What is the most influential video game of all time?

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

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.

Yeah, what I meant about debate on artful design was in general that influence based on games as an art is an approach to the OP that I didn't consider, but that games could be argued for that reason. It wasn't in response to my own points from earlier.

 

[Apple34]

I'm going to say Everquest. And also Sony Online Entertainment more generally.

Everquest basically created online social interactions for the mainstream audience, pre-dating facebook and stuff by 5 years I believe, and was a really compelling hardcore RPG that made gaming more accessible to everyone. It would later be eclipsed by World of Warcraft, which was when you would hear celebrities talk about playing video games like WoW and stuff.

Then you had Riot make League of Legends based off WC3 and Blizzard's stuff. But SOE also made H1Z1 which was the first battle royale, and Lords of Everquest was I think was even more Hero oriented than WC3.

I think it's only a minority audience that talks about Metroid and pong and Ocarina IMO, those were indeed very influential games in a literal sense, but in terms of both sales dollars and influence if you leave that OG gaming space (people that grew up with an NES or Atari or SNES), and venture outside a bit into the youtuber community and stuff IMO it all goes back to Everquest.

Now of course WoW doesn't have many subscribers as it once did, but basically a kind of global phenomenon happened while again IMO a minority of people were pre-occupied with whether Symphony of the Night is the true revolution in gaming sorta discussion.

It just depends on how you measure influence I think if you mean literally just only on game design it might not be everquest, but influential on people's minds and actions in addition to some game design I'd say Everquest. It goes along with like Britney Spears and all things 1999 the Matrix etc as like these mass cultural phenomena that exceeded their place as just music, cinema, gaming, respectively.

Despite all the efforts to return to Japanese games to the mainstream with, well, uh, Zelda and the Switch, as well as Souls likes and stuff, it would take a lifetime of steady progress to reach the heights of influence of social media and stuff like that.

 

[Daku Rinku]

I'm going to say Everquest. And also Sony Online Entertainment more generally.

Everquest basically created online social interactions for the mainstream audience, pre-dating facebook and stuff by 5 years I believe, and was a really compelling hardcore RPG that made gaming more accessible to everyone. It would later be eclipsed by World of Warcraft, which was when you would hear celebrities talk about playing video games like WoW and stuff.

Then you had Riot make League of Legends based off WC3 and Blizzard's stuff. But SOE also made H1Z1 which was the first battle royale, and Lords of Everquest was I think was even more Hero oriented than WC3.

I think it's only a minority audience that talks about Metroid and pong and Ocarina IMO, those were indeed very influential games in a literal sense, but in terms of both sales dollars and influence if you leave that OG gaming space (people that grew up with an NES or Atari or SNES), and venture outside a bit into the youtuber community and stuff IMO it all goes back to Everquest.

Now of course WoW doesn't have many subscribers as it once did, but basically a kind of global phenomenon happened while again IMO a minority of people were pre-occupied with whether Symphony of the Night is the true revolution in gaming sorta discussion.

Woah haven't heard Everquest in age! One of my good friends and his dad were major Everquest players. So that is how I even encountered it. From what I watched, I can see it being highly addictive.

 

[Apple34]

It's still going too, made 20 million dollars a couple years ago or something. I dropped in recently and it's still honestly a little bit addicting I think. I wish I had played Everquest Online Adventures also but otherwise I played all their games.

 

[Daku Rinku]

It's still going too, made 20 million dollars a couple years ago or something. I dropped in recently and it's still honestly a little bit addicting I think. I wish I had played Everquest Online Adventures also but otherwise I played all their games.

I did like you point about if you go outside console gaming that what you would claim as the most influence game of all time a PC game. It may be better to say the Most Influential Console Game and the Most Influential PC/Other Game.

In my assessment of the former, I am inclined to say Halo 2 is contender for console, because the Online play, and the Campaign with a twist in who you play as protagonist is pretty epic.

