10 Most Surprising Games in the Video Game Hall of Fame

Push comes to shove, what do you think are the most important video games ever made?

That is a question that the World Video Game Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York set out to answer. There, curators seek to explore and preserve video game history for future generations.

There is a specific set of criteria for a game to be inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame. The game must have: icon status, longevity, geographical reach, and influence on other games or society in general.

Some of the games in the Video Game Hall of Fame are no-brainers, including Pong and Donkey Kong. Others are downright bizarre, especially to veteran gamers.

Here, then, are the 10 most surprising games in the Video Game Hall of Fame and why they were inducted.

10. King’s Quest

Video game history is filled with some amazing RPGs. As of this writing, only two RPGs have made it into the Hall of Fame, and King’s Quest is one of them.

Younger gamers would probably find this graphical adventure game from 1984 as quaint and simplistic. However, King’s Quest influenced pretty much all adventure games to follow, especially in a gaming world dominated at the time by text-based adventures.

Thanks to King’s Quest, future RPGs would feature engaging animations and vivid visual environments. And this humble title helped shape the entire future course of the RPG genre.

RELATED: The Top 10 Video Games That Changed The Industry Forever

9. The Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail is an old game, with code dating back to 1971. It was designed as one of the first “edutainment” games, with the goal of helping young children learn more about American history.

Modern gamers may find this game simultaneously simplistic and frustrating. Why, then, did it make it into the Hall of Fame?

As the Hall of Fame puts it, this is “the oldest continuously available video game ever made.” It’s a major part of the history of both video games and edutainment, and we can feel its legacy in the modern drive to “gamify” learning.