World Gaming Hall of Fame class of 2024 revealed

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — The World Video Game Hall of Fame inducted its 10th class of honorees Thursday, recognizing Asteroids, Myst, Resident Evil, SimCity and Ultima for their impact on the video game industry and popular culture .

The inductees have made their debut over the decades, advancing technologies along the way and increasing not only the number of players, but also the ages and interests of those at the controls, Hall of Fame officials said. fame by revealing the winners. The Hall of Fame recognizes electronic games of all types: arcade, console, computer, handheld and mobile.

The Class of 2024 was selected by experts from a pool of 12 finalists that also included Elite, Guitar Hero, Metroid, Neopets, Tokimeki Memorial, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and You Don’t Know Jack.

This honor for Atari’s Asteroids comes 45 years after its arcade debut in 1979, where it was Atari’s best-selling coin-op game. The game’s bright space-themed graphics and sound effects went from over 70,000 arcade units to millions of living rooms when a home version of Asteroids was made available on the Atari 2600 .

“Through countless variations and remakes across dozens of arcade, home, handheld and mobile platforms, Asteroids has created a simple yet challenging rock-blasting game into one of the most popular video games ever. most played and most influential games of all time,” said Jeremy Saucier, assistant vice president for interpretation and electronic games at the Strong Museum, home of the World Gaming Hall of Fame.

The next inductee to debut was Ultima, not necessarily a household name but a force in the development of the computer role-playing genre, director of digital preservation Andrew Borman said in the press release. Designed by Richard Garriott and released in 1981, Utima: The First Dark Ages inspired eight sequels and is credited with inspiring later role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

SimCity, inspired by urban design, was launched by Maxis in 1989 and found an audience among adults and children who were challenged to build their own city and solve problems. Among the sequels and offshoots it inspired was The Sims, which was inducted into the World Gaming Hall of Fame in 2016.

“At a time when many people viewed video games in terms of arcade shooters or console platformers, SimCity appealed to gamers who wanted intellectually stimulating fun on their newly purchased home computers,” said Aryol Prater, a research specialist in black gaming and culture.

The adventure game Myst sold over 6 million copies, making it one of the best-selling computer games of the 1990s. The 1993 Broderbund version used early CD-ROM technology and allowed a level of player immersion that was previously unavailable in computer games, the Hall of Famer said.

“Few other games can match Myst’s ability to open up imaginative worlds,” said Collections Manager Kristy Hisert. “It’s a work of artistic genius that captured the imagination of an entire generation of video game players, and its influence can be seen in many of today’s open-world games.”

The last winner, Resident Evil’s “cheesy B-movie dialogue, gripping gameplay, and bone-chilling suspense”, helped popularize the “survival horror” genre after its release by Capcom in 1996 and provided mature entertainment for older teens and adults, video game curator Lindsey Kurano says. Created by the game’s director Shinji Mikami, it also inspired a series of action and horror films that, as of 2022, had grossed more than $1.2 billion, according to the Hall of Fame.

Anyone can nominate a game for the World Gaming Hall of Fame. Members of an international selection advisory committee submit their top three choices from the list of finalists. Fans are also invited to give their opinions online. The public as a whole is treated as a single member of the committee.