14 Games that changed the World

[ultima espio]

Saw this on another forum. Some guy from Yahoo games made a list of what he thinks are the games that changed the world. Our FFVII is in there at number 9 (Goes in order of release date)

Computer games have been changing our entertainment outlook for over three decades. We take a look at the gobsmacking moments that wrote history.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of computer and video games is that they are ever evolving, constantly surprising. Just when you think you’ve seen and done it all, something genuinely new and different arrives. Narrowing down so much history into a short list has been tricky to say the least. We’re sure to have missed out games that you care about and believe made just as significant an impact. Even so, we’re confident that the names you’ll see here reflect the very best of what has been, influencing what is to come, and we’d love to hear from you about others worth adding to the roster.


1.- Pong (Atari, Arcade, 1972) The infamous bat and ball game to light up television screens like never before. Although simple, the magic of ‘Pong’ is that it remains playable even to this day. Our first experience was the ‘Tele-Sports’ home console version that boasted “three different sounds” to “provide play-action realism”.

2.- Space Invaders (Taito, Arcade, 1978) Famously depriving the Japanese banks of small change, ‘Space Invaders’ was the first videogame phenomenon, paving the way for the likes of ‘Donkey Kong’ and ‘Pac-Man’. In its day the graphics were incredible, with bug-ugly aliens and flying saucers to shoot. It sounded amazing too.

3.- Tetris (Nintendo, Game Boy, 1990) Of the many versions that came before and after, nothing topped ‘Tetris’ on Game Boy for addictive quality, helped along by its radical portability. The game requires nothing more than the slotting together of simple-shaped blocks, but they arrive randomly at increasing speed. This was genius.

4.- Doom (id Software, PC, 1994) We know that ‘Wolfenstein 3D’ came first, but ‘Doom’ introduced the concept of multiplayer first-person-shooting to the masses. It has a universally popular theme of mankind versus the forces of evil, a dilemma taken care of by finding the biggest gun and honing skills to dodge and shoot.

5.- Mario 64 (Nintendo, Nintendo 64, 1996) When the world’s most recognisable videogame mascot popped from 2D to 3D it was almost too good to be true. Retailers at the time reported grown men crying upon the sight of it. Since Mario got to run, jump and climb in all directions there have been untold copycat games to endure.

6.- Tomb Raider (Core Design, Sega Saturn, 1996)
This was not only a superb action game, but the first to champion a female lead protagonist adored by men and women alike. Lara Croft is now a household name thanks to her Indiana Jones style adventuring on consoles and finding a place on the cover of numerous 1990s style magazines.

7.- Gran Turismo (Polyphony, PlayStation, 1998) With the realistic simulation of 180 beautiful cars Sony transformed the image of PlayStation from child’s play into the stuff of grown men’s dreams. You really had to learn how to drive the cars in ‘Gran Turismo’, passing license tests before earning enough cash to own heaven on wheels.

8.- Metal Gear Solid (Konami, PlayStation, 1998) One particular adversary made ‘Metal Gear Solid’ beyond brilliant for its time, a character that could move the DualShock controller using the power of his mind! But it was the stealth element that made ‘Metal Gear Solid’ famous, allowing you to drink in the detail while you sneaked around.

9.- Final Fantasy VII (Square, PlayStation, 1998) With one particular heart-breaking scene this game pulled at the heart strings and was therefore unforgettable. There were also the landmark cinematic cut-scenes that seamlessly transitioned into interactive scenarios, and a colossal eco-quest boasting wonderful heroes and wretched villains.

10.- Halo: Combat Evolved (Bungie, Xbox, 2001) Although first-person-shooters were nothing new to consoles, ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ proved they could be done just as well than on PCs, and proved monumental. It heralded the arrival of Xbox, giving Microsoft a strong foothold, inspired acclaimed novels, and almost a Peter Jackson movie.

11.- World of Warcraft (Blizzard, PC, 2005) More than a game, ‘World of Warcraft’ (‘WOW’) has become a vocation for its most dedicated fans. It presents a persistent world of fantasy and magic in which you ride out as a wide range of mythical beings to combat the monsters of Azeroth or fight player versus player on a massive scale.

