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[rodrigolfp]

nothing is more financially successful than cod.

WoW with all its expansions and sub + MTX money.

 

[Dacvak]

Everyone here is living in a millennial bubble. The unfortunate real answer is:

Every single kid between the age of 5-15 is playing this shit endlessly. It’s going to influence game sales and development so much once these kids grow up. And the predatory and questionable business practices of the game are already getting kids used to and stoical towards those experiences, which is only gonna make things get worse and worse as time goes on.

We live in a dark timeline.

 

[FoxMcChief]

PUBG.

There would be no Fortnite as it’s known, without it.

That’s not quite how it works. While PUBG had its moment in the sun, its importance isn’t even a fraction compared to Fortnite.

Just because something came first, doesn’t mean anything.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Everyone here is living in a millennial bubble. The unfortunate real answer is:

Every single kid between the age of 5-15 is playing this shit endlessly. It’s going to influence game sales and development so much once these kids grow up. And the predatory and questionable business practices of the game are already getting kids used to and stoical towards those experiences, which is only gonna make things get worse and worse as time goes on.

We live in a dark timeline.

Roblox definitely is up there with Minecraft and Fortnite.

 

[SpiceRacz]

GTA 3 or Half-Life 2. Any other answers are wrong.

 

[Rudius]

Grand Theft Auto 3 lol

There is no other game as influential. maybe cod. but its its own thing now. GTA3 literally set the blueprint for the vast majority of games going forward.

It became too influential. I like some open worlding, but not every game needs that or benefit from it.

 

[Solarstrike]

There's really only one. It opened up new ideas, IP's, and spawned many gaming masterpieces. Wolfenstein 3D gave the PC a boost in many departments. From CPU's to GPU's, every pc gamer wanted to run the game decently. And so that forced computer component manufacturers to rethink their strategies and further increase power and productivity for the ever increasing player/customer base which still holds strong to this day.

"Wolfenstein 3D" by id Software, published by Apogee Software

 

[Danjin44]

The games that most “important” games usually are the one I don’t give fuck about like Fortnite or Mindcraft.

 

[intbal]

There's really only one. It opened up new ideas, IP's, and spawned many gaming masterpieces. Wolfenstein 3D gave the PC a boost in many departments. From CPU's to GPU's, every pc gamer wanted to run the game decently. And so that forced computer component manufacturers to rethink their strategies and further increase power and productivity for the ever increasing player/customer base which still holds strong to this day.

"Wolfenstein 3D" by id Software, published by Apogee Software

That's not "21st century"

 

[sono]

Uncharted Drakes Fortune

Honestly one of the key foundations of the PS3 rebirth and the continuing growth PlayStation brand

 

[JohnnyFootball]

"Important" is a bit squishy. We could take that a few different ways:

If you mean influential, I would say Minecraft. Not because it's sold the most units, but it was the first game I can think of that became it's own platform. We could point to WOW, but that got regular expansions and extra content added. COD gets yearly releases, so it's more like they managed to take the sports game model and successfully apply it to an FPS. We could also point to Dota2 for establishing the Battlepass as a way for F2P games to make ongoing revenue. Fortnite copied their homework and became the hottest game around. But Minecraft managed to take over the world by....being Minecraft. All the stuff Microsoft has tried to do with it since they bought it seems like it's failed, but people still love the vanilla Minecraft experience. That still amazes me.

If you mean important for personal preferences, I would go with Demon's Souls. It was the proof-of-concept for everything From Software has done since, and that's been the biggest shift for me personally.

Influential? What games did it actually influence?

 

[BadBurger]

World of Warcraft. Without its then wild success in the aughts I doubt we would have seen the broader MMO experience and architecture scaled down into the more focused online GaaS juggernauts (like Fortnite and Helldivers 2) of today. WoW prompted people to build robust communities online over a game for the first time that I can recall. It brought the multi-hour gaming session, numerous days per week hobby life to the mainstream. Millions of people who never would have given any thought to how their PC's even worked to learn how to add RAM to their system and buy new GPU's.

