Lifestyle
20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture
Slide Nr 1Nowadays video games are unquestionably a massive part of pop culture and an endlessly growing force in the entertainment industry with billions in profit, but this wasn’t always the case. It took many years for gaming culture to attract so many die-hard fans worldwide. Here we present the iconic pioneers that paved the way for gaming to go mainstream, and the games still influencing our culture today.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 2Spacewar! (1962) – A gamer today would probably laugh at the primitive graphics and nonexistent special effects in Spacewar! but this, ladies and gents, is considered by experts and video game historians to be the first video game in history, since it was the first original electronic game not based on an existing board game. Its plot is ridiculously simple compared to modern games, as Spacewar! pits two spaceships against each other, both orbiting a central star.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 3Pong (1972) – Pong wasn’t the first arcade game, but it was the first to achieve mainstream popularity. Soon after the release of the first arcade cabinet of Pong, thousands more were sold worldwide with youngsters and adults getting in line to play and enjoy the futuristic experience Pong offered back in the early ’70s. A couple years later, a home version was developed and enjoyed even greater commercial success.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 4Pac-Man (1980) – Pac-Man was a landmark in video game history, and arguably the most successful and popular arcade game of all time. One of the highest-grossing video games ever, Pac-Man managed to generate a whopping USD 2.5 billion in quarters within the first 10 years of its release. The most decorated “ambassador” of the golden age of arcade games, Pac-Man is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, as well as New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 5Tetris (1984) – Tetris is to video games what Elvis Presley is to the music industry: the biggest-selling video game in history, with an astonishing half a billion copies sold in physical and download format. Considered one of the world’s most addictive video games, its name was even borrowed by the field of psychiatry to describe a mental disorder related to compulsive behavior and obsessive thoughts known as the Tetris effect.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 6Super Mario Bros. (1985) – In 1981 Mario made his first appearance in another iconic video game, Donkey Kong. Four years later, Super Mario Bros. – the first in the series – was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but no one could ever imagine what would follow. 32 years later, and after an astonishing 550 million copies of the Mario series sold, IGN (the bible of video games) ranks Super Mario as the best game franchise of all time.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 7Street Fighter II (1991) – Street Fighter II is regarded as the most iconic fighting game ever, with millions of fans around the world. More importantly, it was the game that reinvigorated the arcade industry in the early 1990s. Achieving a level of commercial success not seen in a long time, Street Fighter II became the best-selling arcade game since the golden age of arcade video games, and made those outdated coin-operated entertainment machines cool again.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 8Doom (1993) – The first-person shooter genre had been around since the early 1970s, but nobody seemed to care or pay attention to it. Then, two decades later, Doom entered our lives and changed it all. Undoubtedly one of the most influential video games out there, Doom popularised the now-omnipresent first-person shooter, while its hero – an unnamed space marine who gamers baptised “Doomguy” – is considered one of the most beloved characters in gaming history.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 9Need for Speed (1994) – There have been hundreds of racing video games in the past four decades, but none of them ever managed to reach the status Need for Speed has achieved. With more than 150 million copies sold globally, a Hollywood film inspired by the game, and critical acclaim from most game reviewers, the Need for Speed series has transformed the action-racing genre from a simple field of competition between players into a game with millions of hard-core fans around the world.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 10Resident Evil (1996) – Sure, Resident Evil wasn’t the first horror video game to be released, but it was without doubt THE game that legitimised horror in the gaming world. Since its debut in 1996, other games in the series have followed, and it has inspired six Hollywood blockbusters starring Milla Jovovich, in addition to graphic novels and animated films that have made Capcom billions.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 11Final Fantasy VII (1997) – You might hear some experts argue that it was Final Fantasy VII’s status as an early PlayStation 1 exclusive that gave Sony the push it needed to compete in and eventually dominate the video game industry. However, the real reason this game is legendary is because Final Fantasy VII was the first in history to push each of its separate components – including music, plot, graphics and character building – to totally new heights.