Most influential PC game since 1990?

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

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What, in your opinion, is the most influential PC game ever made? Not necessarily the best, or the most technically impressive, or even the most popular - simply the one which had the greatest impact on shaping the world of PC gaming as we know it today.

Personally I'm not sure. I'm tempted to say Doom, because from that point onwards it pretty much established the First Person Shooter as arguably the most dominant genre in the industry. It wasn't the first FPS of it's type by any means, but what it did do was bring it the masses, and established the concept of deathmatch gaming. When you think about it, modern multiplayer FPS haven't really changed all that much since Doom. Plus we're still using phrases like frags, respawning, strafing and so forth - Doom also helped to create a special gaming vocabulary.

However, there are other games down the years which maybe have just a good a case. Quake took us properly 3d and introduced the TCP/IP client<->server model for FPS gaming which we are still using 10 years later, as well as being a killer app for 3d accelator cards. Whereas Dune2 effectively created a new genre too, the RTS, which has changed little over the years. Some people might even suggest Counterstrike(Halflife), as it helped to bring multiplayer pc gaming into the mainstream.

So, what do you think? I've set 1990 as a starting point, since prior to that there's probably a whole range of titles we could mention simply because they were first to market within a certain genre. The modern MMORPGs could arguably be traced back to MUDs from the 80s for example.
 
It's difficult to pin it onto just one game. It's a bit of a mix, but Doom will probably have spawned the most 'clones' and general first person shoot games, but it also did bring us 'Deathmacth', which probably nowdays is the most influential thing we can say. The term deathmatch was used in Doom first, again, more vocabulary for the masses, and look where we use it now, it's just a better way of saying freeforall multiplayer etc.

Without the influence of doom, we wouldn't have had the massive step up in graphics and general technology of Quake, leading to full 3D gaming for first person games. That would also mean we would not have Half-Life, which probably is the most influential in the last 10 years really, but Counter-Strike as you say really is quite an inflential game. It's the most widely played FPS online STILL (not even CS:S can overthrow it still). But it defined a new way of thinking about team based, close quarters gameplay, adding a little more to that of just Deathmatch or Capture the Flag.

I've pretty much said what you've said, but can't specifically think of anything else, especially in the past 5-8 years that really has made a difference enough to influence other games.
 
StarCraft. It's the reason that professional gaming kicked off and has become a national sport in south korea. Every RTS since has taken elements from SC in its design but none have ever come close to its balance and popularity.
 
Depends on what you look at.

Doom launched the FPS and the idea of Mulitplayer co-op games which helped make games a non-solo thing.

Myst opened up gaming to a lot of non-gamers and made people realise that games could be grown up.

The Sims brought in women in to gaming

SimCity started all of the mangament games, although Populus could also be credited for the God Genre.

Secret of Monkey Island showed that a good adventure could have humour.
 
Hard one to say, I think people will always look at the first game in their favourite genre and then pick that.

Personally I think the most influential game for me/my gaming has been Everquest. It combined the work and player base Ultima Online created with the 3D FPS games like Doom and Quake had given. EQ has no doubt been cloned and changed since it’s release but so many key elements it created are now in place in other MMG games I can’t imagine games like WoW being anything like they are today in EQ didn’t develop so many of the social and structural game elements.

If I was to pick one element I would probably single out the “Raid Culture” EQ developed. I think nearly, if not all MMG games since have incorporated a raid element within their games, some games survive only for the raid culture and others with a few selected raids.
 
I'd say EQ too. Even though Ultima Online was first, and had an awful lot more going for it, almost every mmo since seems to have been based on the EQ template.

If you didn't have EQ, you wouldn't have WoW, which has I think in excess of 6 million subscribers now. Many of the elements it contains are identical to EQ, the raids, the quest givers, the re-spawning mobs, the races and classes.

EQ is influential in that it has locked a whole generation of mmo's into this restrictive template, to the point where people expect it.
 
I'd also agree with Everquest, it's influential but I wouldn't say in a very good way.

Echoing previous statements, since EQ everyone and their dog tries to copy the style of it and people are too scared to stray from the EQ template as they see it as too big of a risk which is sad really as there is nothing new coming into MMORPG's today.
 
DanTheMan said:
I'd also agree with Everquest, it's influential but I wouldn't say in a very good way.

Echoing previous statements, since EQ everyone and their dog tries to copy the style of it and people are too scared to stray from the EQ template as they see it as too big of a risk which is sad really as there is nothing new coming into MMORPG's today.
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Totally agree with that. After you have played an mmorpg for a couple of years then most of the others seem too similar to keep my attention for more then a couple of months (or weeks in most cases).The ONLY thing that would keep me playing most mmorpg's is if a whole load of my friends played it.

Thank god for niche mmorpgs like Eve Online.
 
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It has to be Doom. It took PC gaming to a new level. I think it was the revolutionary game engine more than anything, and the fact that it was shareware so anyone could play it for free (the first episode anyway), and the ton of 'Doom-Clones' that came afterwards showed the impact it made.
 
Cant believe no one has said Half Life, made a story as important as guns in fps's and was a massive boost for the modding and online gaming scene.
 
skullman said:
It has to be Doom. It took PC gaming to a new level. I think it was the revolutionary game engine more than anything, and the fact that it was shareware so anyone could play it for free (the first episode anyway), and the ton of 'Doom-Clones' that came afterwards showed the impact it made.
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Wasnt the Doom Engine a modified version of the engine used in Wolf 3D though?
 
Kreeeee said:
StarCraft. It's the reason that professional gaming kicked off and has become a national sport in south korea. Every RTS since has taken elements from SC in its design but none have ever come close to its balance and popularity.
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But was based on Warcraft 1/2

Warcraft 2 is still my all time favourite game :D

What about good old point and clicks, before mice?

Sierra's xxx Quest range was manificent!
 
I'd have to say Deus Ex for me. The way it blended RPG and FPS was brilliant, combined with a top notch story. System Shock had kind of already done it but that didn't grab me as much. I'm still looking out for games to rival Deus Ex in how they play.
 
kdd said:
Cant believe no one has said Half Life, made a story as important as guns in fps's and was a massive boost for the modding and online gaming scene.
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Bingo, I thought the same thing, i'll never forget when I first played it and how I couldn't believe how gripping it was.
 
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