World Video Game Hall of Fame inductees announced for 2022

Honoring some of the best games of all time

I think because games are still relatively new compared to other media, sometimes I don’t think of them as having much history. But now that we’re nearing fifty years of games as we know them today, preserving that history has become more important than ever, especially because the nature of games means it’s tragically easy to lose both functioning hardware and software as technology rapidly advances. One party that is doing excellent work by way of games preservation is The Strong National Museum of Play with its World Video Game Hall of Fame, which is part of the larger museum known simply as The Strong in Rochester, New York. I do love a good video game museum.

In addition to hosting both in-person and online museum exhibits highlighting various aspects of video game history, The Strong National Museum is also home to the World Video Game Hall of Fame, which inducts between four and six games every year, beginning back in 2015. Now The Strong has announced its inductees for 2022, which beat out a pretty impressive roster of titles. The four games chosen this year are — drumroll please — Ms. Pac-Man, Dance Dance Revolution, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Sid Meiers’ Civilization.

Unselected finalists included Assassin’s Creed, Candy Crush Saga, Minesweeper, NBA Jam, PaRappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, Rogue, and Words with Friends.

The Strong’s website states that the World Video Game Hall of Fame “recognizes electronic games of all types that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general.” Previous years’ inductees include Pong (inducted 2015), Sonic the Hedgehog (inducted 2016), The Sims (inducted 2016), Pokémon Red and Green (inducted 2017), and Minecraft (inducted 2020), just to name a few.

Honoring the legacy of these games and starting a conversation around the impact these games have had on our lives is an important piece of the games preservation puzzle, so it’s cool to see that they do this every year.