Donkey Kong And Street Fighter 2 Join World Video Game Hall Of Fame

Classic titles joined by Halo Combat Evolved and Pokémon Red and Green newest inductees for 2017.

The winners were selected from a final panel of 12 originally selected in March of this year. While only established in 2015, the Video Game Hall of Fame’s annual awards, based in New York, has quickly risen to prominence across the entire spectrum, from the gamers, to the people who make the games. Its mission is to recognize the individual games (of any electronic type, be they arcade, console, computer, or handheld) that have had exerted influence within the video industry, and/or impacted popular culture in society in general.

“Video games play an increasingly important role in play as we now have a generation of children who grew up playing video games having a tremendous impact on our culture,” said Jeremy Saucier, assistant director of The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games. “All of the games inducted brought people together.”

The original, and some would say still the best, platform game of all time, Donkey Kong

No Donkey Kong, No Mario

Donkey Kong was released by Nintendo in 1981, some 36 years ago. Donkey Kong, was one of the genre defining platform games, not just its generation, but of all time. It was also famous for the introduction of one of the most famous video game characters of all time, Jumpman, or Mario as he would later come to be called.

Ryu and Ken giving it loads in Street Fighter 2

No Street Fighter 2, No Sonic Boom

Street Fighter 2 was originally released into the arcades of the world in 1991, by Capcom. According to the museum, Street Fighter 2 transformed video game play in the last decade of the twentieth century. Players no longer faced off against the game on its own, but could be challenged in head-to-head competition by another human opponent while playing the game. It was also responsible for sparking a plethora of one-on-one arcade tournaments.

Thousands of nominations from more than 100 countries were considered by a committee of video game experts. The games are judged on icon-status; longevity; geographical reach; and influence. The global video game industry is worth $91 billion, according to 2016 figures.