GameSpot and IGN changed the video game media landscape after they debuted in 1996, but did you know there’s another site celebrating a quarter-century on the journalistic front lines this year?
Shacknews began life as a Quake fansite before growing into a full-service news portal and file directory in the early 2000s. The site was briefly owned by GameFly a decade ago and is best-known today as the destination for David L. Craddock’s fantastic Long Reads series. I’m guessing this newfound focus on game history served the editorial team well when they launched the Shacknews Hall of Fame last week.
Honoring not just games, the Shacknews Hall of Fame also exists to shine a spotlight on the creators, platforms, technology, and publications that built the game industry into what it is today:
The Shacknews Hall of Fame honors the creators, the platforms, the technology, the publications, and the games that have influenced the direction of our industry and shaped our favorite hobby.
Candidates are judged by the Council according to merit. A developer who created a single game that had enormous influence on their peers and the art and craft of game design carries as much weight as a developer who created hundreds of games of equal influence. The same logic and process apply to all categories of the Shacknews Hall of Fame.
To be eligible for induction into the Shacknews Hall of Fame, a game had to be released on or before December 31, 1996. For its inaugural class, the editorial team (also known as the “Council of the Old”) chose to induct 101 games that represent gaming from the earliest arcade cabinets (though, surprisingly, not Pong) all the way to the dawn of 3D gaming.
The aforementioned Quake made the cut, as did foundational classics such as The Oregon Trail, SimCity, Street Fighter II, Tetris, and dozens of others. But it was Nintendo that was most-represented in the inaugural class with 23 entries, including a banana bunch of Donkey Kong, a trio of The Legend of Zelda, and a six-pack of Super Mario.
The other wings of the Shacknews Hall of Fame offer some interesting avenues to explore, but the People section is particularly noteworthy. You’ll definitely want to explore the stories behind big names such as Amy Hennig, the bowtied Howard Phillips, Jerry Lawson, Mario maestro Koji Kondo, and (of course) Shigeru Miyamoto.
The game titles from the Shacknews Hall of Fame will be added to the Video Game Canon in a future update.