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What is the most influential game of every decade?

LordRaptor

LordRaptor

Member
Don't know why people are trying to downplay Doom - it had somewhere between 15-20 million installs and popularised the shareware model for gaming


jdstorm said:
2010s Little Big Planet

Its Play Create and Share philosophy can largely make it seem a precursor to the Minecraft craze that hit this decade as well as numerous sharing features now being standard across the industry
Click to expand...

Nothing like to the extent that Half Life created and nurtured a mod scene more than a decade earlier.
 
C

CaviarMeths

Member
Alienfan said:
Was GTA 3 influential or just the first of its kind? Honest question, I'm unaware of the ways it influenced other games, because 3D open world games were inevitable
Click to expand...

GTA3's influence isn't limited to being open world. It's more in the mechanics and physics of the game. Think about how many games you've played in the last decade in which you tilt an analog stick slightly to walk and fully to run. The answer is basically all of them. All of the games.

GTA3 wasn't the first to do that, but it was one of the first to do that in the genre, the most visible, and the one that basically every developer that followed took from.

The only problem I have with calling GTA3 the most influential game of the decade is that the mechanics are directly influenced by SM64 and OoT. For any developer working in the 3rd person shooter space though, GTA3 is the game they all build off of.
 
LordRaptor

LordRaptor

Member
People wanting to diminish GTA3 should bear in mind prior to release people were calling it a Driver clone.

Lets take a look at which of the two the genre now called "open world" resembles more.

Having said that;
CaviarMeths said:
GTA3's influence isn't limited to being open world. It's more in the mechanics and physics of the game. Think about how many games you've played in the last decade in which you tilt an analog stick slightly to walk and fully to run. The answer is basically all of them. All of the games.

GTA3 wasn't the first to do that, but it was one of the first to do that in the genre, the most visible, and the one that basically every developer that followed took from.
Click to expand...

The GTA series (in)famously has a run button to run, not analogue movement.
 
B

balohna

Member
OP is a pretty good list. I think Dark Souls could challenge Minecraft, but overall I'd say there's no indisputable answer for this decade. Could even be Candy Crush.

I was gonna say OOT for 90s, but Doom surely wins.
 
N

ninjaboyjohn

Member
Also, I'll throw out there that GTA pushed games as an adult pop culture medium probably further than anything (CoD helped too, but GTA is way more universal) and also has influenced everything from film to mass shootings.
 
D

Drillary Clinton

Banned
Idk if I can pigeonhole them into a single decade but Half-Life 2, COD4, and Titanfall 1 are some of the most Influential games off the top of my head.
 
C

Chill Penguin

Member
80s - Super Mario Brothers - nearly every 2d sidescroller has drawn inspiration from this game.

90s - Super Mario 64 - nearly every 3d game today owes some part of its roots to Mario 64.

00s - Grand Theft Auto 3 - created the open world genre as we know it. Massively influential.

10s - Minecraft - really brought free-form gameplay into the mainstream. This one was tough since we're still in this decade, so the influence of the games haven't been fully felt yet.
 
ThEoRy...

ThEoRy...

Member
It is really hard to define each decade by a single game as technology increases so rapidly especially at certain points in a decade that include a generational leap. Maybe we should go by system generations then but even those lines between generations get blurry at times. In any case I'll give it a shot.

70's Pong. I mean it was first right? With so many derivatives, clones or copies it's hard to argue it's massive influence.

80's Pac-Man. The original icon. Everyone in the world knew who Pac-Man was. They all know what he did. Was he the original mascot? Sure we had the Galagas and the Asteroids or the Space Invaders. But none of those games had a stand out recognizable character. Even Donkey Kong hadn't come out until a year later.

90's Street Fighter 2. The nineties had like 3 console generations within them so there was a lot of changes happening very fast. I'm still sticking with SF2 though simply because it was just massive. It was on the cover of every gaming magazine multiple times for many years. That game ate so many quarters and spawned so many clones. It reinvigorated arcades and then when it came home, that shit was just crazy. Sure the fighting game craze would settle down by the end of the decade but by then, everyone knew what a fucking hadoken was.

00's Shenmue. I gotta do it. Nothing was as massive in scope as Shenmue was at the time. It was a cinematic story based RPG, it was a fighting game, it was an open world 3d environment where you could go anywhere and spend your time however you want. Did you want to train today, fight some sailors, play some authentic Sega arcade games, collect some capsule toys or solve the mystery of your father's murder? It was up to you. It was the first game planned as a multi chapter release. It was the first game to allow you to carry over save data into future releases. And like em or not, it popularized QTEs. There were a lot of really big ideas in this game that still live on today. I'll always feel this game never fully gets the credit that it's due. Dreamcast didn't have a massive user base and Shenmue didn't sell nearly enough even within that base to make it as popular as the GTA's of the world. But you can't deny it's influence on even those games then and even current games today.

