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Dubrow555 wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 9:25 am

Tim wrote: Mon Feb 23, 2026 10:27 pm I guess I have to side with Dubrow here, with FFVll's influence being more fundamental than Minecraft's.

Minecraft being ahead of 3 of the most influential games of all time has never sat right with me (Pacman alone has gotta have much more cultural impact, right?)

I don't think there are any games that clearly have more cultural impact than Minecraft, except for Mario.

It's clearly less influential than those games, way more popular than SFII and Doom, more popular than Pac-Man as well, though it's closer, and clearly more acclaimed than Pac-Man.

ManPerson wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 10:45 am

Dubrow555 wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 9:25 am

Tim wrote: Mon Feb 23, 2026 10:27 pm I guess I have to side with Dubrow here, with FFVll's influence being more fundamental than Minecraft's.

Minecraft being ahead of 3 of the most influential games of all time has never sat right with me (Pacman alone has gotta have much more cultural impact, right?)

I don't think there are any games that clearly have more cultural impact than Minecraft, except for Mario.

It's clearly less influential than those games, way more popular than SFII and Doom, more popular than Pac-Man as well, though it's closer, and clearly more acclaimed than Pac-Man.

Do we know that sure? Do we have an accurate account of people who played Pacman throughout the 1980's and onward?

Responding to: "It's not like either of those were invented by FFVII." directly:

GTA III did not invent open world sandbox games, Doom did not invent FPS games, WOW did not invent MMO's, Street Fighter II was not the first 2D fighter, Metal Gear Solid was not the first stealth game, Resident Evil was not the first horror game, StarCraft was not the first RTS, Super Mario Kart was not the first kart racing game - but all of those games were the first to popularize/be widely accepted as the innovators of their respective genre.

Tim wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 9:36 am So now we want to move Minecraft down?

That would be my vote, but I know I would be in the minority about that.

Dubrow555 wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 7:20 pm

ManPerson wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 10:45 am

Dubrow555 wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 9:25 am

Minecraft being ahead of 3 of the most influential games of all time has never sat right with me (Pacman alone has gotta have much more cultural impact, right?)

I don't think there are any games that clearly have more cultural impact than Minecraft, except for Mario.

It's clearly less influential than those games, way more popular than SFII and Doom, more popular than Pac-Man as well, though it's closer, and clearly more acclaimed than Pac-Man.

Do we know that sure? Do we have an accurate account of people who played Pacman throughout the 1980's and onward?

Minecraft has 9 times the sales of Pac-Man and averages over 200 million players each month. To put it another way, 15 years after its release, 1/40 people in the world log on to play minecraft in just one month.

This is my source btw:
https://icon-era.com/blog/minecraft-liv ... stics.168/

Do we want it on here somewhere or that's a stretch?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_(1998_video_game)

To the yearly lists or to this one?

Well, Thief is #10 on 1998 and near the bottom of all time list and seemingly beats it in both acclaim and influence clearly so I doubt it makes either. Just seems like we overlooked it completely and you could argue it's among the more important casual games.

Dubrow555 wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 7:25 pm Responding to: "It's not like either of those were invented by FFVII." directly:

but all of those games were the first to popularize/be widely accepted as the innovators of their respective genre.

I'm not sure FFVII can even be clearly credited with popularizing pre-rendering as Donkey Kong Country and Resident Evil are both very popular games that made use of the technique and came out before FFVII.

Tim wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 7:57 pm and you could argue it's among the more important casual games.

We could always add Subway Surfers...

Tim wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2026 7:57 pm Well, Thief is #10 on 1998 and near the bottom of all time list and seemingly beats it in both acclaim and influence clearly so I doubt it makes either. Just seems like we overlooked it completely and you could argue it's among the more important casual games.

I kind of feel like DDR is more list-worthy for 1998 than a casual game.

I'd still give Thief acclaim and influence over it though not by as much as in previous match-up.