What is the most important game for each decade?

[BingBong]

30,000 BC: chase mammoth with rock

ooga booga. real caveman hours.

 

[kūhaku]

2000s is probably the hardest choice next to the 90s but I say it's hard to really pick one since there are so many important genres. Differing games that are still important for the decade would be Vice City/San Andreas (open world), WoW (mmorpg), Halo (fps pvp), Starcraft (rts), and MGS2 (stealth). Each was a part of it's own genre, and I put them in descending order of popularity/importance so the most influential for me is probably Vice City, but at the same time it's still hard to rank them over each other.

I agree that the 90s was Doom, but I'm surprised nobody has said Quake so far.

 

[Judge Holden]

1940s: Kill the Jew

 

[Francis York Morgan]

70s: Pong
80s: Super Mario Bros
90s: ???
00s: World of Warcraft
10s: Dark Souls, maybe?

I feel like the 70s and 80s are easy to determine because of how vital both were to the industry as a whole. The 2000s gave me some pause because of how many influential games came out in the decade, but WoW is such a juggernaut and made MMOs mainstream. It's also the birthplace of some of the worst things in gaming right now but I'm trying to keep in mind that this is a question of influence rather than quality.

2010s also has a lot of contenders (including a certain demo that has influenced a whole genre) but I think Dark Souls is going to be what people look back on as the game of the decade for creating its own genre and other aspects like its level design, gameplay, and storytelling. PUBG and DOTA 2 are certainly worth considering for the 10s as well and I wouldn't disagree with anyone considering them.

The 90s are where I'm struggling to pick one. FFVII made the RPG genre bigger, Doom popularized FPS games, Street Fighter 2 got people into fighting games, Mortal Kombat was mainstream enough to cause the first moral panic in video games, and Pokemon created a colossal franchise that's made more money than anything else. I am kind of at a loss for what to choose from the decade, but I am leaning towards Doom.

 

[sasazuka]

For the 1970s, if we're talking about games that had the biggest contemporary impact, the choice would obviously be between Pong or Space Invaders.

However, if a game's legacy and influence, direct or indirect, over gaming in the decades to come is taken into consideration, I can name two less obvious choices.

Colossal Cave Adventure (1976, expanded in 1977, later revisions for various platforms continued into the 1980s), the first text adventure game (predating even Zork) and therefore the first computer game with a narrative beyond whatever you could decipher from the primitive visuals of earlier games.

SubLogic Flight Simulator (1979), unless I'm very much mistaken, it's the first 3D open world game, at least available commercially. To be precise, the entire "world" was a 6 by 6 wireframe grid with a small airfield and a few triangles in the background representing mountains, but you had to start somewhere.

 

[kcbbq]

70's - Space Invaders
80's - Pac-Man
90's - Streetfighter 2
00's - Angry Birds
10's - Depression Quest/Revolution 60

I agree on the first two, though an argument could be made for Star Trader (1974) or Tradewars 2002 (1986 Iirc). Then it gets murky. Pong was popular, but didn't impact much other than pong clones.

90s - tough one, Myst? StarCraft, which led to pretty much all eSports?
00s - Angry Birds games have over a billion downloads, true, but most important? Maybe The Sims or Guitar Hero?
10s - how do you judge importance on stuff that hasn't been around enough to really influence later stuff?

 

[Ex Cummunicated Sasser HD]

I agree on the first two, though an argument could be made for Star Trader (1974) or Tradewars 2002 (1986 Iirc). Then it gets murky. Pong was popular, but didn't impact much other than pong clones.

90s - tough one, Myst? StarCraft, which led to pretty much all eSports?
00s - Angry Birds games have over a billion downloads, true, but most important? Maybe The Sims or Guitar Hero?
10s - how do you judge importance on stuff that hasn't been around enough to really influence later stuff?

I get where you are coming from, and although I've never played Star Trader (or even heard of it until you said it, I just read up on it). It didn't really rock anything.

Angry Birds though changed everything, It made mobile gaming viable. Although not a fan, you couldn't go 50 footsteps without seeing plushies, backpacks, kids wearing t-shirts, Hollywood movies ffs!!! etc everywhere. Even Pokemon didn't get that much marketing and merch. GH was more of a fad, and Sims (I bought the first one and was amazed that I could have a lad wearing a Sonic youth shirt), it was built on Theme Park, Theme Hospital, etc... it wasn't groundbreaking. It was just a more accessible Second life.

Revision for me, but now this is home computer, and now turning into favourites:

70's - Missile command or Warlords with spinners? (Ah shite, they were both 1980)
edit: 70's - Still sticking with Space Invaders. It nearly fucked up the Yen because all the coins were going in there.

How about 80's - Elite. That was, and still is THE space trading battle game.

90's - Dune or Command and Conquer. (Although I'd love to say BattleMaster or Syndicate).
Thing is with 90's though there were so many generations. It was 8 bit, 16bit, 32 bit and 64bit all in one.

90's (part 2) - Mario Kart, Sonic, Lemmings, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil

00's - HL2, and the whole rise of Steam. Orange Box with TF2 and Portal just cemented it. HALO and GOW (Gears, not Gods because one had a home puter release)

10's - Depression Quest, Revolution 60 and Gone Home. (Not even joking, all 3 of these games and the shite behind them have changed gaming more than anything else)

Done.

