It can be as big as Mario, or as small as a indie game. What do you think are the most important video games?

• Spider-Man (2000) - Prior to this game there were alot of garbage licensed games, most of them belonging to superheroes. But, this game changed everything as the developers actually cared! It primitive by today's standards, but it did help Spider-Man become popular in gaming, and companies get confident in licensing their characters to developers who make good games.
• Spider-Man 2 (2004) - Inspired by GTA3, this game is the first open world superhero game, and a good one. Allowing you to swing around freely. This game is the reason Ultimate, Web of Shadows, and PS4 Spider-Man exists.
• Super Smash Bros - The first 4 player fighting game on consoles (excluding Thrill Kill.) Plus one of the best crossovers ever created. It's not a celebration of Nintendo, but video games as a whole.
• Mortal Kombat - Beside creating the ESRB, it inspired the gritty and violent fighting game genre. With iconic characters even mentioned with a friend in Vietnam!
• Halo: Combat Evolved - Perfected the console shooter, and the main reason Xbox as a brand is so popular. Without Halo, Xbox would be forgotten.
• Street Fighter 2 - Combos were an unintentional bug in the code, allowing the player to cancel moves. But, this became Street Fighter's most iconic features. It's fast pasted combat inspired most fighting games today.

 

Well THIS is a difficult question to really answer since every game has a different type of audience but I'll say GOD OF WAR,RED DEAD THEN UNCHARTED GAME.

 

A fair question.
If we're speaking objectively, these have to be among the most important:

Spacewar! - The first video game
Pong - Pretty much the first video game to be widely available to the public
Space Invaders - The first game to really blow up arcades
Pac-Man - The first true gaming icon
Super Mario Bros - Defined, and basically created, the platformer genre
Street Fighter 2 - Revolutionized fighting games
Doom - Wolfenstein 3D might have come first, but Doom is the game to which all future FPS's are compared
Ultima & Wizardry - The basis for all future RPGs
The Legend of Zelda - Adventure came first, but LoZ defined the action-adventure genre
Final Fantasy VII - Popularized RPGs in the West
Resident Evil - Defined the survival horror genre
Double Dragon - Renegade came first, but DD popularized the beat 'em up genre
Command & Conquer - Dune II came first, but C&C popularized the RTS genre
Ninja Gaiden - Popularized story cutscenes
Half-Life - Introduced real-time cutscenes
Grand Theft Auto III - Set the standard for open-world games
The 7th Guest - Killer app that popularized the CD-ROM format
Super Mario 64 - Defined the 3D platformer

There's more, I'm just done for now  

 

your list mentions GTA III but doesn't include it?

 

Well, I'll include more games over time. GTA as a series is important in the gaming world, even if it was almost never released.

 

TakerPrime is off to a good start. I will quibble that that real time in-engine cutscenes were around in various forms for a long time before HL, but that was the first to do it really well in 3D and (for better and worse) was the main spawning point for "cinematic" gaming as we know it today.

Other obvious stuff of the top of my head -

Colossal Cave Adventure - Probably the longest legacy of any title in the medium. Begat the whole adventure genre and it's pioneering of storytelling in games, huge influence on the development of RPGs, the starting point for the concepts of exploration and open worlds, inspired MUDs which in turn developed into MMOs and so on.

Elite - Took the open world baton from CCA and ran with it. Also the most important game in the early development of the space exploration, trading and combat genres.

Zork - Set the standard for the text era of the adventure genre and the early standard for writing in games in general.

Kings Quest - Did for graphical adventures what Zork did for text and a significant jump forward for visual storytelling in games.

Sim City - First properly successful building and management game, popularised open ended player-driven sandbox game play and a massive influence on most things that came after in those areas.

Civilisation - Defining game in the 4X Strategy genre and another massive influence going forward in it's area.

Tetris

Ultima Underworld - It's place in history has been largely overlooked as it wasn't much of a commercial success, but this a colossal landmark in the development of the RPG genre and first person gameplay in general.

Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter - Big technical milestone, the point where full polygon games finally started living up to the promise and the latter single handily defined the 3D Fighting Game genre.

Myst - The other killer app of the CD format that ultimately outsold and had more lasting influence then 7th Guest. Was the highest selling PC game of all time all the way up to the release of The Sims.

Daytona - Model 2 was a huge generational leap in graphics technology and Daytona was the showcase for that.

Crysis - Another massive leap forward in graphics technology, arguably the last one of that magnitude and marks the end of the PC-driven arms race era of 3D hardware development.

Resident Evil 4 - Along with GTA3, the most influential action games of their generation. You can almost draw a line between third person shooters made before and after this.

I've written enough already, but I also need to put a word in for -

Quake, Counter-Strike, Starcraft, Ultima Online, Everquest, WOW and LOL for their part in online gaming and esports.

Also Diablo, Populous, Shenmue, Tomb Raider, Pokemon, Metroid, Baldur's Gate and probably a bunch of other stuff i'm forgetting for development and influence in their genres.

Love them or hate them, Minecraft and Fortnite are also going to be in this discussion going forward in time and rightfully so.

 

* Colossal Cave Adventure / Adventure = the first text adventure
* Maniac Mansion - although not the first P&C graphic adventure, it introduced the SCUMM interface which became a model for other companies' interfaces
* SimCity - another "not the first", this time resource management / god sim, but the one that made the genre popular
* Civilization - popularised 4X games

 

I think we need to include Starcraft, and indirectly, Warcraft III in here somewhere as well. Starcraft set the standard for asymmetrical balance in RTS games, and in part gave rise to eSports as a result.

Warcraft III itself didn't make as big a splash, but its highly versatile map editor begat an entirely new game genre (MOBAs).

Everquest/World of Warcraft for MMOs.

The original Diablo was a moderate success, but Diablo II set the standard for action RPG/loot grind gameplay that all other entries into the genre are still compared against, and is still frequently homaged/referenced.

 

Pretty sure FFIII (VI) and Chrono Trigger were quite popular here before FFVII.

 

While FFVI and Chrono Trigger were popular, FFVII was the first to receive a massive ad campaign to boost its profile, and creating a boom in the market in the West for a genre that was previously quite niche.

Quite a number of fans found the previous Final Fantasy installments and Chrono Trigger because they were trying to find more games similar to FFVII. Me included.

 

Yep, you pretty much covered what I was going to say.

Yes, Chrono Trigger and FFVI were popular at the time, but RPGs were still a niche market. FFVII, by contrast, blew up and became a phenomenon.
Honestly, I didn't even realize the impact of FFVII until reading multiple stories about it years later. FFIV, Chrono Trigger, and FFVI had already gotten me into RPGs (FFVI is my favorite RPG ever), so FFVII's impact on me was somewhat diminished.

Subjectively, I think FFVI is a much better game than FFVII. But FFVII was overall more important to video game history, hence its inclusion on my list.

 

Not much I can add here, but I nominate Killer Instinct. Before this game, combos were tame and only 4-5 hits, but KI introduced us to 20-40 hit combos. Thereafter, more companies incorporated multi-hit barrages and ridiculous, juggling combos into their games.

 

Dragon Quest. The first one hasn't aged as well as the later games but it inspired so many games after it and has a pretty important place in video game history.

 

I have to admit, this is one I'm ashamed to say I totally forgot. The ultimate puzzle game, and the game that launched the portable console market.

I actually went back and forth between Myst and 7th Guest, but you're right. Even though it came later Myst was ultimately more influential. They both deserve inclusion on any list of important games.

I was thinking that Ultima & Wizardry could cover the entire RPG genre, but DQ does deserve a place as well because it set the standard for console RPGs. Its overworld/dungeon/random encounter design had a huge impact, and current RPGs still incorporate some of those elements.

 

I was gonna say Tetris, but someone beat me to it, so I'll say Wing Commander because it kickstarted the whole starfighter combat sim genre, and partly inspired the X-Wing games.

