Most Influential Games

[TinCow]

Wired has an interesting list of their top 15 most influential games of the previous decade. It's particularly thought-provoking, because influential is not the same as successful. The criteria are summarized as "games that made big leaps and defined what would come to be traditional aspects of the big-budget grand adventure, and others that pushed the reset button on game design." Here's their list:

1) The Sims
2) GTA 3
3) Guitar Hero
4) World of Warcraft
5) Brain Age
6) Halo
7) Bejeweled
8) Wii Sports
9) Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
10) Metroid Prime
11) Silent Hill 2
12) Half-life 2
13) Metal Gear Solid 2
14) Happy Farm
15) Portal

There's a lot of decent stuff there, but there are several omissions that I consider as significant milestones in gaming since 2000.

Diablo 2 - Showed just how much entertainment value there was in online action gaming, and fundamentally changed the entire notion of how to reward players for their game time. Was also a major milestone in online gaming, giving a major boost to MMOs.

Tribes 2 - Introduced vehicles into FPS games in a way never before encountered. The successes of the Battlefield series built off of this game.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Redefined the concept of the scripted event. While the MoH-style scripted levels are now often considered rather boring, at the time it introduced a level of immersion into FPS gaming that had not previously existed. The sheer number of games that adopted this style of level scripting shows its influence.

Farcry - Upped the ante on the open-world FPS concept.

So, what other games can you think of that have changed the way games are made over the past 10 years?

[Fragony]

I think Dune 2 should be on that list, spawned a genre.
System Shock 1 and 2 & Deus Ex, changed how we think about games.
Resident Evil, ALone in the Dark did it first but still.
No one lives forever, just the best damn shooter ever made but it's on all my lists.

[johnhughthom]

A lot of those games aren't from the last 10 years Fragony...

Surprised Silent Hill 2 is in there, was it that innovative in comparison to the first?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Good call on Medal of Honor there, TinCow. I'd put that in instead of Halo, personally.

I read too much Rock, Paper, Shotgun, so I hear a lot about indie games, but maybe World of Goo as an indie game that really broke through to commercial success? I'm afraid that might be overlooking something that set up the environment for WoG though.

[Fragony]

A lot of those games aren't from the last 10 years Fragony...

Surprised Silent Hill 2 is in there, was it that innovative in comparison to the first?

owwwwwww me getting old

Silent Hill 2 is legendary for it's storytelling, it still has people having flamewars over it's interpretation. It can get really vicious.

[Subotan]

I'd say the only game they missed was...Rome Total War! Otherwise, a very good list.

[caravel]

I'd say the only game they missed was...Rome Total War! Otherwise, a very good list.

"Influential" probably refers to games that spawn, or revolutionise, a genre rather than just a single franchise.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I thought that list was bad. First of all WoW should be number one. I don't play WoW, I could never get into it, but it's influence is the greatest with Sims at second spot. WoW single handily became an a gaming empire over an entire genre that was sketchy at first over how profitable it could become. Now you had all these other companies trying to compete as well all of them labeled as trying to "out WoW" WoW and almost all of them failing badly. I never really liked the idea of separating influential from successful in the first place because when it comes to entertainment those that are influential are the ones that are successful.

[TinCow]

WoW single handily became an a gaming empire over an entire genre that was sketchy at first over how profitable it could become.

I disagree with this. Several MMOs had already been very profitable before WoW was released. Ultima Online was released in 1997, well before Blizzard had even released Starcraft and Diablo 2. It's still going strong today and is extremely profitable for EA. Asheron's Call and Everquest were also very successful and preceded WoW by 5 years each. Both were good enough to spawn sequels, and EQ2 is still doing decently. In Asia, Lineage, Ragnarok Online, and Lineage 2 also did extremely well before WoW was ever around.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that WoW broke new ground and was influential... but it's just wrong to say that the industry was "sketchy" about how much money there was in MMOs before WoW. Blizzard capitalized on the existing MMO market, they didn't create it.

[Subotan]

"Influential" probably refers to games that spawn, or revolutionise, a genre rather than just a single franchise.

I thought that RTW did. I played AoE III after buying RT:W, expecting it to be good, only to be disappointed. It made normal RTSs fail in comparison, including War/Starcraft