At the recent Game Developers Conference, Henry Lowood (History of Science and Technology Collections, Stanford University) announced The Digital Game Canon - a list of the ten most important video games to date (alt: Ten Games You Need to Play):
- Spacewar! (1962)
- Star Raiders (1979)
- Zork (1980)
- Tetris (1985)
- SimCity (1989)
- Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
- Civilization I/II (1991)
- Doom (1993)
- Warcraft series (beginning 1994)
- Sensible World of Soccer (1994)
(source: NY Times)
How many hours of my life were given to these two pillars of computer gaming?



Nice list…I think I would have added the following: (in no particular order)
1. Pong – Personally, the first video game I ever played. 2. Space Invaders 3. Dragon’s Lair 4. Pac Man 5. Asteroids