Results From the First Round of Voting for the Madness Brewing Video Game Hall of Fame (1983 and Everything Prior)

The first round of voting is over for the Madness Brewing Video Game Hall of Fame. Ten games were inducted among the introductory batch of titles. There were a few surprises; both on the side of those that received enough votes to be inducted as well as others that didn’t receive enough votes to remain on future ballots. There was also some controversy over some of the titles that did not get inducted.

Overall, there were forty-two titles to vote on. Each voter was allowed to select up to a maximum of twenty from the list. Titles that received votes from 80% or more of the electorate gained entry into the hall of fame. For this vote, it required a unanimous decision since I wanted to make sure the people who were voting had an acceptable amount of knowledge of earlier titles. While most people may recognize Pac-Man, a good percentage of those people probably haven’t ever seen a Pac-Man arcade unit. To ensure equity for early arcade and computer titles, voting was restricted to only a few people. Subsequent votes have been opened up to a greater degree and have had larger voting pools.

Titles that did not receive enough votes fell into three categories:

1) Anything that received between 50-79% of the voting was kept and added to the next ballot

2) Anything that received between 20-49% of the voting was also kept and added to the next ballot. However, if a title is unable to get more than 50% of the voting for three straight ballots, it would be removed.

3) Anything that received 20% or less of the vote was eliminated from future ballots.

While it can easily be argued that some titles were destined to be voted in unanimously, there were a few titles that made it through that raised my eyebrows (even though with the set-up of this election, I voted for these titles too). I was pleasantly surprised to see Q*Bert to be one of the titles to have made it through considering that the title has been pretty obscure nowadays. I was also kind of shocked that King’s Quest made it through. While I knew it was a good game, I was unsure if others would feel the same way. Unlike many console and arcades games, computer games didn’t make for all that interesting discussion during recess-time playground talk. Even then, King’s Quest was made the same year I was born, so I only got my hands on it much later. So for it to receive a unanimous seal of approval was kind of shocking to me.

I was surprised that all four titles that fell one vote short of getting inducted didn’t make it through. Actually, if I had to put money on any of those titles, I would have been certain for Adventure to have made it in. I was really confident that the text-based computer game would be inducted just on the history alone. It has become a very recognizable symbol of early computer games.

The Oregon Trail is a title, like I had mentioned on the latest Video Game Podcast, that if you had played it in school during the 80s and early 90s, you would have a special connection to it. Otherwise, you haven’t heard of it or if you have, you don’t understand its appeal.

Dig Dug made it through on the second set of ballots covering titles 1984 and prior. Without prying into the voting methods of others, I would reason to guess that the title didn’t make it through initially because someone ran out of votes.

Joust is an epic game but it has been forgotten over the years. In fact, many probably remember the copycat Balloon Fight for the NES more than Joust. It’ll be interesting to see what happens if Joust can make it through once Balloon Fight gets put on the ballot.

Ms. Pac-Man has been a bone of contention for the voting committee. As mentioned on the podcast Wednesday, there are two schools of thought when it comes to this game: either it is significantly important because it was the first major video game to star a female character and was wildly successful in the arcades or it was a dud of a game that was a clone of Pac-Man with a bow. As admitted on the podcast, it has still not made it through after several rounds of voting due to this split. That may change as the voting membership is increased and the voting membership changes but I get the feeling that if the entire voting committee was replaced with a bunch of different people, the same problem would occur.

Missile Command was another title that was discussed heavily after the first round of voting. Those voting for it were passionate about its inclusion while those who didn’t vote for it, don’t care for it.

The debate about Missile Command made me think about some of the titles that were inducted. Some of the titles that made it through aren’t all that particularly good. Pong isn’t that good a game but it was the first mass-market arcade game so there’s a historical significance that makes it deserving of a vote. Even Space Invaders, which is fun and all, isn’t as good as some of the titles that didn’t make it through. However, its importance in the history of video games trumps a title like Joust. It certainly felt for like the vote centered on titles with more of a historical significance than quality.

There were a few titles that surprisingly didn’t get any votes. The two that come to mind immediately are Spy Hunter and Mario Bros. Spy Hunter was incredibly popular during its reign in the arcades and was a decent franchise for Midway. There was even supposed to be Spy Hunter movie (although it never made it past the pre-production stage). My excuse for not voting for it was that I ran out of votes. If I had a couple of more votes, I would have voted for it. Same goes for Mario Bros. It was a fun game solo and a great game when playing with a second player. It really helped create a genre of co-op gameplay in the arcades that lives on in current titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Unfortunately for both titles, they are both eliminated from future ballots.

In a way, I think that’s a good thing. I don’t think it’s a good idea for titles to hang around the list for ages. The amount of titles on future ballots are going to explode as the amount of content in the arcades disappears and the home console market grows in popularity during the 90s. It’s probably a good thing that some of the fat was trimmed. Otherwise, the future lists are going to be incredibly large.

In total, ten titles made it through to be inducted. I like the titles that were included although there were a couple of others that I would debate with passion that should be included. As evidenced by Dig Dug, not making it through on the first ballot doesn’t mean it becomes impossible to gain enough votes later on. Here’s a spoiler for Wednesday; another title that was on the first ballot is going to be inducted next week. Interestingly enough though, Dig Dug and the second title are the only two titles that made it through during the second round of voting. The voting results from that ballot will be revealed next week on the weekly podcast as well as a special report just like this one.

There is one thing that needs to be mentioned. Due to a database error, some titles were excluded from this list. It wasn’t intentional and the problems have been corrected. Super Breakout, Asteroids, Qix, Burgertime, Donkey Kong Jr., Millipede, Pitfall, Snake, and Bump ‘n’ Jump have all been added to future ballots. If you feel there was a title that was excluded from the voting process that should have been included for any reason, feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail at madnessbrewing@gmail.com and it will be reviewed.

Final Results of the First Round of Voting (1983 and Everything Prior) for the
Madness Brewing Video Game Hall of Fame

(click on the links to read the write-up for each inductee)