‘The Oregon Trail’ Hits the Video Game Hall of Fame

  The whole ‘video games as art’ thing is still a hell of a tough one. Connoisseurs of the nerdly gaming world will point to things like the music, the visuals, the underlying messages of love and loss that a well-crafted game can use to truly teach us something about the way we live our lives. 

The non-gamers among us, on the other hand, wouldn’t see that. They’d give Flappy Bird a shot for two minutes, realize it’s a slice of shite, and that’d be the end of it. Were they uplifted? Did they feel a bolt of serenity and revelation shoot straight to their happy parts? No, no they didn’t. The bird faceplanted the floor and they went back to scrolling Facebook or something.

Snark aside, games’ influence on popular culture can be just as powerful as that of other media, movies and TV and such. New York’s Strong Museum knows this, and has a spangly new Video Game Hall of Fame dedicated to the titles that really mean something.

Last month, they took votes to see which games would join, in the second round of inductees. These included Street Fighter II, Final Fantasy and the dysentery-tastic The Oregon Trail. Yesterday, as Destructoid reports, the six most popular choices were added to the hall of fame, games that have "significantly affected the video game industry, popular culture, and society in general."

These were Space Invaders, Sonic the Hedgehog, Grand Theft Auto III, The Legend of Zelda, The Sims and Oregon Trail. Choices I can sure get behind. Good job, voters.