So...with all the cursing and swearing on their top 100 games of all time, it is once again proven that there is no such thing as "the best". Because for obvious reasons, we all have different tastes and preferences. It'd be like making a top 100 musical scores and somehow expect that the metalhead audience and the ones with a preference to classic music (Bachheads?) could somehow agree on it being "correct". 
But as suggested by @sj33, the medium video games is still young enough to plot out and actually discuss what the actual important games are or were. Of course this is subject to opinion as well, but because it relies far less on favorism there may yet be an outcome.
Hence this thread: what are the 10 games you would consider to be the most important for the medium? What were the most crucial pillars that allowed our hobby to grow from a nerdy university project (spacewar) to the full blown industry with games being made and released on a daily basis? And why?
A few rules:
-keep attacking other's lists to a minimum. If you really want to discuss that, do so privately
-it doesn't have to be your favorite game or even a game you like...heh, you aren't even required to have played the game to begin with
All clear? Okay...here's mine:
10. Snake (nokia 3310): this may seem like a lame inclusion, but back when cell phones were new, this 'game' was everywhere. Most noticeably, among people who would never consider playing games before. Like text messaging, this was one of those things that programmers threw in because they could. We all know about the success of texting. I wouldn't go as far as to say the entire mobile gaming market hinges on snake being a success, but I'd say it's certainly a pillar.
9. portal: another tough cookie. At the time of release, nobody expected something like portal to ever exist (puzzle games were just either static or block puzzles...never an FPS). It gaining track and popularity injected diversity in a lot of games to come later (nowadays it's perfectly normal for even major AAA-titles to have some puzzle-y segments in them). The fact that it's a great and innovative game helps, of course, but I'd like to think that it made my list even without this.
8. street fighter 2: this one not only pretty much invented the fighting game genre, but (apparently) revived classic arcade halls for quite some years. There's something to be said about capcom milking the franchise, but there was no denying in popularity at that time. And while pinpointing the roots of esports isn't easy (okay: perhaps it is, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know for sure), I wouldn't be surprised if this was more than a minor influence.
7. E.T. : whoah, I guess you didn't see THAT one coming.
Okay, when I said important games, I meant...well...important. The colossal commercial failure that was this game simply had to happen at some point. Denying its importance (e.g. attempting to literally bury it) would be like a teenager denying ever having been rejected in love. While absolutely not a pleasant thing, it's failing was more crucial to the game industry than any success ever could hope to claim. Simply put: good games inspire others...bad ones warns developers. But in the end, both are needed for developers to find out what games to make.
6. doom (the original one): there were shooters before. There were first person shooters before. But doom stood out so far from other games that it defined a genre what it was, and left a massive amount of "doom clones" in its wake.
5. minecraft: this one is hard to place on this list as this is the first "killer app" game for a generation younger than me. The known massive success even shrinks when compared to the enormous lengths that people have gone to create all sorts of universes made out of virtual minecraft blocks. It's what lego was for my generation. And probably better, because I always lacked all sorts of blocks to put something impressive together
4. wii sports: yeah, the whole motion control thing had its best moment. It didn't last. But there's no denying that it did bring a totally new sort of experience to video games, and wii sports was at the best possible location to demonstrate what that experience was. Like snake, it brought games to people who didn't knew they liked games until they found one that appealed to them.
3. Super mario bros: the position on this one is hard because of the way this forum is. The NES was the first home console since the video game crash, it's success was hailed by this platformer, and the game itself would inspire whole generations of platform builders afterward.
2. Pong: spacewar was the actual first video game, but pong was the first one to truly let the world know that video games existed. There's no doubt this should be on this list...the only doubt I have is whether I should give it top spot instead of this nr. 2.
1. Tetris: arguably the best puzzle game of all time: simple and elegant yet deeply challenging. Even bloody THIRTY THREE years after release.It enspired a genre (block puzzles), inspired gamers to challenge world records and was the perfect launch game for that one handheld console there. You know...that one. the gameboy one.
My runners-up:
-GTA3: for defining the standards of even the sandbox games of today
-final fantasy: I'm not sure if this was the first game where storytelling and turn based combat blended (ultima is probably a contender), but certainly genre-defining
-Zelda: for being the inspiration to world building and isometric perspective games
-cave story: to be honest, I think indie developers would have broken through even without the runaway success of cave story as inspiration. But as it is, it certainly helped
-plants vs zombies: my chronology may be out of whack, but I think this is the best tower defense game ever (and has most likely caused that whole flood of 'em later )
-dune 2: for defining the RTS genre
But as suggested by @sj33, the medium video games is still young enough to plot out and actually discuss what the actual important games are or were. Of course this is subject to opinion as well, but because it relies far less on favorism there may yet be an outcome.
