The BAFTAs declares Shenmue and a game that came out 2 months ago more influential than Tetris and expects us to all just go along with that
A couple of months back, the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs, more or less the British Oscars) got bored of figuring out which things were good by itself. Instead, it decided to ask you, the humble gaming public, to divine the most influential game of all time. And boy, you've really made a hash of that.
In results announced today, the BAFTAs declared, with an entirely straight face, that Yu Suzuki's 1999 Dreamcast opus is the most influential videogame ever made, according to the results of its poll. The academy calls Shemue "a pioneer for open-world gameplay and laid a roadmap that others continued on in the years that followed," and credits/blames it for popularising "the use of Quick Time Events (QTEs)" in games that came after.
None of which, I suppose, is necessarily untrue, but the game bringing up the rear in second place is literally Doom, and even if you're absolutely bonzo-dog doo-dah nuts for forklift simulators and characters who say things like "Years ago I was Chinese", I still don't think you can credit Shenmue with greater and longer-lasting influence than the game that codified the FPS as a genre.
It only gets loopier as the list goes on. Third place belongs, sensibly enough, to Super Mario Bros. Fourth goes to Half-Life, which is reasonable. Fifth and sixth? Ocarina of Time and Minecraft, which can both hold their own in the history books. And then, well, apparently the seventh most-influential game of all time is Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which released two months ago. They're not even done patching it yet.
This is, I think, possibly even more absurd than calling Shenmue the medium-defining benchmark for videogames as a whole. I love KCD2, don't get me wrong: I gave it 90% in our KCD2 review, but it has literally not existed on this Earth for long enough to influence much of anything yet.
But according to John Q Public, it's easily more influential than Super Mario 64, Half-Life 2, The Sims, and Tetris. Tetris. Tetris! So I think what we have here is a bunch of poll respondents who interpreted 'Which videogame is most influential?' as 'Which videogame do you think is good?'
Is this a searing indictment of the democratic process? Yes. But also, it's mostly just funny, and serves as a striking example of how ultimately hollow these attempts to crowdsource plaudits are in the grand scheme of things. Far better to rely on panels of experts, like us at PC Gamer, to do this stuff properly. We'd never make a wild, controversial decision that pursues us for the rest of our days.
The BAFTA most influential list in full:
Shenmue
Doom
Super Mario Bros
Half-Life
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Minecraft
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Super Mario 64
Half-Life 2
The Sims
Tetris
Tomb Raider
Pong
Metal Gear Solid
World of Warcraft
Baldur's Gate 3
Final Fantasy VII
Dark Souls
Grand Theft Auto 3
Skyrim
Grand Theft Auto
2025 games: This year's upcoming releasesBest PC games: Our all-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest RPGs: Grand adventuresBest co-op games: Better together
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
29 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Billionaire gaming CEO buys superyacht company that built his and Jeff Bezos' boats
Some gamers spend weekends on the couch. Others spend them luxuriating in the most expensive assets money can buy. Gabe Newell, the cofounder of video game developer Valve Corporation, has purchased Oceanco, the Dutch builder behind some of the world's most prominent superyachts. The amount that Newell, who Forbes reports is worth $9.5 billion, paid for the shipbuilder has not been disclosed. The previous owner, Mohammed Al Barwani, purchased Oceanco in 2010. Neither Newell nor Oceanco responded to requests for comment from Business Insider. Newell's Valve is behind some of the most beloved video games, including the "Half-Life" and "Portal" series. It also created Steam, the biggest PC gaming platform, and the handheld PC gaming device Steam Deck. With Oceanco, he's moving into sun decks and main decks. The shipyard has built some of the most renowned superyachts and only delivers a couple of fully customized vessels, which cost well into the nine figures, each year. Its largest build to date is Koru, Jeff Bezos's 127-meter-long sailing yacht, which was delivered in 2023 to much fanfare and has been praised for its aesthetics. The Koru build had its controversial moments. Oceanco initially requested that a historic bridge be dismantled to deliver the yacht, but then rescinded the request. Separately, the company was fined for failing to properly trace the teak used to craft some of Koru's furniture and interiors. Oceanco is also behind Alfa Nero, the 82-meter yacht seized from a Russian oligarch in 2023, and Bravo Eugenia, the 109-meter yacht owned by billionaire Jerry Jones. Newell owns at least one Oceanco design: Draak, a 91.5-meter-long yacht with a helipad, spa, gym, and swimming pool. He is also rumored to be the future owner of Oceanco Y722, a 111-meter project expected to be delivered later this year. While the prices of Oceanco's new deliveries are largely kept under wraps, the six yachts for sale from the builder range in price from $5.8 million for a 49-meter vessel built in 1995 to $341 million for a 105-meter superyacht built in 2000. Newell will take a hands-off approach and plans to "leave the team alone," according to a press release from August 1 announcing the acquisition. There is hope, however, that his tech background will influence production. "What happens when you let yachtbuilders talk to worldbuilders? When craftsmen get access to tech usually reserved for game devs and mad scientists?" the press release says. "You get innovation that doesn't just look good. It feels good."