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 12The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) – Considered by pretty much everyone to be the best Zelda game, Ocarina of Time is the highest-reviewed game of all time with a Metacritic score of 99/100, and many critics and gamers hail it as the best game, period. But is it the best? Probably not, but the fact that it has one of the largest and most fanatic fan bases clearly shows its vast impact.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 13The Sims (2000) – In The Sims, there’s no storyline, no heroes or villains, not even a true goal or purpose. Instead, you get a chance to build your own virtual world from scratch and be whoever you want to be. The original game became a massive success overnight and went on to sell an unexpected 16 million units – 100 times Electronic Art’s original projection of 160,000 units, earning a position in the Guinness Book of World Records.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 14Grand Theft Auto III (2001) – This game’s motto was “Go anywhere and do anything,” something that was totally unfamiliar to gamers 16 years ago. Whether you’re a fan or not, there’s no way around the fact that Grand Theft Auto III’s open-ended gameplay elements restructured the way the majority of video games are now made, changing the gaming landscape for good with its immersive open-world sandbox.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 15Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) – Despite the original Tomb Raider being first released in 1996, it was only when it was repackaged as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001 that the game went from ‘just good’ to icon status. Hollywood went on to produce two blockbusters based on the game’s plot, with the eponymous character portrayed by Angelina Jolie, and the game series eventually sold over 35 million copies worldwide. It’s now widely regarded as one of the main pioneers of the action-adventure genre.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 16Call of Duty (2003) – Call of Duty didn’t invent or pioneer the first-person shooter genre, but millions of diehard fans will tell you that it took it to another level. Mainly focused on one of the most horrific and significant events in history, World War II, the Call of Duty series has sold over a quarter billion copies worldwide, its sales in the US alone having generated a whopping USD 15 billion in profit.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 17God of War (2005) – God of War was first released in 2005 exclusively for PlayStation 2 and quickly became one of the best-selling games in the world, helping the console to establish its commercial dominance in the mid-2000s. Loosely based on Greek mythology, God of War is set in ancient Greece and the protagonist, Kratos, has become one of the most recognised video game characters ever. A novelisation of the game was published in May 2010, and a film adaptation has been in development for years, with an estimated budget of USD 200 million.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 18Wii Sports (2006) – When Nintendo announced the coming of Wii Sports in 2006, no one could have imagined what would follow. In what’s considered one of the most significant revolutions in gaming history, Nintendo incorporated the latest motion-sensing technology to give gamers the kind of freedom they had never experienced before: actually swing a tennis racket or baseball bat, kick a ball, or throw a jab instead of pressing a button. Besides making gaming healthier, Wii Sports became the best-selling game of all time for a single platform, breaking the record of another epic Nintendo game: Super Mario Bros.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 19BioShock (2007) – BioShock probably combines action-adventure, horror and first-person shooter better than any other video game in history and also introduces its players to a terrifying but intriguing dystopia: Rapture, a massive underwater city forged by the dreams of Andrew Ryan to escape from the political, social and religious anxieties of a post-World-War-II society. The game has received praise from fans worldwide for its incredible artistry and compelling storytelling, while experts consider it a work of art – a true gem of the industry.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 20Assassin’s Creed (2007) – When Assassin’s Creed came out a decade ago, the action-adventure genre experienced a unique resurgence thanks to the smart concept of this game. Blending historical fiction and characters with real events and figures, Assassin’s Creed opened up new horizons in the gaming industry and inspired Hollywood to produce a blockbuster with Michael Fassbender as Aguilar de Nerha, a Master Assassin of the Spanish Brotherhood of Assassins during the 15th and 16th centuries.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
Slide Nr 21The Last of Us (2013) – You might be wondering how a game that was released only 4 years ago can already be considered a classic. According to IGN, The Last of Us is an “action-adventure survival horror masterpiece” and PlayStation 3’s best exclusive. The game has become one of the most awarded video games of all time, winning over 240 Game of the Year awards since its release. Good enough reasons to call a game a classic, no?
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
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20 Video Games That Changed Pop Culture.
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