2021 Nominees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame Announced

This year’s nominees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame have been announced by the Strong National Museum of Play, and many of these game titles will be extremely familiar names for gaming fans. The winners will be announced on May 6th, with three games from the list of 12 nominees joining the 28 existing members of the Hall of Fame. The nominees are –

Animal Crossing
Call of Duty
Farmville
FIFA International Soccer
Guitar Hero
Mattel Football
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Pole Position
Portal
StarCraft
Tron
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

The Hall of Fame is meant to recognize electronic games of all types – arcade, console, computer, handheld and mobile – that have been popular over a long period of time and have had an influence on the gaming industry or on popular culture in general. The finalists will be voted on by a group of gaming journalists, with several factors being taken into consideration. There is also a Player’s Choice public vote which will be open till 25th March, for fans to pick their favorite and most impactful games from this list.

Before getting into the merits of some of these games, it is also important to note the progress being made in the gaming industry. We are already seeing the adoption of new technology at an unprecedented scale to improve the gaming experience. Games using VR and AR are far more frequent now, as consoles and computers which can support these technologies become cheaper, which is helping to open up a whole new world for gamers in quite a literal sense. Game developers are also using other real-life developments to increase the appeal of their games, which can be seen in the video slots category. Here, most developers are now creating games that integrate cryptocurrencies, allowing players to place bets through crypto. A bitcoin slot game is therefore becoming more and more popular as a result, and this use of relevant and trending technology is the way in which the gaming industry will stay in the news, and draw more fans over time.

Some of the games on this list are more famous than others, while the cultural impact of some can be debatable. Animal Crossing, for example, was hardly a huge immediate success for Nintendo, but it has become a cultural phenomenon over the last year. The likes of Call of Duty and Microsoft Flight Simulator are games that are played even today, over a decade from their launch, and have spawned multiple sequels as well that have continued to be popular. On the other hand, Mattel Football was a big hit when it was launched in 1977, but it can argued that hardly anyone outside of hardcore gaming fans would know about it today. Guitar Hero is another game that was a huge success upon launch, and has had a big impact on popular culture as well, but as a game, has barely been played over the last decade. Thus, there are various considerations for the judges to factor before they make their final decision.

Last year’s winners were Minecraft, Bejeweled, Centipede and King’s Quest, showing that there is the chance for smaller games that were nevertheless praised for their technical and design achievements to make it onto the list, which would give fans of Portal hope this year. The puzzle game sold over 4 million copies and was widely lauded for its design and overall accomplishments in terms of dialogue, plot and characters. In any case, no matter which games are selected, this honor is a great way to appreciate the gaming community, and so we will need to wait for May 6th to learn who the latest inductees into the Gaming Hall of Fame are.