Alright, so picture this: It’s like Thursday or something (days blur, right?) and the Strong National Museum of Play is like, “Hey folks, check it out! We’ve got some new shiny names in our World Video Game Hall of Fame!” And what names? Oh, you know, just Defender, GoldenEye 007, Quake, and… wait for it… Tamagotchi. Seriously, how cool is that?
Let’s see, they had this whole list for 2025 nominees. I’m talking Age of Empires, Angry Birds (we all crushed some pigs, didn’t we?), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Frogger (can never forget hopping), Golden Tee, Harvest Moon (farming vibes), Mattel Football, and the legendary NBA 2K. Wild, right?
Apparently, these chosen four – and yep, I mean Defender, GoldenEye (remember the N64 controller cramps?), Quake (that was a trip), and Tamagotchi (those needy little guys!) – were picked for being mega influential. Museum’s like, “Look, they’ve kinda shaped popular culture AND the game industry.” Pretty big deal, huh?
They size up these games with some fancy criteria: icon-ness (not a word, I know), how long they’ve stuck around or bugged us, reach all over the map, and how much they’ve messed with our minds – influence-wise. And get this, Quake is, like, the second love child from id Software to join the hall’s gang; Doom kicked in the doors back in 2015.
This year, some judge-y types and curators chimed in about why these games rock so hard. Not kidding. It’s like a club.
Oh, and just a little side nugget for ya – since 2015, there’ve been 49 games inducted into this snazzy hall. Just last year, they rolled out the welcome mat for Asteroids, Myst (did anyone ever finish that?), Resident Evil (zombies!), Ultima, and the epic SimCity. Can you believe it? Pretty wild times for gamers and nostalgia nerds.