12.- Wii Sports (Nintendo, Wii, 2006) Nintendo was first to wave its magic wand with a ground-breaking new console and the must-have game along with it, ‘Wii Sports’. You use authentic gestures to play tennis, bowling and boxing using motion-control instead of complicated buttons. As with ‘Pong’ the appeal is timeless.

13.- FarmVille (Zynga, Facebook, 2009) The social experience of ‘FarmVille’ keeps its devotees hooked; a cute farm simulation it may be but that’s only half the story. It is the dip-in for 10 minutes formula that keeps ‘FarmVille’ compelling, with coffee breaks dedicated to ploughing, planting, harvesting, and raising live stock to sell.

14.- Kinect Adventures (Microsoft, Xbox 360, 2010) Okay, it hasn't changed the world yet but it could do. By using a full-body motion-sensing and sound recognition device ‘Kinect Adventures’ lets you take control without the need for any controller. The results are astonishing, as uncanny as when we first tried Wii, with players jumping, ducking and reaching in all directions to overcome fun obstacles.
What else should be on this list?
These are the games that changed everything for us. Feel free to shout for ones that you feel are sorely missing, or to share memories of the ones already on the list.

LOL Farmville xD

[yoshi314]

i fail to see the impact of farmville. harvest moon was around years earlier and it was insanely mundane.

mario64? seriously? i can understand super mario on nes that people really remember.

‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ proved they could be done just as well than on PCs, and proved monumental. It heralded the arrival of Xbox, giving Microsoft a strong foothold, inspired acclaimed novels, and almost a Peter Jackson movie.

oh yes, having "almost a movie" sounds important.

and didn't doom already prove you could have a shooter on a console?

oh well, there are too many games i disagree on.

i must admit the oldest games on the list are well deserved. tetris was around earlier, though.

[Kudistos Megistos]

mario64? seriously? i can understand super mario on nes that people really remember.

Damn you! I was about to say that!

How that idiot came to the conclusion that Mario64 is more important than the game that created the whole platforming genre is beyond me. I think he might be confusing "games that changed the world" with "games I like".

[guitar_dudester91]

Also, I think Duke Nukem should be on their somewhere, although it certainly is close to Doom. And Farmville? WTF? the game that women can get addicted to? Ha geez.

[DLPB_]

For the most part that list is pretty good I think

[Kudistos Megistos]

I've noticed something else as well:

The list is supposed to out the games in chronological order, but it puts MGS before FF7. That's wrong, right? I'm sure FF7 came out roughly a year before MGS.

[BloodShot]

I don't agree with this list, mostly because of WoW, and Halo. There were much better MMOs before WoW came around, all wow did was make them popular by blizzards huge fanbase and ridiculous amount of advertising. Asheron's call is a prime example of an MMO that surpasses WoW in every way.

And Halo? Don't make me laugh, all halo proves is you can take a generic story, a horrible concept artist and virtually the most uncreative minds that ever existed, and it could still be a successful game just because it is on a console. If anything, yes halo changed the world, because it set a standard to dumb down the quality of fps games more so than ever before.

I do agree with some such as doom, MGS, and FF7, however i would revise this list. I would put Quake 1 on here, seeing as it was the game that defined the online shooter scene, as it was the first game to successfully implement it's online capabilities, and spawned thousands of mods, many of which were simple that became standard in games such as CTF, or Team fortress type gametypes and games. Most multiplayer games you see and their gamemodes you can almost guarantee were originally some form of a mod for Quake 1. And yes, people actually played mods online back then.

I would also add The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall - as that game was another defining point in gaming. Like Arena before it, It showed that you could create a deep role playing experience in a computer game, and it improved upon Arena in almost every way. It also introduced one of the most creative character creation systems to date, and the game itself is more complex then the games that bare the same name after it, namely oblivion.

[Kudistos Megistos]

I don't agree with this list, mostly because of WoW, and Halo. There were much better MMOs before WoW came around, all wow did was make them popular by blizzards huge fanbase and ridiculous amount of advertising. Asheron's call is a prime example of an MMO that surpasses WoW in every way.

