The road from Space Invaders to Grand Theft Auto III is a long and winding one, but this week both were inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. They join last year’s crop – Pong, Super Mario Bros, Pac-Man, Doom, World of Warcraft and Tetris – along with four other new inductees.
The history of those games is also the history of how we play them. Pac-Man, for example, was first released in the arcades in 1980. It went from PCs to Game Boys to consoles. And now it’s available on phones and tablets.
You can’t play Mario on your phone – yet. The release of Nintendo’s first mobile app, Miitomo, in March this year saw the company’s shares spike by 8% – perhaps a sign that getting the moustachioed brothers on the small screen might be a good idea. As for Pong – it’s gone, but not forgotten.