10's Maybe too early to tell. Is it Witcher 3, Zelda, minecraft, Dark Souls even? When is Cyberpunk 2077 coming out again? We're too close to the subject to call it now. Twenty years from now it would be easier to narrow it down but even then it's just so difficult to narrow down the entire decade into just one game.

I gave it a good shot though.
 
C

Coriolanus

Banned
Jumeira said:
Agreed. MS and Xbox defined console shooters and matchmaking. CoD and every shooter since lends itself to Bungie and MS groundwork.
Click to expand...

Not really. CoD lends itself to Medal of Honor, a franchise that started on the playstation in 1999 and absolutely exploded with MoH: Allied Assault, which came out 3 months after halo and played quite goddamn differently.

Fwiw, CoD only exists because part of the MoHAA team ditched EA and went to Acti to create Infinity Ward. Is also a part of the reason why CoD 1-3 were WW2 affairs.

MoH was also the reason why every other god damn fps all the way up to the release of CoDMW was a WW2 shooter.
 
M

Mooreberg

Member
Pretty much agreed with OP. Although part of me wants to say Quake or SM64 for 90's since fully 3D graphics are a defining characteristic of the decade, and arcade games were in on that too. But Quake never exists without Doom, so that is a logical pick.
 
J

Justin Bailey

------ ------
OP has a really good list. But, I would give the 2000s to WoW instead of GTA3 - only because something needs to reflect the explosion in online multiplayer games that has happened since then.
 
L

Ludist210

Member
Wii Sports should be an honorable mention. Even if the game isn't as great as the others from the 2000s, it got a lot of non-gamers to purchase the best selling console of its generation.
 
C

Coriolanus

Banned
TheWasTheJoke said:
Halo has to be 2000's
Click to expand...

hmm, not really. The only really influential bit halo had was regenerating shield/health. All of its other traits, like very open maps, vehicles, higher TTK's, diverse enemy AI and Sci-Fi, organic battle scenarios with very little scriptiing, simply weren't amply copied. Becomes even more evident when you consider its mp, which emphasized map pickups.

Whereas mohaa and cod, with the low ttk, loadouts, highly scripted campaigns, exact god damn same enemy types, linear maps and on rails segments....
 
J

Jack The Nipper

Banned
Coriolanus said:
hmm, not really. The only really influential bit halo had was regenerating shield/health. All of its other traits, like very open maps, vehicles, higher TTK's, diverse enemy AI and Sci-Fi, organic battle scenarios with very little scriptiing, simply weren't amply copied. Becomes even more evident when you consider its mp, which emphasized map pickups.

Whereas mohaa and cod, with the low ttk, loadouts, highly scripted campaigns, exact god damn same enemy types, linear maps and on rails segments....
Click to expand...

I think that is where people miss the key in SF2 , it's the simplicity of pick up and play that kept a greater key/influence for drawing in the 600 plus fighters in development at once apparently (as said in the video) after SF2 become popular.
 
V

visiblemode

Member
guek said:
This is a really difficult question
Click to expand...

Extremely. OP did well, though. One per decade is next to impossible, however.

Missing:

80's: Pac-man(mainstreamed games), Tetris(mainstreamed puzzle games, was the first all-ages hit)
90's: Mortal Kombat (mainstreamed fighting games, mainstreamed violent games)
2000's: WoW, COD (both for obvious reasons)

Of course, as time goes by, influence gets more granular. Pitfall, Zelda, Metroid, AC, Halo, Gears, TLOU, and UC for example belong at various points for various sorts of critical influence, but yeah I guess it can get out of hand for this kind of list)
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
I can;t pick just one, so I will throw don as many as I can think of...

1960's: Spacewar!
1970's: Pong, Asteroids, Space Invaders, The Oregon Trail
1980's: Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros, Tetris, Legend of Zelda, Dunk Hunt, Dragon's Lair, Out Run, Ultima, Robotron 2084
1990's: Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Madden Football, FIFA, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong Country, Resident Evil, Doom, Half-Life 1, Daytona USA, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII, Commander Keen, Tomb Raider, Command & Conquer, Myst, Quake, StarCraft: Brood War, Everquest, Pokémon
2000's: GTA3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Halo, WOW, Counter-Strike, The Sims, Minecraft, Crysis, Arkham Asylum, Angry Birds, Wii Sports, Brain Age, Guitar Hero
 
A

Ahasverus

Member
2010's is impossible to say. I'd say Minecraft, but it doesn't feel like every game is drinking from it, it's also a bit past its prime and I doubt its influence will be felt in the 2020s.

