Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, and World of Warcraft were the games listed in the first World Video Game Hall of Fame, revealed at The Strong museum in Rochester, New York yesterday, June 4.
These six games all come from different time periods. Pong is the oldest, which came out in 1972 while World of Warcraft has been around for only about a decade. The rest were launched in the 80s and 90s.
The contenders on the list were chosen by a committee which includes game experts, historians, journalists and scholars. The vision of the survey is to honor titles from various types of electronic devices, may they be played on arcade machines, consoles, desktop computers, handheld or mobile devices.
Those selected and awarded have maintained popularity over a period of time and have made an impact in the industry.
The six hall-of-famers come from a group comprising 15 finalists, which were narrowed down in April by gaming authorities from the thousands of games nominated.
Shane Rhinewald, spokesperson of The Strong stated that they were not able to show the individual votes of the finalists. He clarified that those who did not win can still be nominated next year, especially those that were part of the top 15.
"There were some very deserving games that did not make it this year. There was a high level of competition with the first class, as one can imagine," Rhinewald stated.
The Legend of Zelda, Space Invaders, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Sims were among the other video games that were also finalists.
Everyone has the chance to nominate a game to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. If none of their favorites got into this year's list, there's always next year.
For the 2016 class, nominations will be accepted until March 21, 2016.