The list is about games that changed the world, not games that are good. Since I've never heard of Asheron's Call, I'm going to guess that it didn't change the world as much as WoW did.

[Marc]

I would also state that Halo had a major impact on gaming :

1) Created a completely new console (without Halo, where would xbox be ?)
2) Revolutionnized console FPS to actually make them playable on consoles.  Anything before Halo on console is fairly painfull.

However that's not to say I agree with the whole list.  Super Mario Bros should have been there.  Tomb Raider could have been replaced by better adventure titles (Zelda comes to mind).  And FarmVille and Kinect adventures ?  Really ?

Dance Central would be a much better execution of Kinect based on early reviews.  And Guitar hero probably should have made the list.  Created a whole new genre.  Maybe even DDR to a lesser extent. 

As for FarmVille, Wii Sports is already the epithome of casual gaming.  Why put another ?

[BloodShot]

The list is about games that changed the world, not games that are good. Since I've never heard of Asheron's Call, I'm going to guess that it didn't change the world as much as WoW did.

Yes i know some of my list was more about good games, but, aside from Asheron's call, Quake was a game that changed the world. Quake popularized the online shooter market much more so than doom, and introduced the multiplayer mod scene and spawned vast clones of the mods in the form of games.

Doom is more well known for making shooters what they are today - it did support multiplayer, but only for 4 players over a phone line (or was it 2, i don't remember) - I won't deny that part of it's impact was the introduction of deathmatch - but quake improved upon that, especially due to Quake's vastly improved multiplayer network model, and in its prime it had more players than many games, console or PC today have.

The only reason it probably isn't heard about as much today is due to the game itself in gameplay being so similar to doom (aside from visual style and environments of course)

[nfitc1]

List is fail for lack of Ocarina of Time and Minecraft.

[Jaitsu]

being quite young compared to others, my views may seem stupid and different, but i think fable was influental simply due to it kind of, bringing morphing systems into the more public view, this and kotor in that retrospective (you could easily be one mean ass baddy or a super good guy or anything in between). i know there are games before them that did this but to be honest it wasn't until these two games's popularity that i even realized that genre of style existed.

[BloodShot]

being quite young compared to others, my views may seem stupid and different, but i think fable was influental simply due to it kind of, bringing morphing systems into the more public view, this and kotor in that retrospective (you could easily be one mean ass baddy or a super good guy or anything in between). i know there are games before them that did this but to be honest it wasn't until these two games's popularity that i even realized that genre of style existed.

For Super good - super bad i would probably say fallout 1 was one of the firsts - as for being young, I'm the same age as you guy 

I've just had a chance to play a lot more old game's than most people.

[pyrozen]

Quake I should most definitely be on this, and i would almost say Quake II as well. I totally agree that the mods created for these two games not only laid all the framework for online multiplayer, but the people who designed them are now the captains of industry for many of the large game studios. I miss the good ol days of online multiplayer when mods were extremely plentiful, and everything was still original and fresh. Now, everything seems just like a rehash of the same old things.

[Covarr]

Farmville, eh? Considering all it did was rip off Farmtown, and pour a ton of money into advertising, I wouldn't really say it changed  the world, more that Farmtown did and farmville stole the credit.

[Jaitsu]

being quite young compared to others, my views may seem stupid and different, but i think fable was influental simply due to it kind of, bringing morphing systems into the more public view, this and kotor in that retrospective (you could easily be one mean ass baddy or a super good guy or anything in between). i know there are games before them that did this but to be honest it wasn't until these two games's popularity that i even realized that genre of style existed.

For Super good - super bad i would probably say fallout 1 was one of the firsts - as for being young, I'm the same age as you guy 

I've just had a chance to play a lot more old game's than most people.

i approve!

[Shankifer]

I don't agree with this list, mostly because of WoW, and Halo. There were much better MMOs before WoW came around, all wow did was make them popular by blizzards huge fanbase and ridiculous amount of advertising. Asheron's call is a prime example of an MMO that surpasses WoW in every way.

