2025 Inductees Announced for World Video Game Hall of Fame: Quake and GoldenEye Featured

Alright, diving into this… so, imagine it’s Thursday, right? And the Strong National Museum of Play just drops this announcement. Four video games get their golden ticket into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. You got Defender from Williams Electronics — there’s a blast from the past, right? Then, Rare’s GoldenEye 007, which still makes my thumbs twitch just thinking about it, id Software’s Quake (the soundtrack, man!), and Bandai’s Tamagotchi (those little e-pets we all neglected years ago).

Oh, and speaking of contenders, this wasn’t a free-for-all. The list was like 2025 or something. It had Age of Empires — strategy nerds, unite! — along with Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (did you just hear a grenade go off in the background, or is that just me?), Frogger, Golden Tee, Harvest Moon, Mattel Football, and NBA 2K. Quite a mishmash, right?

Apparently, why these four? Well, The Strong, and no, we don’t mean the gym buffs, talks about how these games didn’t just play — they shifted gears in pop culture and gaming. Iconic, they say. Not sure how geographical reach plays into it, but hey, maybe Tamagotchis had secret fans in Antarctica. And Quake, fun fact, it’s buddies with Doom in this prestigious club since 2015.

So, these expert folks (judges or curators or… maybe just super-nerds?) tell us why these particular games? They’ve got this magic influence. Defender, probably for its crazy old-school arcade feels, GoldenEye for those sleepover multiplayer marathons, Quake for… well, just being Quake, and Tamagotchi for teaching responsibility. Or guilt, mostly guilt for digital pet neglect.

Turns out, since 2015, a whopping 49 games strutted into this hall of fame. Before this year’s crew, there was Resident Evil one year (yeah, the game that made you afraid of your own shadow), plus Asteroids, Myst, Ultima, and SimCity. Who knows what’ll come next? Maybe Flappy Bird. Or maybe not.