GoldenEye 007, Quake, More Join World Video Game Hall of Fame

The Strong National Museum of Play announced the latest inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees include such iconic titles as GoldenEye 007, Quake, Tamagotchi, and Defender. The four titles were selected from a field of finalists that also included Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Frogger, Golden Tee, Harvest Moon, Mattel Football, and NBA 2K.

The titles were announced at a ceremony, which also featured members of the Defender development team, with the team’s lead Eugene Jarvis, Quake co-creator John Romero, and Bandai Namco head of Tamagotchi Tara Badie. The four games will be enshrined in the museum’s World VIdeo Game Hall of Fame rotunda, which is part of the the ESL Digital Worlds Exhibit.

Released in 1997, GoldenEye 007 was developed by Rare in partnership with Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 console. The first-person shooter adapted the adventures of Ian Fleming’s iconic superspy, and the 1995 movie starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. The game was beloved for its immersive gameplay, along with its revolutionary four-person multiplayer mode, which would set the tone for many multiplayer games that would follow. It became the third best-selling game for the N64, behind only Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64. It sold over eight million copies worldwide.

Andrew Borman, director of digital preservation, said on GoldenEye 007: “Critics lauded GoldenEye 007 as the premier example of a first-person shooter to succeed on a console rather than a PC, and it is still considered one of the best multiplayer experiences ever produced on a Nintendo system. Its impact can be felt in nearly all console FPS games that followed, including Microsoft’s epic Halo franchise that launched in 2001.”

Defender was first released by Williams Electronics in 1981, becoming a bestseller with more than 55,000 units and created a new market for difficult games.

The Tamagotchi handheld electronic game first launched in 1996, launching the digital pet craze. Marrying toys and video games, players raised their own virtual pet, which they had to provide affection and attention from birth to adulthood. The toys spurred the popularity of pet simulation games that followed, including Neopets, Nintendogs, and more.

Quake debuted in 1996 from Id Software. The game’s first-person shooter 3D engine set a new standard for the industry. It’s multiplayer mode also helped spawn the world of eSports. The Quake game mode also has been linked to many other games and continues to be used in modern games almost 30 years since its original release.

Lindsay Kurano, electronic games curator said of Quake: “Quake’s legacy lives on in its atmospheric single player campaign, its influence in how online games are played, its active modding community, and its creation and shaping of esports. Not only this, but Quake’s code is a literal legacy. Of few games can it be said that its DNA—its code—continues to be present in modern games, decades after release.”

The World Video Game Hall of Fame was first established in 2015 at the Strong National Museum of Play. The inductees are on permanent view on the museum’s second floor in the ESL Digital Worlds: High Score exhibit. Anyone is able to nominate a game into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Final selections are then made on the advice of journalists, scholars, and other individuals familiar with the history of games.