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

This is the World Video Game Hall of Fame inside The Strong National Museum of Play. It opened a new, bigger area in June 2023!

The World Video Game Hall of Fame is a special place that celebrates the most important video games from all over the world. It's like a hall of fame, but for games! It's managed by The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, USA.

The museum started its International Center for the History of Electronic Games in 2009. Then, in February 2015, they announced the Hall of Fame. It officially opened on June 4, 2015. You can find it in a cool part of the "ESL Digital Worlds: High Score" exhibit at The Strong National Museum of Play. Before 2023, it was in a different exhibit called "eGameRevolution." The Strong museum also has the National Toy Hall of Fame, which started in 2002.

How Games Get Into the Hall of Fame

To be chosen for the World Video Game Hall of Fame, games must meet four important rules:

Icon Status: Is It Famous?

• The game needs to be widely known and remembered by many people. It should be a game that almost everyone recognizes.

Longevity: Has It Lasted?

• The game must be more than just a quick trend. It needs to have stayed popular for a long time.

Geographical Reach: Is It Known Everywhere?

• The game should be famous and popular not just in one country, but all around the world.

Influence: Did It Change Gaming?

• This is the most important rule! The game must have had a big effect. It could have changed how other games are made. It might have influenced movies, music, or even how people live.

The Selection Process

Each year, a team at The Strong museum picks the first group of games to consider. They look at the four rules, especially how much a game influenced others. Anyone can suggest games for the team to think about!

Next, a group of about 30 experts, like writers and teachers from around the world, vote on the games. Each person picks their top three favorites. The public also gets to vote, and their votes count like one expert's vote.

Finally, the museum team looks at all the votes. They make the final choices. Usually, the games with the most votes are clear winners. But if there's a tie, the team tries to pick different types of games. Games that don't get in can be nominated again in future years.

The list of games being considered is usually announced in March. The games that make it into the Hall of Fame are announced in May. In the first two years, six games were chosen from fifteen finalists. Since then, four or five games are picked each year from a list of twelve.

Games That Made It In

In the ten years the Hall of Fame has been open, 45 games have been chosen. They were picked from 81 games that were nominated. Many games were nominated more than once before they got in.

Sometimes, if a game is part of a series, the Hall of Fame might pick the first game to represent the whole series. Good examples are The Oregon Trail or the FIFA series.

Nintendo has had the most games inducted, with seven of their games making it in. Atari has had three games inducted. Blizzard Entertainment, Capcom, and Maxis have each had two games chosen.

The game Minecraft was nominated four times before it was inducted. The game FIFA International Soccer has been nominated three times but has not yet been inducted. The oldest game to be nominated was Spacewar! from 1962. The newest game to be inducted is The Last of Us from 2013. Both of these games are now in the Hall of Fame!

Inductees and Finalists

  *   Inductees

  **   Inductees at a later date

See also

In Spanish: Salón de la Fama del Videojuego para niños