I'd say, riskly so, that the most influential game so far has been Dark Souls, as it positioned the "hardcore gamer" as a valid commercial niche to focus in, and while of course they have pretty much a monopoly on its genre, I'd say it reversed that trend of easier, automatized games. Modern games are harder than past gen ones were, and I put the "blame" on Dark Souls.


Edit: Welp, I forgot about Skyrim. Skyrim influenced The Witcher, Zelda, Horizon and countless others "great" games (And not so great). It was also a factor into turning gaming from the bald space marine back into fantasy. And it opened the gates to the open world rpg to high commercial success.

So yeah, Skyrim.
 
S

Samikaze

Member
OP's got it pretty much locked down, but I might replace GTAIII with Halo 2 or Modern Warfare.

Open worlds have slowly evolved and GTAIII really pushed the envelope, but those other two skyrocketed online console gaming.
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
For influence's sake, imo

70s - Space Invader /Pong
80s - Pac Man / Wizardry
90s - Alone in the Dark / Everquest
2000s - Dwarf Fortress / Angry Birds
 
TheRedSnifit

TheRedSnifit

Member
I don't even know how you could pick just one for the '90s.

- Wolf3D
- Doom
- System Shock
- Quake
- Ocarina of Time
- Mario 64
- Resident Evil
- And more!
 
M

Mega

Banned
There's a reason we judge a game's influence by genre and its console generation. Broadening it to an entire decade doesn't make sense when you're potentially left comparing NES to Dreamcast.
 
P

pretty done

Member
2000s is definitely Call of Duty 4. Not only did it have a fuckton of wannabes, it set the standard for what features should be in an online console FPS.
 
The Horror the horror

The Horror the horror

Banned
Tetris's influence is being understated in this thread. It did for handheld gaming what Pac Man did for arcades. I'd go so far as to say that today's pick-up-and-play games on handhelds and smartphones are indebted to it.
 
E

EVO

Member
Based purely on the number of clones these games inspired I'd nominate one of the following for this decade:

  • Flappy Bird
  • Crossy Road
  • Threes/2048
Over the next few years though I think we're gonna see a lot more physics based sports games like Rocket League.
 
S

Shengar

Member
The most influential game of 2000's should be ICO. It become a main source of inspiration for many indies, and let's not forget it was that game that make Miyazaki resign from his high paid job to become a new FromSoft employee at the age of 28.
 
R

redcrayon

Member
It's hard to boil it down to one. As far as the 2010s go I think the mainstream success of Skyrim has been very influential on the open world and fantasy games in the AAA sphere.
 
G

GamerJM

Banned
70s: Pong
80s: Super Mario Bros.
90s: Super Mario 64
2000s: Call of Duty 4
2010: MineCraft

2000s is probably the most debatable. GTA3 or WoW might have the bigger long-lasting impact looking long-term future, but I think CoD4 has had the biggest impact just looking at what's happened since. It seemed like it influenced the entirety of the rest of the 360/PS3 era to a degree we hadn't seen since Nintendo's influence on the platformer genre. GTA3 is a game that might continue to have an impact 20 years from now whereas by then the FPS genre might just be completely different.
 
R

redcrayon

Member
Shengar said:
The most influential game of 2000's should be ICO. It become a main source of inspiration for many indies, and let's not forget it was that game that make Miyazaki resign from his high paid job to become a new FromSoft employee at the age of 28.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that being a niche hit from talented developers is enough to be called 'most influential' when stuff like GTAIII or God of War on PS2 and then CoD4 are around, all of which pretty much started or became a reference point for entire genres. Even Gears pretty much inspired the combat of every TPS since. Sure, you can see ICOs mark on modern games, its an influential game, but I don't think it had the same impact as stuff with wider appeal.
 
E

endlessflood

Member
OP nailed it.

SF2 would come close for the 90's, and COD4 and WOW would come close for the 00's, but I'd still go with DOOM and GTA III respectively.
 
R

redcrayon

Member
True Fire said:
I'd split this by 5 year increments.

The Witcher 3 has a tight grasp over 2015-2020. I imagine Cyberpunk will be the benchmark from 2020-2025.
Click to expand...
That's a bold claim to make considering we've got another three years to go, and I'm not convinced about it being a 'tight grasp'. Let's wait and see.

Predicting a game being influential years before it even releases, based on the pedigree of the developer, is a bit silly no matter how much faith you have in them. Even the best studios can drop the ball, or turn in something that's brilliant but iterative. Nothing wrong with that.

It's really hard to predict this stuff in advance, only hindsight, as other games then show a trend that can be traced back to a source, do that.
 
