Donkey Kong is among four new entrants to the World Video Game Hall of Fame. It’s joined by Halo: Combat Evolved, Pokemon Red and Green, and Street Fighter II.
The hall is a permanent exhibition at Rochester, New York’s The Strong Museum of Play. Potential inductees are nominated by the public and then shortlisted and selected by an expert panel, with the criteria being that games should have “enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general.”
The games which made the shortlist but weren’t selected were Final Fantasy VII, Mortal Kombat, Myst, Portal, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Solitaire (from Windows) and Wii Sports.
Among the reasons cited for selecting the games were:
- Donkey Kong for introducing the Mario character.
- Halo: Combat Evolved for showing first-person shooters could work well on a console even without the precision of a computer mouse.
- Pokemon Red and Greed for launching a franchise that entered mainstream culture in other media.
- Street Fighter II for rejuvenating games arcades by having head-to-head competition between two human players.
The hall is open to all forms of electronic gaming including console, computer, coin-op and mobile device games. The complete list of inductions is now:
- Donkey Kong (inducted in 2017)
- DOOM (2015)
- GTA III (2016)
- Halo: Combat Evolved (2017)
- Oregon Trail (2016)
- Legend of Zelda (2016)
- Pac-Man (2015)
- Pokemon Red and Green (2017)
- Pong (2015)
- The Sims (2016)
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2016)
- Space Invaders (2016)
- Street Fighter II (2017)
- Super Mario Bros. (2015)
- Tetris (2015)
- World of Warcraft (2015)