 

[kcbbq]

I get where you are coming from, and although I've never played Star Trader (or even heard of it until you said it, I just read up on it). It didn't really rock anything.

Angry Birds though changed everything, It made mobile gaming viable. Although not a fan, you couldn't go 50 footsteps without seeing plushies, backpacks, kids wearing t-shirts, Hollywood movies ffs!!! etc everywhere. Even Pokemon didn't get that much marketing and merch.

Revision for me, but now this is home computer, and now turning into favourites:

70's - Missile command or Warlords with spinners on 2600?
How about 80's - Elite. That was THE space trading battle game.
90's - Dune or Command and Conquer. (Although I'd love to say BattleMaster or Syndicate).
Thing is with 90's though there were so many generations. It was 8 bit, 16bit, 32 bit and 64bit all in one.
90's - Sonic, Lemmings, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil

It's such a difficult decision, but interesting as a topic. Trying not to focus on things I like but a wider picture.

There's another 80s game which was evolutionary, and a major stepping off point that I forgot about, and very few people might have even heard of: MIDI Maze. I believe it was the first first person game that didn't lock you into 90 degree turns. It was networked (through the Atari ST MIDI ports), and allowed 16 players simultaneously. I think MIDI Maze 2 added computer controlled enemies and 3 was full screen, but it's been a while. Not well known, not on a massively popular system, but very definitely forward looking and massively fun.

Hmm. Akalabeth was put out by Richard Garriott in the late 70s, but Ultima (1981) was probably more important. Rogue was 1980. John Madden Football was '88.

MUD is probably up there in importance for the 70s. The more I think about this the less clear it gets.

I still can't go with Pong, though, it was a step back from what it was based on, which allowed much more control of angles.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Two somewhat contrarian choices for the 90s are Dune II (codified the RTS genre) and Civilization (first 4X, popularized the idea of a tech tree)

 

[The Last Stand]

Define important. There are many games that have changed the landscape of gaming as we know it today.

80s would definitely be Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda. Nintendo practically saved the Western video game industry after Atari caused the game industry to crash from E.T. in ~1984. I suppose ET would be considered "important" too because of that.

90s is a tricky one. I'd say Mortal Kombat, DOOM or Night Trap. The 90s were considered the "edgy" decade, but as video games increased in popularity, they started to get mainstream attention. More adults were starting to play games; those three games pushed the envelope of what was considered appropriate. Violence, sex, language. They've also help form the ESRB rating system as we know it today.

2000s, I have two picks. Grand Theft Auto III & Halo 2. I say Halo 2 with the Xbox because it revolutionized online gaming for the consoles. Xbox Live had its killer app for Microsoft. Friends list, matchmaking, DLC: all features we take for granted, Halo 2 and XBL started. The Internet was beginning to become mainstream as well.

2010s. Star Wars Battlefront II. Hear me out, it's not for good reasons. The 2010s was when companies started to monetize with AAA gaming, previously reserved for the mobile market. Little by little, companies started to be sleazy with how they could nickel and dime consumers. Day 1 DLC, unfinished games, Season Passes, now loot boxes. Star Wars Battlefront II was pay-to-win with its loot boxes. 40 hours to unlock a key character in Star Wars canon or pay $20. Gamers started to speak up, especially Star Wars fans. It reached the point where there is government intervention of loot boxes in video games. And consumers are becoming weary of loot boxes and microtransactions.

 

[Pargon]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent has got to be a contender for the 2010s. People are still making FPS horror shit where nothing happens and expecting their shitty narratives, just a half-step above creepypasta, to carry player interest.

Fuck I hate that trend more than anything else in modern gaming.

 

[No creativity]

1970s: idk I'm not a boomer.
1980s: Wizardry. It's basically the reason why JRPGs exist, and for as popular as Mario still is right now I'd say JRPGs are more relevant than platformers in the current year.
1990s: At the time probably King's Quest but since point and click adventure games are mostly dead right now I'll go with Doom.
2000s: Dragon age: Origins has the dubious honor of being the first game with on-disk day 1 DLC and and and I suspect was used as a guinea pig by EA to see how much they could get away with. It may not have started a new trend in videogame design or an entirely new genre but I'd argue being the patient zero of AAA fuckery makes it more important than a lot of other games.
2010s a couple of years ago I would have said Skyrim but Bethesda's unending list of fuckups has thankfully killed a lot of the hype for all of their series. I think Dark Souls' legacy is the one that will endure.

 

[Martys_not_smarty]

Probably will addend little by little, for the 80's I'll go ahead and say Tetris.

 

[sasazuka]

Here's an obscure pick for the 1980s: 1981's Jump Bug (Alpha Denshi/Hoei/Coreland/Sega), considered to be the first side-scrolling platform game even if it largely resembles a side-scrolling "shoot 'em up" with eternal runner elements.

Spoiler: Jump Bug (1981)

I think Jump Bug counts as a platformer because your car starts on the ground and returns to the ground periodically even if it seems to hover in the air for ridiculous amounts of time.

