What is the most influential video game of all time?

[Daku Rinku]

Well sure. From a game design perspective SMB is easily the winner here, but the simple fact that Pong was first means that every video game ever exists because it did.

I think there are a handful of other games you could reasonably choose too. Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Tennis for Two, etc. Heck, maybe even the Game&Watches


I think you’re really overestimating how much of a role that sensitivity played on impacting later FPS games

Have you played Tens of Thousands of hours on each Halo? Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST, and Reach. Sensitivity was the difference between life and death against the best players. We even uped ours to 7 or 10 (Max) [in the menu system of the Halos, not a mod] to move faster with the joysticks in sensitivity.

 

[thePlinko]

Have you played Tend of Thousands of hours on each Halo? Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST, and Reach. Sensitivity was the difference between life and death against the best players. We even uped ours to 7 or 10 (Max) to move faster witj the joysticks in sensitivity.

Right, I’m saying I don’t think OoT had much of an effect on that.

 

[Daku Rinku]

Right, I’m saying I don’t think OoT had much of an effect on that.

I am making the argument it was a forerunner in the sensitivity needed in FPS via archery..

 

[Riven]

Super Mario Bros.

 

[Vanessa28]

This is my personal opinion but I remember when the very first Donkey Kong was a big hit and everybody wanted to play that game. For that time it was a gaming revolution. Maybe that one? I don't know

 

[grunder]

Ocarina of Time. As said by many artists like Shinji Mikami, Kejii Inafune.
Since then a lot of things changed but we have to give prompts to the first game that broke so many fourth barriers with that little ocarina we had.

 

[Guinea]

Tetris and Dr. Mario led to the creation of Puyo Puyo which led to the creation of the greatest video game ever made: Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine!!!

So Tetris is the most influential and it's not even a debate.

 

[Daku Rinku]

This is my personal opinion but I remember when the very first Donkey Kong was a big hit and everybody wanted to play that game. For that time it was a gaming revolution. Maybe that one? I don't know

There is a movie about how Donkey Kong did make video games major.

 

[Vanessa28]

There is a movie about how Donkey Kong did make video games major.

Yes! Is it on netflix? Because I remember it. Haven't seen it but I saw it popping up

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I think most of the common ones that get brought up are in the conversation already: Pong, Tetris, Super Mario Bros., Zelda 1

I think if we rip away nostalgia, and move away from looking at games that pioneered only one genre it boils down to this.

Argument 1: Tennis for Two, by virtue of being the first videogame invented, though it wasn't patented and didn't have commercial success.

Argument 2: Pong because it was the first commercially successful video game ever and launched video games as a viable source of entertainment.

Argument 3: Doom because it's what popularized (not invented) the FPS genre, which I know conflicts my earlier statement of not considering games that are genre specific, but shooters are modernly the most played genre of gaming which makes it relevant. This of course could shift in the future and the answer would change to whatever ushered in the commercial popularity of the genre that ends up taking a large grip.

Argument 4: Space Invaders because it's currently the largest grossing videogame of all time with inflation adjusted.

 

[Mikey the Gengar]

Adventure for the atari
So influential that people think the games it influenced are influential

Alternatively, pokemon. Most influential in terms of how much of a global cultural phenomenon it is, even if it has only some influence on the gaming industry

 

[Commander_Has]

I say pong. It showed that games could be for more than just military's use.

 

[thePlinko]

Argument 1: Tennis for Two, by virtue of being the first videogame invented, though it wasn't patented and didn't have commercial success.

You could make the argument that it wasn’t even the first video game ever, as there were other computer programs before then that are functionally games too. The only difference is that Tennis for Two was the first one made with the express purpose of entertainment.

Argument 3: Doom because it's what popularized (not invented) the FPS genre, which I know conflicts my earlier statement of not considering games that are genre specific, but shooters are modernly the most played genre of gaming which makes it relevant. This of course could shift in the future and the answer would change to whatever ushered in the commercial popularity of the genre that ends up taking a large grip.

So the thing about Doom is that it’s influence is less about the way it was designed (I mean Wolfenstein basically already did everything Doom did years prior) and more about the way it was marketed and distributed. It was wildly influential, but more towards industry standards than game design as an art form I think.

Either way, I think if you’re willing to include Doom as a potential argument then the original SMB should be there too, since its influence didn’t just effect a single genre, but the basic principles of modern game design as we know it today.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

So the thing about Doom is that it’s influence is less about the way it was designed (I mean Wolfenstein basically already did everything Doom did years prior) and more about the way it was marketed and distributed. It was wildly influential, but more towards industry standards than game design as an art form I think.

If we dig into game design as an art form that brings in a whole other metric to the question for sure that I left out, but also probably brings in individual taste and a variety of answers as a result, because not everyone might agree that certain games are artfully designed. We'd also need to establish what boxes a game needs to absolutely check off to be considered a masterful work of art, which again, may vary from person to person.

Either way, I think if you’re willing to include Doom as a potential argument then the original SMB should be there too, since its influence didn’t just effect a single genre, but the basic principles of modern game design as we know it today.

That's definitely fair about SMB, and I suppose the other argument for it would be the Mario franchise is the highest grossing video game franchise of all time.

 

[thePlinko]

If we dig into game design as an art form that brings in a whole other metric to the question for sure that I left out, but also probably brings in individual taste and a variety of answers as a result, because not everyone might agree that certain games are artfully designed. We'd also need to establish what boxes a game needs to absolutely check off to be considered a masterful work of art, which again, may vary from person to person.

Well I’m not really debating whether or not it was artfully designed as much as I am saying that the objective qualities of the game itself weren’t as influential as the method of distribution. I don’t think that’s subjective at all. It’s similar to pong in that the game itself wasn’t as influential as everything surrounding the game.

That’s not to say that I think you’re wrong for putting Doom on the list, I just think that it belongs there for different reasons than you do.