 

[LongHairedFreakyGuy]

I think the issue with this topic is the title itself, and that you seem to be wanting just one definitive answer, as apposed to the reality that there's a plethora of games that have formed and shaped the gaming world over time, and could also be determined by how pedantic you really want to be. Like, the first answer was OOT, which was in many ways 'groundbreaking', but I could then argue that a few days before that came Body Harvest, a game that spawned one of the world's biggest selling game franchises, a game that at that time felt like you had so much freedom in a 'massive' world, piloting multiple vehicles to traverse the map and meet your objectives. On the flip side, I might be wrong, but I believe OOT was the first ever game to introduce context sensitive buttons, which could also be deemed as influential in the most miniscule sense by modern standards.

I think 90% of games are influenced in some way by ones that have come before them.

 

[thePlinko]

I think the issue with this topic is the title itself, and that you seem to be wanting just one definitive answer, as apposed to the reality that there's a plethora of games that have formed and shaped the gaming world over time, and could also be determined by how pedantic you really want to be. Like, the first answer was OOT, which was in many ways 'groundbreaking', but I could then argue that a few days before that came Body Harvest, a game that spawned one of the world's biggest selling game franchises, a game that at that time felt like you had so much freedom in a 'massive' world, piloting multiple vehicles to traverse the map and meet your objectives. On the flip side, I might be wrong, but I believe OOT was the first ever game to introduce context sensitive buttons, which could also be deemed as influential in the most miniscule sense by modern standards.

I think 90% of games are influenced in some way by ones that have come before them.

I think that’s what makes it such an interesting question. There are so many different games that reasonably could be considered “the most influential” that everybody will likely have a different answer based on their own subjective criteria for “influential.” Limiting it to just one game invites discussion on it.

 

[Apple34]

I did like you point about if you go outside console gaming that what you would claim as the most influence game of all time a PC game. It may be better to say the Most Influential Console Game and the Most Influential PC/Other Game.

In my assessment of the former, I am inclined to say Halo 2 is contender for console, because the Online play, and the Campaign with a twist in who you play as protagonist is pretty epic.

I think PC gaming led to like Minecraft and ultimately a lot of independent games, mobile games, in addition to the social media network stuff.

I just think it's crazy the influence MMORPGs in general have had. It kind of changed a lot of people's lives with online interaction and led to sort of gaming as a lifestyle as opposed to just a hobby.

But yeah consoles and handhelds did their own thing the whole time, and in that space Halo was pretty momentous.

In fact if I were to focus on console games I'd say the most influential have been NES Super Mario 1, then probably Castlevania SOTN.

With Super Mario 1 it basically established the core trajectory/formula in like all console games, which is like, 1-1, intro tutorial level, ramping difficulty, secrets, bonuses, like so many things are just in like every single console game.

I would actually say also the most influential games are Pac Man, Space Invaders, and Street Fighter 2, but those ended up being more flashes in the pan I think. They're really epic and important but I don't think people were in a hurry to build off Space Invaders and Pac Man so much as use them as springboards to make their own kind of interactive game. Street Fighter 2 for fighting games was really big but then fighting games became niche.

I think after SOTN would be Ocarina of Time, as the primordial 3D action game.

It's kinda lame because I like Ocarina the best, but I think people got fixated on the combat possibilities and so they made strictly combat oriented 3D games like Devil May Cry and later the souls series whereas the original Ocarina had more of an immersive exploratory/unique feel to it.

 

[grunder]

It's Ocarina of Time. I have seen many developers talking about that like Shinji Mikami that made the resident evil franchise and also I can see influences of Death Stranding in Tears of the Kingdom. Meaning that not even TLoZ is afraid to get influenced by AAA games anymore because it was there influencing them with time paradox and breaking the forth wall all the way back to 1997-1998.