When people say, "I play WOW." People generally know what that means, and if they don't people definately know what World of Warcraft is. WoW has changed the world because not only did it blow Runescape (Which might be a decent addition to the list, considering it was the best well known thing before WoW) out of the water with graphics and gameplay, it also added a sense of personality to the way each person plays the game. You can celebrate holidays with pointless games. You can find humor in a lot of places on WoW as well. I would say Rush on Seven Episodes (R.O.S.E Online) should be here too if more people knew about it, millions played but it went Pay2Play until WoW came out. Also, look at how many games were affected by WoW! Other MMORPG hosts had to go free2play because of WoW.

And Halo? Don't make me laugh, all halo proves is you can take a generic story, a horrible concept artist and virtually the most uncreative minds that ever existed, and it could still be a successful game just because it is on a console. If anything, yes halo changed the world, because it set a standard to dumb down the quality of fps games more so than ever before.

Halo Revolutionized FPS. It put forth a story that had decent flow. It was marketed bigtime so it got peoples attention, and as XBConnect grew as the first "Xbox Live" people who bought this game for marketing reasons got a taste of the offline multiplayer sensation. Then people who loved the game found XBConnect, allowing you to play with random people, and 9/10 times get your ass kicked. Halo was the game that really got XBL on the move I think, Microsoft seen the amount of money they could me making and stepped in.

I would also add The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall - as that game was another defining point in gaming. Like Arena before it, It showed that you could create a deep role playing experience in a computer game, and it improved upon Arena in almost every way. It also introduced one of the most creative character creation systems to date, and the game itself is more complex then the games that bare the same name after it, namely oblivion.

I would agree, if only this game had been more appeasing to all audiences. I loved all Elder Scrolls games. I believe that elves and orcs and choose your own adventures are usually never heard of much. Oblivion was an enormous success, but still most people don't know what it is. Not like WoW. Although, I would choose Morrowind to make popular instead of Daggerfall. Morrowind's Modability on the computer and a little on the xbox made it a little more popular. It's ironic that with all the modders out there, at one time my Morrowind looked graphically better than oblivion

Guitar hero probably should have made the list.  Created a whole new genre.  Maybe even DDR to a lesser extent. 

As for FarmVille, Wii Sports is already the epithome of casual gaming.  Why put another ?

Guitar Hero - Yes
DDR - Maybe, I feel like people know what it is, but it's only impact on gaming is that people liked to go to the mall and watch people DDR all the time.

Farmville - Social Network + Mindless Game = Zynga's Market
Farmville has changed the world for gaming, but I think Zynga has changed it more. In the U.S. the majority of Farmville and other Zynga game players are unemployed parents. So in a sense that it has brought in a new regime of gamers that normally wouldn't be playing (Especially sons and daughters of farming families, they're currently turning 40ish and they've only dabbled in gaming along the way, farming and a game is what they've been waiting for.) Wii Sports added exercise to a gaming console and Marketed it like holy shit.

[yoshi314]

only thing i think of when i think "farmville" (aside from harvest moon) is this http://www.ninjapirate.com/article/farmville

if i were to make a list i would do something like this

pong - probably first game that people could play at home
tetris - spawned an entire genre, and probably paved way for logical games
mario/supermario (whatever it was called initially) - platforming games
resident evil/alone in the dark - laid out foundations for horror/survival horror games.
doom - multiplayer fps, also along with wolfenstein 3d and other games from that time, started shareware games for people to try out.
quake - first game that offered such incredible modding potential, and introduced the console. probably the first 3d game that separated the actual engine from the game logic, allowing users to modify the latter.
fallout - a good rpg. a post apocalyptic setting. retro style.   all these elements are now often present in video games.

max payne - bullet time, and one of the first shooters with a really good story and mood.
metal gear (msx) and metal gear solid - probably first games that oferred stealth, and non-violent approach.

dungeons and dragons - first game that had a boss opponent
gran turismo - one of the first games that really strived toward realistic racing. maybe not the first one, but that one is remembered as one of the first.

quake3/unreal tournament - fps games that completely ditched single player experience and pushed forward online gaming. i hate them

final fantasy 7 - it was the game that opened the western market for japanese rpg's. also called "the game that sold the PlayStation" - does that require an explanation?

un-honorable mentions :
daggerfall2 - a game that people waited for, and was ridden with bugs and glitches. and never really got fixed. we have lots of games following that "trend" nowadays. they just don't make the games like they used to.

