Oolite Bulletins

Every so often I go onto Yahoo Games to play online Pool and I saw an article entitled 'Seven Games that changed the world'. Sounds interesting, I thought, so I checked it out:

1: Pong (1975)
2: Pac-man (1980)
3: Doom (1993)
4: Dance Revolution (1998)
5: World of Warcraft (?) (2004)
6: Guitar Hero (2005)
7: Wii Sports (2006)

WHAT!!!!! I have left a message in their feedback on the article asking if they actually researched anything in the 13 year gap between Pac-man and Doom and pointed them at the Wikipedia article for Elite. If anyone else feels that the game that, for most users of this forum, dominated our lives far more than Doom ever could, I recommend using their feedback form.

The cheek!!!

Captain Hesperus

It is a pretty big omission ... apart from anything else Elite must be the first (or if not the first then the first hugely popular) persistent-world sandbox game. Apart from text adventures – which of course cannot be said to be sandbox games, since you are totally constrained by the game plot – I can't think of any earlier games that allowed players to play in an open-ended universe, from a first-person perspective, saving their progress and continuing again from where they left off.

Captain Hesperus wrote:

Every so often I go onto Yahoo Games to play online Pool and I saw an article entitled 'Seven Games that changed the world'. Sounds interesting, I thought, so I checked it out:

1: Pong (1975)
2: Pac-man (1980)
3: Doom (1993)
4: Dance Revolution (1998)
5: World of Warcraft (?) (2004)
6: Guitar Hero (2005)
7: Wii Sports (2006)

This is a scandal! Where’s SimCity?

Yet another list of "unsurpassable" games that reflects nothing more than its creator's opinion.

Dance Revolution?! Come on, give me a break!

Surely WoW was not the first MMO.

Captain Hesperus

another_commander wrote:

Dance Revolution?! Come on, give me a break!

DDR is a reasonable choice as a representative for physical interaction games, but including both DDR and Guitar Hero seems to be stretching it.

I would have to drop WoW in favor of the original Warcraft, one of the first ever RTS games.

Ahruman wrote:

another_commander wrote:

Dance Revolution?! Come on, give me a break!

DDR is a reasonable choice as a representative for physical interaction games, but including both DDR and Guitar Hero seems to be stretching it.

And Wii Sports.

Captain Hesperus

Drop ddr and guitar hero for wii sports.

I am missing Colossal Cave as well- first text based adventure, and the first game I know that started a meme ("xyzzy")
And, why, indeed, WoW? Why not Everquest or Guild Wars?

And what about Zork.

Without that we would wander blithely into unlit areas, blissfully unaware of the Grues that lurk within......

Captain Hesperus

Speaking about memes

By the way, even Civilisation is not on the list. Tsk!

Not sure (don't roast me) that Elite belongs on that list.

Note that it says "changed the world". While Elite was a mile-stone in many things such as 3d rendering.. it didn't exactly change the world.

I agree with Pong and Pac-man, by simply making video games part of everyday life..

WOW for being the first MMORPG to be embraced by the general masses, such as the whole family range of ages. exept grand daddy and the very youngest

Not so sure on Doom however, but it is as good as Wolfenstein 3D. for being one of the first 3d games, with smooth graphics. but again mostly kids and teenagers.. not exactly world changing.. But it did Revive the PC game franchise therefore it should properly be on the list..

Dance revolution, No.., did that catch on, either never heard about it, or forgot about it..

Guitar Hero, No. Wishful thinking, but it is mostly kiddies that wants this), adults use the real stuff ;-. well most do... Guitar hero is for people who either can't play or hates getting blisters...

Wii sports, well its a break trough in that for the first times it gets the general masses to yet again embrace video games.. like in 1975, 1980 and that it actually forcing the player to move... I tried a boxing match, against a freind... it gets you sweating after a while so it must be a good work out...

Regarding the 13 year gap... yeah the industry was in knee deep crap during the mid & late 80´s, shelling out tons of crap titles... Commodore was in trouble too, a great many game companies went bust...

The list does however miss, Nintendos Mario Bros.

It did keep the scene alive for some time until the PC gaming franchise picked up the gauntlet left over by the Commodore Amigas and Atari, and various other gaming platforms, that crashed and burned.

Erai wrote:

I am missing Colossal Cave as well- first text based adventure, and the first game I know that started a meme ("xyzzy")

Yes, Adventure should certainly be on that list.

If Pac-Man is there because it made video games known to the masses, then Space Invaders would be a better candidate for that spot.

Sorry to disagree Frame, but surely Elite earns a place for doing far more with an 8-bit CPU and 22 kilobytes of memory than had ever been done before...?

Frame wrote:

Guitar Hero, No. Wishful thinking, but it is mostly kiddies that wants this), adults use the real stuff ;-. well most do... Guitar hero is for people who either can't play or hates getting blisters...

A completely ridiculous statement. You may as well say that racing-themed arcade games are for kids who can’t drive for real, or Oolite is for people who can’t be bothered to do the work required to become astronauts. The purpose is not to substitute the “real” activity but to evoke the sensation for entertainment. Guitar Hero has a significant market of young–middle aged adults using it as a party game, which is an entirely different experience to sitting around playing guitars.

That doesn’t mean it changed the world, though.