 

IK+ for showing the world that it was OK for an absolutely, entirely serious (honest, guv) martial arts game to have it's player characters drop their pants on command.

 

Metal Gear Solid for the stealth, crazy storyline, attention to detail.

Zelda Ocarina of Time for being so awesome.

And on the topic of Final Fantasy... Yes, Chrono Trigger and FF6 were better than FF7. (just my opinion) i liked 7 very much. But it just shows that the most 'important', or influential/revolutionary list of anything is often just a popularity contest. I'm revealing some bitterness.

 

That's a loaded question if ever I heard one.

Obviously, games like "Spacewar!" and "Pong" were the very first video games, and proved not only could they be done but they could also be successful.

The "Mario Bros" series popularized the platformer genre.

"Wolfenstein 3D" was the first FPS game, quickly followed and overshadowed by DOOM, which really kicked the FPS genre into high gear.

"Quake" further revolutionized the FPS genre by introducing true 3D mobility and the ability to aim and fire in 3D.

This in turn gave rise to "Half Life," which had an expansive story.

"Halo" turned story-driven FPS games into a work of art, or an experience as opposed to just a game.

"Team Fortress Classic" was the first FPS game created from a mod (specifically, from Quake), and it's successor "Team Fortress 2" popularized the class-based shooter subgenre.

"WarCraft" brought RTS gaming into the forefront.

The "Civilization" series popularized the "4x" style of turn-based strategy game.

"DOTA," another game made from a mod (Warcraft 3), catapulted the MOBA genre to popularity. It was followed by "League of Legends," which became the most popular game of all time and one of the most popular Esports.

"Call of Duty" was another FPS revolution, though it's name would soon become associated with "generic shooter" as it failed to properly capitalize on what made it great.

"Counter Strike" became a very popular Esport.

"Everquest" kickstarted MMO gaming, while "World of Warcraft" surpassed it and made it mainstream.

"Minecraft" exploded, making block-based survival/building games popular and becoming the single best-selling game of all time.

The "PlanetSide" franchise is still the sole provider of true large-scale, combined-arms MMOFPS gameplay.

"Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" popularized the Battle Royale FPS subgenre, which in turn was surpassed by "Fortnite," which started off as a basebuilding survival game and only tacked Battle Royale on to try and garner more attention. This started an unfortunate trend of other games doing the same, in order to get in on the action as well.

The history and influence of video games could have a whole textbook dedicated to it. There are way too many "influential" games to count.

 

Not good, but important- the deluge of bad games that helped crash the industry in 1983-1985. Atari’s reign effectively ended & the stage was set for Sega & Nintendo to come in & revitalize the industry.

Tomb Raider- She may not be the First Lady of videogames, but she’s arguably the most well-known & important.

Wii Sports- broadened the audience to include people that never thought of themselves as gamers before.

Pokémon Go- for one incredible summer, the world came together.

Gremlins 2- for proving that even back in the NES days, it was possible to do an adaptation of a movie right.

 

Metal Gear Solid is one of the first examples that definitely sprung to mind in terms of video games as it was one of the first games that could tell a story narrative equivalent to one seen in a movie. The Last of Us, I think was another game that took video game storytelling to the next level.

Early games like Pac-Man and Tetris, obviously should be mentioned.

So are games like Super Mario Bros/ Sonic the Hedgehog which sent a precedent for platform gaming. The former having more luck than the latter.

While I hold Resident Evil as a contributor to the survival horror genre. I think Silent Hill sets more of that precedent to me. Silent Hill 2 Remastered would be an immersive nightmare.

Both Street Fighter 2/ Mortal Kombat. Street Fighter 2 figured how to make competitive fighting work, Mortal Kombat was more important for its fatalities and stuff.

I also consider Earthbound to be important in regards to RPG games. The Earthbound series is sadly only alive through Smash Bros... But I think it was something special. And it's exactly how games like Undertale got made.