After reading an article gamers have culture got to thinking...if we have culture which we most certainly do...what are the most relevant moments to that culture? I can think of a few... Obviously the first game system, the brown box? NES's release in 85 Square Soft breaking ties for a time with Nintendo after the SNES Sony's marketing strategy with the Playstation What other ones can you think of?

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Original post by Durakken the most relevant moments to that culture?

Governmental regulation attempts
Creation of ratings boards like ESRB
The big crash of '84
E.T. for the 2600
Custer's Revenge for the 2600

The transition from MUDs, and the first big two MMOs (UO & EQ) seem appropriate to culture.
Wow's expansion of the MMO market.
The introduction of the Wii was a big signal of the rising popularity of casual games.
The start of GDnet, of course.

I would say the rise of Flash game websites is quite important as it, indirectly, led to the rise of mini games and casual games. Also, there have been quite a few pivotal game releases, others can probably think of more/better but I guess Mario, Halo and Wii Sports probably factor in.

I never understood how Halo is important.
It's just a boring FPS like others that have existed for decades.

Gaming culture actually has a long and proud history:

* Ancient Ritualistic Board Games
* Board Games used to train generals and officers
* The War Gaming culture which gave way to the phenomenon of Roleplaying
* The very first video games, created by extremely bored, and bright, students
* The very first widely distributed and popular console
* The very first home pcs, which led to more game developers, and the advancement of computer technology.

Etc.

It has it's amusing moments:

The naming of Final Fantasy (Which pretty much pulled Square from bankruptcy)
Nintendo's flagship character and his disturbing resemblance to Stalin
The 80's video game crash (Which in hindsight was funny)
Daikatana

Etc.

It has it's heroes:

Richard Garriott
Jane Jensen
John Romero
Sid Meier
Roberta Williams
Hideo Kojima
Shigeru Miyamoto

And it's dark moments...

But those are way too widely publicized.

The most culturally important Game releases, according to me, would have to be:

Zelda,
Super Mario Bros.,
Rogue,
King's Quest,
Gabriel Knight,
Ultima IV,
and Civilization

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Original post by loufoque I never understood how Halo is important. It's just a boring FPS like others that have existed for decades.

For me, it was the first first person shooter than worked on a console. For many others it was the multi-player, for some (strange) people it was the story, and of course fun weapons, vehicles and maps, so I guess the fact it did so much so well. It is easy to hate Halo, and I am not a big fan of Halo 2, but the Halo series should not be dismissed lightly, so many first person shooters take so much from it. For me, that is the true test of game, how much of it is stolen.

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Original post by thk123 Quote: Original post by loufoque I never understood how Halo is important. It's just a boring FPS like others that have existed for decades. for some (strange) people it was the story, and of course fun weapons, vehicles

It's important to keep in mind the game was released in 2001. Back then, there weren't that many FPS around (especially with vehicles). Definitely nothing good on the consoles.

I played the game on PC, initially for the fun gameplay, especially the drivable vehicles. Those were a ton of fun at first. The gameplay wasn't too bad either, and the storyline was interesting.

After a certain point, I started hating the gameplay (and the novelty of vehicles wore off)... Most notably around the point where you're literally going through a series of identical hallways, killing the flood, and everything repeats after the next corner, ad infinitum. I think it took me like 3+ gaming sessions to get past that stage.

So for the later half of the game, it was 90% the storyline that was keeping me playing... Or maybe even 110% the story, since I got to loathe the repetitive hallway clearing/shooting.