[Kudistos Megistos]

I was thinking about this thread earlier this morning, and I wondered about the person who wrote that list.

Does anyone else get the feeling that he is a newcomer to gaming whose first console was the N64 and who's only including a few old games because of the stories he's heard about them? That's the impression I'm getting.

[BloodShot]

un-honorable mentions :
daggerfall2 - a game that people waited for, and was ridden with bugs and glitches. and never really got fixed. we have lots of games following that "trend" nowadays. they just don't make the games like they used to.

While I admire your effort put into the list and agree with most of it, i disagree with this about daggerfall. When you play without any patches It is horrendously buggy yes, but with the latest patch and the unofficial fixes most of the bugs are fixed. Some remain, yes, such as occasional quest bugs but the only really notable problem is the void (which, i might add, has a workaround if you press alt+f11). One of the reasons it was considered the best rpg of 96 was because most of the problems people had with the game on release were fixed. I play it now, and people dramatically over-exaggerate how buggy the game is. In my experience, Oblivion crashes more often for me than Daggerfall. Morrowind was definitely probably the most stable of TES games though.

It just bothers me when i find these people won't play it because they have heard how glitchy it is, when most people who actually play it find it is perfectly fine. There are, however, a lot of people who just don't get the patches and assume that the one bethesda distributes is patched so that could contribute to the influx of  "DIS GAEM IS DE BUGGIEST GAEM EVR"

[Tekkie.X]

His top ten is valid, the others get a big fat nope.avi

[Kudistos Megistos]

His top ten is valid, the others get a big fat nope.avi

That's because he's biased towards more recent games, which is one of the reasons why I think he only got into gaming in the mid-to-late 90s. Ten of the 14 are from 1996 onwards and there isn't a single game from the 80s or single game from the NES, SNES or Megadrive, despite earlier games having a natural advantage when it comes to changing the world.

[Bosola]

Off the top of my head?

* Death Race (1976) was one of the first controversial videogames. Players would actively seek to run over pedestrians, who would shriek in pain and turn into gravestones.
* Custer's Revenge (1983) was one of the next. The object of the game: as a naked General Custer, avoid the arrows and get to the woman, whom Custer would then rape. This was possibly the first sexualized videogame, and one of the first to explicitly involve a criminal and sexual act.
* 3D Monster Maze (1981) - usually recorded as the first three-dimensional videogame.
* Doom (1993) - beyond popularizing first person shooters, Doom revealed the potential of online multiplayer gaming. MIDI MAZE (1987) used the Atari ST's MIDI OUT and MIDI in ports to afford up to 16 player deathmatches in a FPS, but Doom was the first to truly popularize the idea. Doom also fostered a huge modding community, and defined the arsenal of weapons common to today's combat-orientated games.
* Thief: The Dark Project (1998) - not just an early stealth game, but one of the first videogames to truly exploit the idea of a usable environment. Shadows and and sound were not just for drama, but actually impacted on core gameplay mechanics. On a similar note, Half-Life (1998) likewise placed an emphasis on interactive environments that would impact on weaponry choices, as well as the power of scripted sequences.
* World of Warcraft (2004) - by no means the first MMORPG, nor the best, WoW still stands on this list thanks to its sheer impact on gaming-related culture. No other RPG has spawned so many references, comics, jokes, media or so penetrated the popular psyche.
* DHTML games () - these hosted the very first browser games... leading to Flash games... leading to casual puzzlers... mobile device games... etc. Alas, I haven't been able to find the 'very first browser game'. Anyone got any leads?

[gjoerulv]

I could probably google it, but what the hell is farmville? It sounds kinda familiar... Should I feel stupid for not knowing? 

[Mirenheart]

I could probably google it, but what the hell is farmville? It sounds kinda familiar... Should I feel stupid for not knowing? 

nope, you not knowing just helps to prove that farmville does not belong.