 

[Daku Rinku]

It's Ocarina of Time. I have seen many developers talking about that like Shinji Mikami that made the resident evil franchise and also I can see influences of Death Stranding in Tears of the Kingdom. Meaning that not even TLoZ is afraid to get influenced by AAA games anymore because it was there influencing them with time paradox and breaking the forth wall all the way back to 1997-1998.

Yay! Someone else said Ocarina too! *Plays Song of Time*

 

[Apple34]

Well I'd say Ocarina third most influential console game still, funny how I was writing that and two more people jumped in with it.

I think it's strictly a more hardcore gamer thing, I remember being the only person with an N64 at my school and playing Ocarina it wasn't like the NES days where everyone had Mario or a bit later when everyone had a playstation or playstation 2 kinda feel.

And yet even though it wasn't played as much, it magically ended up being kind of how tons of games were designed.

I just can't overlook how different all the 3D action games were different in sorta spirit from Ocarina (except, of course, other 3D zeldas like WW and TP), which I think coincides with it not being super popular per se when it was released. It simply wasn't as cool a style as PS1 games or as hard nosed gameplay wise as Super Mario World 2 and stuff which is what people would really get into.

I think there's a youtuber that even is pretty popular and went all out just saying well Ocarina is just sort of a bad game and a step back from A Link to the Past, it's like whoa, and just how many top overview action games are there even total compared to 3D action games. It must be like 1:50,000.

 

[Daku Rinku]

Well I'd say Ocarina third most influential console game still, funny how I was writing that and two more people jumped in with it.

I think it's strictly a more hardcore gamer thing, I remember being the only person with an N64 at my school and playing Ocarina it wasn't like the NES days where everyone had Mario or a bit later when everyone had a playstation or playstation 2 kinda feel.

And yet even though it wasn't played as much, it magically ended up being kind of how tons of games were designed.

I just can't overlook how different all the 3D action games were different in sorta spirit from Ocarina (except, of course, other 3D zeldas like WW and TP), which I think coincides with it not being super popular per se when it was released. It simply wasn't as cool a style as PS1 games or as hard nosed gameplay wise as Super Mario World 2 and stuff which is what people would really get into.

I think there's a youtuber that even is pretty popular and went all out just saying well Ocarina is just sort of a bad game and a step back from A Link to the Past, it's like whoa, and just how many top overview action games are there even total compared to 3D action games. It must be like 1:50,000.

But influence doesn’t just mean everyone had it. It did infuences games, Assassin’s Creed’s time travel owes to Ocarina paving the way, hack n slashing fighting games owe Ocarina, fishing games owe Ocarina, mounting horses in games owes Ocarina cuz of Epona.

 

[Rubik]

I'm gonna go with a weird pick and say Maze/Maze War. Was this a game most people have played? No. But it's a game that broke a lot of ground in the video game space.

It's the first 3d first person game, considered by many to be the first 3d fps (or at least considered an an ancestor of the genre). It was the first online multiplayer game (predating the internet). The game was the first to have a leader board, first to have a top down mini-map, it had in game chat, people trying to cheat and anti-cheat protections, AI players, avatars for other online players, it was the first game with a level editor, etc. At one point it got banned because it was too popular.

In all honesty, the game probably isn't actually the most influential game of all time, but it is impressive just how much new ground it broke and it very well could have made some of those things the staples of gaming that they are today.

 

[grunder]

I just can't overlook how different all the 3D action games were different in sorta spirit from Ocarina (except, of course, other 3D zeldas like WW and TP), which I think coincides with it not being super popular per se when it was released. It simply wasn't as cool a style as PS1 games or as hard nosed gameplay wise as Super Mario World 2 and stuff which is what people would really get into.

Something that plays a big role is how influential was between game developers, so they develop games being influenced by Ocarina of Time. This way many gamers have been influenced by Ocarina of Time. They just don't know it.

 

[ExLight]

Probably hard to say if there's been a most influential game of them all, but maybe it can be broken down by console generation/ game genre?

if we do mean overall I'd say the first answers that come to mind are super mario, tetris, and pacman