D

Davide

Member
Hasn't Assassin's Creed been really influential for over the past decade? There's even some influence in Breath of the Wild. Possibly Arkham City, Ubisoft's other open world games, obviously Shadow of Mordor, maybe The Witcher 3.
 
R

Released

Member
Coriolanus said:
hmm, not really. The only really influential bit halo had was regenerating shield/health. All of its other traits, like very open maps, vehicles, higher TTK's, diverse enemy AI and Sci-Fi, organic battle scenarios with very little scriptiing, simply weren't amply copied. Becomes even more evident when you consider its mp, which emphasized map pickups.

Whereas mohaa and cod, with the low ttk, loadouts, highly scripted campaigns, exact god damn same enemy types, linear maps and on rails segments....
Click to expand...

It transferred more than just regenerating health mechanics to console shooters. The control scheme allowing grenade use without swapping weapons or going through an inventory. The 2 weapon limit, working well with console's fewer buttons. And then you get into Halo 2's influence with online matchmaking.

Still wouldn't say it's most influential of the 00s though.
 
N

neurosisxeno

Member
Torokil said:
10s - League of Legends
Click to expand...

...No.

EDIT: I'll preemptively expand. For starters, League didn't really influence a ton of games outside of inspiring some knockoffs in the rise of mobile gaming. If you're going to give a MOBA/ARTS credit it has to be DotA. Without DotA there's No LoL, No Smite, No Demigod, No HoN, No HotS, No Paragon, etc. DotA refined and mastered the genre, and still features a lot of things that games competing with it like HotS and LoL lack. I would say at best it inspired HotS, pushing Blizzard to make a game that goes in the more "casual MOBA" direction, but Blizzard made it clear they were working on a game back when DotA 2 was announced. If we want to go back further to the game that inspired them all, you want to give credit to Starcraft. Blizzards tools (UMS maps) allowed for ARTS/MOBA's, as well as inspired Blizzard to try out the Hero System in WC3, and helped put Tower Defense games on the map. One could go as far as to say that E-Sports as we know it would not exist without Starcraft, since Brood War set the bar in just about every way imaginable.

Also, League of Legends came out in 2009, and was in beta as early as 2007 I believe (I was in the initial Beta, as were a lot of people active with TDA and DotA-Allstars forums).
 
petran79

petran79

Banned
For the 80s and 90s you'd have to separate it into arcades, computers and consoles. They had very distinct games and it was impossible to run a game the exact way on another platform.

Some dark horses:

80s: Bubble Bobble.
Popularised 2 player co-op and according to the developer it appealed to both boys, men and girls, women, since it was made with couples in mind. Because today social aspect and representation are very important in games, that game nailed it.

90s: Super EF2000.
Some may mention Doom, Mario64, Virtua Fighter, etc for 3d. But one of the most advanced and complex 3d games of that era were the flight simulators of DID. That game was a technical marvel to play and behold. Due to being niche, few noticed it. Kinda like a cut evolution path. Peak of flight simulators.

Little Big Adventure: first modern open world action/adventure game,its gigantic sequel more so.

2000:
Resident Evil 4
First major quality 3d overhaul of an old franchise, that game would revive the action/adventure genre.
 
eot

eot

Banned
petran79 said:
For the 80s and 90s you'd have to separate it into arcades, computers and consoles. They had very distinct games and it was impossible to run a game the exact way on another platform.

Some dark horses:

80s: Bubble Bobble.
Popularised 2 player co-op and according to the developer it appealed to both boys, men and girls, women, since it was made with couples in mind. Because today social aspect and representation are very important in games, that game nailed it.

90s: Super EF2000.
Some may mention Doom, Mario64, Virtua Fighter, etc for 3d. But one of the most advanced and complex 3d games of that era were the flight simulators of DID. That game was a technical marvel to play and behold. Due to being niche, few noticed it. Kinda like a cut evolution path. Peak of flight simulators.

Little Big Adventure: first modern open world action/adventure game,its gigantic sequel more so.

2000:
Resident Evil 4
First major quality 3d overhaul of an old franchise, that game would revive the action/adventure genre.
Click to expand...

So how is it influential then?

FWIW I do remember it, but I hadn't thought about it in years. Falcon 4 came out in 1998 and is still being played today, it was the definitive combat flight sim of the 90's and 2000's.
 
Lanrutcon

Lanrutcon

Member
90s is definitely Doom. I don't think the younger folk realise what that game did to put FPS games on the map. It literally came from nowhere, stepped over its limited peers and showed everyone what the medium could do. It directly paved the way for the slew of legendary FPS games that came afterwards, and put multiplayer FPS' on the map.
 
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