the nostalgia trip:
- Naturally, Pong was among the first class of inductees in 2015. The success of the arcade game, first installed in 1972 at a bar in Sunnyvale, California, led to the first Atari home console and the birth of the video game industry.
- The most successful educational game of all time, The Oregon Trail was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016. The impact of The Oregon Trail is so immense. As a result, individuals born between 1977 and 1985—a micro-generation—are sometimes called the Oregon Trail Generation.
- In 2021, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?—another edutainment favorite of the Oregon Trail/Xennial Generation—joined the hall of fame as one of the first games with a menu-driven interface.
If a trip to Rochester isn’t in the cards for you anytime soon, you may peruse the hall of fame inductees on The Strong’s website.
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Photo: Anton27 / Shutterstock