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
I Just Spit Out My Diet Mountain Dew Laughing At These Complete Strangers Who Came Out Of Nowhere With The Funniest Possible Reply To A Random Comment
babies: life: alligators: Related: desire: being remembered: family dinners: usernames: Related: birds: cause for termination: sleep hacks: Related: exercise: first experiences: size differences: the inevitable march of time: Ed Sheeran: Related: insects: high-speed internet: sleep-talking: on perception: Greg Gerg, indeed. Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds:
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Why The King Of The Hill Revival Is Explicitly Not Trying To Make You Feel Nostalgic
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. King of the Hill is finally making its big return on the 2025 TV schedule, and I think fans who fire up their Hulu subscription on Monday will quickly be met with one inevitable truth about the new episodes. A lot has changed in Arlen over the decades, and it's not just the viewers who will struggle to cope with that. Hank and Peggy have been overseas for quite some time, and will spend some time playing catch-up with the new Texas and all the changes happening within their friend group. It's certainly not a return that will invoke nostalgia, but as Toby Huss and Mike Judge said when I spoke to the them and the cast at San Diego Comic-Con, that's by design. America as a whole has changed in the decade and a half since King of the Hill left television, and Huss mentioned a comparison creator Judge made about how viewers should see this series: The thing you [Mike] mentioned earlier about it being like Andy Griffith is back and he's pissed off. I think the thing about the show is that it really not nostalgic. Their coming back is not nostalgic, and it doesn't feel like it's a nostalgic thing, like, 'Let's look at the old fun people we had fun with.' It's nothing like that. It's a whole other iteration of their lives,just a few years later. It's charming in its own way, and it's safe and it's inviting because it's, you know, meeting these old people, old friends again, but it never felt nostalgic. Things have changed for every character in King of the Hill, as CinemaBlend wrote about when we pointed out key details in posters and other footage we've seen. Arlen is not the same place it was when Hank and Peggy left, and it takes both a while to find their footing. Fortunately, Mike Judge said that exact premise is what really got the ideas rolling in the King of the Hill writers' room. The creator told me that once they landed on the idea of Hank taking a contract to live on an American base in Saudi Arabia for several years, it began to make sense why they felt like fishes out of water when returning to Texas: Once we got the idea that they've been out of the country for 10 or so years and they're coming back, that felt right. A lot of ideas came out of that because then you get to have Hank be annoyed by all these new things, and also that they were in this Aramco base where they have this kind of fake idyllic American city for Americans. Living on an American base abroad has, as one might guess, made Hank and Peggy a bit out of touch as to how much America has changed in their absence. Not to worry though, as the entire alley gang and Bobby have been there, and are ready to fill them in as I've witnessed across the episodes I received ahead of the premiere. More On King Of The Hill King Of The Hill Struggled To Figure Out What To Do About Bobby's Voice In The Revival The good news is that while the series is not nostalgic in tone, it certainly feels like classic King of the Hill. Despite the tragic deaths of past actors (including the more recent losses of Dale actor Johnny Hardwick and John Redcorn actor Jonathan Joss), the series hasn't lost a step in finding ways to give new adventures on par with some of the greatest episodes of the show's past. I saw the entire series ahead of its arrival, and as a longtime King of the Hill fan, I can confidently say I want a lot more episodes. I particularly like the decision to age up characters like Bobby, Joseph and Connie, as it presents a fresh new storyline that not only is interesting, but incredibly relevant to the lives of young adults today. Readers will get to see for themselves when they watch King of the Hill's return on Hulu on Monday, August 4th. I'm excited to see the world's response to the show returning, and I'm hoping it's big enough that a Season 2 renewal is just around the corner. Solve the daily Crossword