Hence this thread: what are the 10 games you would consider to be the most important for the medium? What were the most crucial pillars that allowed our hobby to grow from a nerdy university project (spacewar) to the full blown industry with games being made and released on a daily basis? And why?
A few rules:
-keep attacking other's lists to a minimum. If you really want to discuss that, do so privately
-it doesn't have to be your favorite game or even a game you like...heh, you aren't even required to have played the game to begin with
All clear? Okay...here's mine:
10. Snake (nokia 3310): this may seem like a lame inclusion, but back when cell phones were new, this 'game' was everywhere. Most noticeably, among people who would never consider playing games before. Like text messaging, this was one of those things that programmers threw in because they could. We all know about the success of texting. I wouldn't go as far as to say the entire mobile gaming market hinges on snake being a success, but I'd say it's certainly a pillar.
9. portal: another tough cookie. At the time of release, nobody expected something like portal to ever exist (puzzle games were just either static or block puzzles...never an FPS). It gaining track and popularity injected diversity in a lot of games to come later (nowadays it's perfectly normal for even major AAA-titles to have some puzzle-y segments in them). The fact that it's a great and innovative game helps, of course, but I'd like to think that it made my list even without this.
8. street fighter 2: this one not only pretty much invented the fighting game genre, but (apparently) revived classic arcade halls for quite some years. There's something to be said about capcom milking the franchise, but there was no denying in popularity at that time. And while pinpointing the roots of esports isn't easy (okay: perhaps it is, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know for sure), I wouldn't be surprised if this was more than a minor influence.
7. E.T. : whoah, I guess you didn't see THAT one coming.
Okay, when I said important games, I meant...well...important. The colossal commercial failure that was this game simply had to happen at some point. Denying its importance (e.g. attempting to literally bury it) would be like a teenager denying ever having been rejected in love. While absolutely not a pleasant thing, it's failing was more crucial to the game industry than any success ever could hope to claim. Simply put: good games inspire others...bad ones warns developers. But in the end, both are needed for developers to find out what games to make.
6. doom (the original one): there were shooters before. There were first person shooters before. But doom stood out so far from other games that it defined a genre what it was, and left a massive amount of "doom clones" in its wake.
5. minecraft: this one is hard to place on this list as this is the first "killer app" game for a generation younger than me. The known massive success even shrinks when compared to the enormous lengths that people have gone to create all sorts of universes made out of virtual minecraft blocks. It's what lego was for my generation. And probably better, because I always lacked all sorts of blocks to put something impressive together
4. wii sports: yeah, the whole motion control thing had its best moment. It didn't last. But there's no denying that it did bring a totally new sort of experience to video games, and wii sports was at the best possible location to demonstrate what that experience was. Like snake, it brought games to people who didn't knew they liked games until they found one that appealed to them.
3. Super mario bros: the position on this one is hard because of the way this forum is. The NES was the first home console since the video game crash, it's success was hailed by this platformer, and the game itself would inspire whole generations of platform builders afterward.
2. Pong: spacewar was the actual first video game, but pong was the first one to truly let the world know that video games existed. There's no doubt this should be on this list...the only doubt I have is whether I should give it top spot instead of this nr. 2.
1. Tetris: arguably the best puzzle game of all time: simple and elegant yet deeply challenging. Even bloody THIRTY THREE years after release.It enspired a genre (block puzzles), inspired gamers to challenge world records and was the perfect launch game for that one handheld console there. You know...that one. the gameboy one.
My runners-up:
-GTA3: for defining the standards of even the sandbox games of today
-final fantasy: I'm not sure if this was the first game where storytelling and turn based combat blended (ultima is probably a contender), but certainly genre-defining
-Zelda: for being the inspiration to world building and isometric perspective games
-cave story: to be honest, I think indie developers would have broken through even without the runaway success of cave story as inspiration. But as it is, it certainly helped
-plants vs zombies: my chronology may be out of whack, but I think this is the best tower defense game ever (and has most likely caused that whole flood of 'em later
)-dune 2: for defining the RTS genre
