World Video Game Hall of Fame facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
World Video Game Hall of Fame

The Strong National Museum of Play at night
Formation	June 4, 2015
Purpose	To highlight the video games that have made an impact on the world
Location	Rochester, New York, U.S.
Parent organization	The Strong

Inside The Strong National Museum of Play, where the World Video Game Hall of Fame is located.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame is a special place that celebrates video games from all over the world. It honors games that have made a big impact on how we play and on popular culture. This Hall of Fame is part of The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, in the United States. The museum started this Hall of Fame on June 4, 2015. It's a cool part of their "ESL Digital Worlds: High Score" exhibit.

What is the Video Game Hall of Fame?

The World Video Game Hall of Fame is like a museum for amazing video games. It's managed by a group called the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, which is part of The Strong museum. This museum also runs the National Toy Hall of Fame, which has been around since 2002.

How Games Get Chosen

To get into the Hall of Fame, a video game must meet four important rules. These rules help decide which games are truly special and deserve to be honored.

Important Rules for Games

• Icon Status: The game must be super famous and remembered by lots of people.
• Longevity: It can't just be a quick trend. The game needs to have been popular for a long time.
• Geographical Reach: The game's popularity must go beyond one country. It needs to be known around the world.
• Influence: This is the most important rule! The game must have changed how other games are made. It should also have influenced movies, music, or even society itself.

Who Decides?

Each year, a team at The Strong museum suggests games that fit these rules. Anyone can also suggest games for them to consider. Then, a group of about 30 experts, like game scholars and journalists from different countries, vote on the nominees. The public also gets to vote, and their votes count like one expert's vote.

After all the votes are in, the museum team makes the final choices. They try to pick a variety of games each year. Games that don't get in can be nominated again in future years. Usually, they announce the nominees in March and the new Hall of Fame games in May. In the first two years, six games were chosen. Since then, four or five games have been added each year.

Games That Made History

Since it opened, 49 games have been added to the Hall of Fame. Many of these games were nominated more than once before they were chosen. Sometimes, if a game is part of a series, like The Oregon Trail or FIFA, the first game in the series might represent the whole group.

Nintendo has had the most games inducted, with seven of their games making it into the Hall of Fame. Other companies like Atari, Blizzard Entertainment, Capcom, id Software, and Maxis have also had multiple games honored. Minecraft was nominated four times before it was finally inducted. Some games, like Angry Birds and Guitar Hero, have been nominated three times but have not yet been inducted. The oldest game to be inducted is Spacewar! from 1962, and one of the most recent is The Last of Us from 2013.

List of Honored Games

This section shows the games that have been inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame.

  *   Inductees

  **   Finalists that were inducted in a later year

       Other finalists

See also

In Spanish: Salón de la Fama del Videojuego para niños