Space Invaders, Sonic, GTA III And Others Join Video Games Hall Of Fame

I’m fairly sure that back in 1978 when Space Invaders was first released that even in their wildest dreams, its programmers never imagined that one-day video games would have become so mainstream that the 40-year-old coin-op machine would one day get its own place in the World Video Game Hall Of fame.

The arcade game is just one of six titles that made the 2^nd annual cut to be inducted.

Originally released in 1978 by Taito, a company name any video game player over a certain age will be instantly hit by a wave of nostalgia over, Space Invaders propagated and copied the emerging features of the shoot-’em-up genre that became default features of most game for years to come, including the eponymous high score table.

Video games have of course come a long way since then.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board estimates that 67% of US households play video games on a regular basis, 40% of them are female, and that the industry is worth over $10 billion annually in North America alone.

Space Invaders was joined by five other games this year, including, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda, The Oregon Trail, Grand Theft Auto III and The Sims.

They join such other illustrious titles from 2015 including, Doom, Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros, Tetris and World of Warcraft.

While the nomination process is open to the public, the final games selected for the video game hall of fame are chosen by a panel of journalists and game scholars.

This year there were fifteen games for the expert panel to choose from, including Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider.

Games aren’t chosen just for their financial success. The inductees to the hall “all have significantly affected the video game industry, popular culture, and society in general,” the museum said.

The oldest title to make into the Hall of Fame, is the “The Oregon Trail” from 1971, an educational game that was famous for killing of players with the immortal line:

“You have died of dysentery.”