Shigeru Miyamoto's arcade hit, Donkey Kong, has been nominated for the 2017 addition to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Additionally, The Pokémon Company International released a statement on its website announcing that Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, originally released in 1996 on the Nintendo Game Boy, have also been nominated.
You can see a statement on this below.
The finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame's class of 2017 have been announced, and Pokémon has made the list! The original Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green games that kicked off over 20 years of Pokémon fun are under consideration to join some of the most memorable and influential video games in history. An international panel of video game journalists and scholars will choose which titles join such previous inductees as Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and Pac-Man. The final selections will be announced in May.
You can find out more on the World Video Game Hall of Fame by heading to the official website.
All worthy additions up for consideration; which games would you like to make the cut in this year's intake?
[source pokemon.com]
Comments 31
Pokemon was a huge part in my life. Theres a lot of great games but Pokémon is unique.
I can agree with almost everything that was nominated, but man, when Pokemon came out, no one my age did anything else. Even at recess, we sat on the ground and battled each other with the link cables.
It became a staple of my childhood that I still revisit even today. Amazing what 2 games can do.
Congratulation !
How are they not in there already?!?!?!
I remember playing Pokemon Red for the first time when I was younger.
I'm sure they get nominated every year but never get in
No mention of Wii Sports?
Pokemon should have made it in before sanic
@Hikingguy
Agreed, there are more worthy titles that should be in there before Wii Sports is included. I also agree with your earlier comment, it's a no-brainer that games like Donkey Kong, SMB, Pong, Pokémon, Sonic, Doom et al should be just in there.
@TbobB Yeah bro, screw all the bad reviews of Wii Sports, that game was non stop fun for years and it was the main reason the Wii became the best selling Nintendo home console.
These... weren't in already!? Those are some remarkably important games, you'd think it wouldn't take until 2017 for these cornerstones to get nominated
@Shikinouta That's because The World Video Game Hall of Fame is only two years old. 2015 was the first year they had inductions. It's going to take them quite a few more years to get all of the classics inducted.
Of the 2017 nominations, I would say Street Fighter II is my top pick overall.
No offense to Pokemon, it deserves the honor as well as do the other games, but I feel that Street Fighter II made a larger impact on the overall gaming market that is still felt to this day.
Street Fighter II helped create the modern fighting game, and many of the features that we take for granted including a diverse cast of fighters, combos, special move inputs(yes, those were in the first Street Fighter, but SFII made them play a larger role), a super gauge that allows a fighter to pull off a Super Move or ability, and the entire idea of competitive fighting games.
Here's a bigger question, would he have seen SNK's fighters, Mortal Kombat, and countless other fighting games had Capcom not made them not only viable, but big business with SF II?
Street Fighter II is in the same class as Super Mario Bros is the sense that not only did it create a popular and enduring franchise, it helped birth an entire market of games.
How can Donkey Kong NOT already be in a video game hall of fame?! Doesn't make them seem very credible if you ask me, it's like the first platformer ever!
It's a brilliant list this year, all the nominations are worthy to go in the hall of fame. The 3 nominations I'd most like to see win are Pokemon Red and Green, Tomb Raider and Portal.
Why is DK just getting into this now? It should've been there on day 1!!!
How on EARTH isn't Donkey Kong already in the Hall of Fame?!?! Shocking!
(p.s. There's a really cool little documentary called 'King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters' which follows the battle for the DK World Record - well worth a watch for anyone who is interested...pure entertainment!)
Pokemon should have been opening day
How in the world did Wii Sports get on the short list? I know it's a great game that takes full advantage of the Wii's unique controller, but as sports games they're all fairly simplistic. There are much better baseball and golf games that don't have hardware designed around their controllers. And Wii's motion controls, as revolutionary as they are, haven't exactly become standard features for video game systems as the rumble and analog sticks did.
Donkey Kong was the game that made Nintendo a huge hit in the west before the NES and it was the game that kickstarted Miyamoto's career.
I'm quite surprised both Red and Green weren't in already, but I think their chances are good to get in this year; last year's hype regarding Pokémon's 20th anniversary + Pokémon Go makes it a no-brainer to me.
Looking at the main page, I can see immedeatly that it's not even closely serious or professional enough to be considered a "hall of fame". People with any kind of expertise understand that any media to be in a "hall of fame" or getting some other rewarded must be choosen objectively. In polls like this, people will simply select what they games they prefer and not which games have done the most in any terms. In other words, you can't put Street Fighter II, (which, honestly, hasn't impacted the video games business in any major way) Final Fantasy VII, (which set the standard for how a story-heavy game should be like) and Wii Sports (which brought millions of people into video gaming, opened up an entirely market, and made motion sensors a permanent thing in gaming) against each other. As you can see, only one of those two influential games are even in top three, followed by another but somewhat lesser-ly influental video game (Pokémon Red & Green) and a main game in a franchise infamous for it's incredible repetition caused by it's fanbase consisting of 12 year old ADHD-fanboys with literally no craving for quality and which even then only like it because "itz an kool Xbox gaym (lol gay)!!1" (Halo: Combat Evolved)
TL;DR: F*** that site.
Chrono trigger.
I think all of the 2017 nominations are worthy. Even Wii Sports, though it seems a bit weird to put a game that I grew up with in COLLEGE on a video game HISTORY thing!
Oh dear. I'm old.
Frankly this is a good list for the next two years. They do six games a year, there are twelve games here? OK, then you also have 2018's games. Done.
Donkey Kong is one of the most recognizable and important games of all time.
While it may have stood slightly behind Pac-Man in it's day here in America, it's gameplay and original characters were far more influential throughout the ages than the grand yellow dot muncher.
Will never forget the day I first played Pokemon, my cousin had brought his GameBoy over. I went out and bought Pokemon Blue the next day and and have been playing Pokemon ever since.
Why only one at once? Nearly all of the games on the list deserve to be in there.
I'm only somewhat familiar with SF(2, but the overall series as a whole). I will say, that I think it had an impact on establishing competitions/tournaments. For that, it deserves a place in the hof.
Like many have said, multiple games on that list deserve to be in, for various reasons. My own choice would be Donkey Kong.
...it's on like Pokémon!
@WitherAway Oh that's right, I vaguely remember it being announced. Thanks for the clarification!
Tap here to load 31 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...