Put on your dancing shoes, the Strong Museum has announced the four inductees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame‘s Class of 2022.
After coming up empty in two previous years (2018 and 2019), Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution finally boogied its way into the Hall of Fame. It was joined on the virtual stage by Sid Meier’s Civilization (2016) and Bandai Namco’s Ms. Pac-Man (2018), two other titles that fell short in previous years.
For the fourth inductee, the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee chose Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in its first year as a finalist.
Historians and curators from the World Video Game Hall of Fame put together a short presentation video highlighting this year’s inductees, as well as shared some of their thoughts.
“The addictive nature of [Civilization], which creator Sid Meier himself called the ‘one more turn’ quality, and its nearly unlimited choices that prevented repetitive gameplay, earned [the game] recognition from Computer Gaming World as ‘The Best Video Game of All Time’ in 1996,” said Jon-Paul Dyson, Director of The Strong’s International Center for the History of Electronic games. “Altogether—and given the extraordinarily long periods of play the game afforded—players have engaged with the Civilization series for more than a billion hours.”
“As Dance Dance Revolution’s name implies, it truly provided a revolution for the music game scene,” said Video Game Curator Lindsey Kurano. “Music has been an integral part of human life since prehistoric times, so it comes as no surprise that DDR enjoyed a unique popularity that spanned ages, genders, and regions.”
“Even today, developers throughout the world credit The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as influencing the way they create games,” said Digital Games Curator Andrew Borman. “The game’s sprawling 3D world, fluid combat, complex puzzles, and time-shifting story combined to inspire a wonder in players that they have never forgotten.”
“Ms. Pac-Man promoted and signaled the broadening of game play across the genders,” said Senior Archivist Julia Novakovic. “There was nothing inherently gendered about early video games, but the coin-op industry certainly advertised them that way. By offering the first widely recognized female video game character, Ms. Pac-Man represented a turn in the cultural conversation about women’s place in the arcade as well as in society at large.”
The rest of this year’s finalists (which included Assassin’s Creed, Candy Crush Saga, Minesweeper, NBA Jam, PaRappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, Rogue, and Words With Friends) will have to wait until next year for another chance to be inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. But that process begins today, as the Strong Museum has already opened the Nominate A Game page for the Class of 2023.