Crazy Climber (1980, Nichibutsu) had vertical scrolling with colourful backgrounds and better character animation than I thought was possible for 1980, not to mention abundant use of voice samples.

Spoiler: Crazy Climber (1980)

While the behind-the-car view for driving games technically dates all of the way back to 1976's Night Driver and Sega's The Fonz (also from 1976), Sega's Turbo (1981) was the first driving game with scaling roadside scenery courtesy of an analogue sprite scaling technique called VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) that somehow used clock signals to determine the size of scaling objects frame-by-frame.

Spoiler: Turbo (1981)

While the scaling is amazing for 1981, something about the way the VCO clock determines the sprite size makes it look pretty dodgy when the objects are in the foreground. Sega's Super Scaler system, the successor to VCO scaling first used for 1985's Hang-On and subsequently many other of Sega's all-time scaling classics such as Space Harrier, After Burner, Power Drift, and, of course, OutRun, perfected sprite scaling for the best pseudo-3D graphics that 1980s arcades had to offer.

Spoiler: OutRun (1986)

1990s: At the time probably King's Quest but since point and click adventure games are mostly dead right now I'll go with Doom.

I think of King's Quest as being more 1980s than 1990s but, then again, I preferred Sierra games when they had the text interface while the point-and-click King's Quest games were more of a 1990s thing.

 

[Ex Cummunicated Sasser HD]

There's another 80s game which was evolutionary, and a major stepping off point that I forgot about, and very few people might have even heard of: MIDI Maze. I believe it was the first first person game that didn't lock you into 90 degree turns. It was networked (through the Atari ST MIDI ports), and allowed 16 players simultaneously. I think MIDI Maze 2 added computer controlled enemies and 3 was full screen, but it's been a while. Not well known, not on a massively popular system, but very definitely forward looking and massively fun.

I'm a big fan of Midi Maze. Big fan of the Atari ST too... (I own an STFM, an STE, A Mega STE and a Falcon)... It was also released for the Gameboy and was called Faceball 2000, you could play with the GB link too, just like the Atari ST version which also let you use the parallel port, not just the midi ports.

Hmm. Akalabeth was put out by Richard Garriott in the late 70s, but Ultima (1981) was probably more important. Rogue was 1980. John Madden Football was '88.

MUD is probably up there in importance for the 70s. The more I think about this the less clear it gets.

I still can't go with Pong, though, it was a step back from what it was based on, which allowed much more control of angles.

Pong was a poor mans Warlords, but it wasn't Space Invaders either...

 

[Ex Cummunicated Sasser HD]

Here's an obscure pick for the 1980s: 1981's Jump Bug (Alpha Denshi/Hoei/Coreland/Sega), considered to be the first side-scrolling platform game even if it largely resembles a side-scrolling "shoot 'em up" with eternal runner elements.

This was Scramble Hardware, but based on Galaxian's Z80...

While the behind-the-car view for driving games technically dates all of the way back to 1976's Night Driver and Sega's The Fonz (also from 1976), Sega's Turbo (1981) was the first driving game with scaling roadside scenery courtesy of an analogue sprite scaling technique called VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) that somehow used clock signals to determine the size of scaling objects frame-by-frame.

Sega Buck Rodgers used similar hardware, so did Sega Monaco GP (Not the System 18 / System X one, which was super scaler based, just like Space Harrier and Afterburner...the original. It was 1979 but used the same VCO for sprites).

 

[Pissmaster]

Rogue is an interesting one to think about, considering how Wikipedia says it was developed "around 1980", but the entire Roguelike genre only really caught on in the early 2010s. There've always been roguelikes here and there, with games like Fatal Labryinth on Genesis and the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series across the GBA, DS, and 3DS; but a deluge of roguelikes started popping up when the term "indie game" got popular and self-published games started appearing on Steam and XBLA. Spelunky, The Binding of Isaac, and Crypt of the Necrodancer are three big ones from back then. So it became an influential game long, long after its time. That's like a random indie game today influencing a whole genre that explodes in 2040.

That being said, mobile gaming is best when it plays to its strengths, and I think we'll see some much more refined games that play like Niantic's GPS games in the future. It's bittersweet that Ingress 1.0 is already dead, you just can't play it anymore since starting the old app will just have you update to the newer, more controversial Ingress Prime. Considering that game is what Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite spawned from, those in the future just simply can't go back and try it. And that fucking sucks. It feels sinful to destroy art, and Ingress might have been more historically significant in the future than it seems today. Like, yeah, you can play Ingress Prime, but you can't play first-hand what started the entire GPS genre. Or whatever we're calling it.

 

[neverendingmidi]

I'd say Goldeneye was an important 90's game.

 

[The Littlest Shitlord]

1970: Dark Souls 2
1980: Dark Souls 2
1990: Dark Souls 2
2000: Dark Souls 2
2010: Dark Souls 2

Look, how many times do I have to tell you people to return the GamerGate time machine when you're done with it instead of using it for stunts like this?

 

[Megaroad 2012]

2000's would be Resident Evil 4 since every action game since is just variation of the core formula.