As to whether or not this was all a good thing is up to the individual and each developer / publisher.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

My boy Halo CE is underrated for pretty much popularizing the modern twin stick shooter

I like this answer. Hard to argue with that. Halo was by no means the first FPS on console, but it's the game that made it mainstream on consoles for sure. Call of Duty is a close 2nd and may well be the first.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Majoras mask is the most important game of the 21st century, arguably the best dungeons and temples, it has everything, a convincing story, side characters and quests it does everything well.

 

[rm082e]

Influential? What games did it actually influence?

I was thinking about how it influenced the players, not game design. I've always been shocked at the number of kids who play Minecraft, and of those kids how much of their total game time is just Minecraft. It's like this all consuming forever game.

 

[DeathGuise]

What the hell? Come on guys. It's either Half-Life 2 or Portal 2

 

[Gojiira]

In terms of how games are approached nowadays, Demons Souls. Game design,gameplay mechanics,level design, music etc. It spawned a new genre that is wildly popular almost 20 years later. Every major franchise has taken aspects from the Souls series it seems. There is zero denying just how much impact it has had.
BUT the most impactful AAA game was MGS1 but thats a few years before OP’s requirements.

 

[intbal]

OP didn't specify what type of importance was being queried.
That will definitely make answers differ.

Example:
I could have said "Shrek" for original Xbox. It was the world's first deferred shading game. That development is certainly of crucial importance to game developers of the past two decades. Chronicles of Riddick would be another one. The first ever dynamic resolution scaling system in a game.

Or maybe Oblivion and its Horse Armor, proving the viability of small incremental addons for games as a way to monetize them for an extended time.

Most answers in the thread are about game design or success. But, again, OP didn't specify.

 

[Lunarorbit]

Super Mario bros

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Ico.

 

[JohnSpartanLee]

Vanilla

 

[chilichote]

DayZ

 

[SJRB]

In terms of pure craftsmanship and showing what the medium can achieve: Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

[Serge85]

League of Legends

 

[ssringo]

Influential? What games did it actually influence?

"early access" games as we know it started with Minecraft. Like, would that whole concept have ever taken off, at the level we see today, if not for Minecraft's crazy success?

Minecraft was my knee jerk response but RE4 and GTA3 sound better now that I've thought about it.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

For its influence on the public’s perception of video games and on how video game worlds are conceived and interacted with, there is nothing as important as GTA3. That game sealed a console war and PlayStation’s dominance, it skewed the east vs west balance forever, and popularized the single-player open world template on an unprecedented scale.

Minecraft and Fortnite are more important culturally and commercially, but their influence on how games are made isn’t even remotely comparable.

 

[sono]

What the hell? Come on guys. It's either Half-Life 2 or Portal 2

HL2 - sequel to 20cth HL
Portal 2 influenced by portal 1 - while ingenious hard to justify either as the most important

 

[rodrigolfp]

That’s not quite how it works. While PUBG had its moment in the sun, its importance isn’t even a fraction compared to Fortnite.

Just because something came first, doesn’t mean anything.

What is the importance of Fortnite?

 

[BennyBlanco]

GTA3 and Minecraft

 

[semiconscious]

speaking solely on behalf of myself? ico...

 

[swaffles23]

ICO

 

[SmokedMeat]

That’s not quite how it works. While PUBG had its moment in the sun, its importance isn’t even a fraction compared to Fortnite.

Just because something came first, doesn’t mean anything.

Fortnite literally copied PUBG. It wasn’t even designed to be a BR game until PUBG.

So for me it means a lot because without PUBG, Fortnite probably would’ve died off quickly.

 

[Jack Package]

But Driver 2 did it first...

If you want to go that way with it, Body Harvest did it two years before Driver 2!

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Tie GTA 3 RE4

 

[Little Mac]

 

[MaestroMike]

banjo tooie

 

[Guilty_AI]

Chop Goblins

 

[Deleted member 848825]

Skyrim, but quite the flawed diamond. I think Empire Total War was amazing too. Again though, not without its issues.

 

[rodrigolfp]

If you want to go that way with it, Body Harvest did it two years before Driver 2!

 

[nkarafo]

I think it's GTA 3. I don't remember anything close to that open world city at such scale and detail. It revolutionized open world games.

 

[IDKFA]

Fortnite

Minecraft.

Either of these would get my pick. Every other game pales in comparison compared to these two giants.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Tetris attack

 

[diffusionx]

Probably Grand Theft Auto III. For the simple fact that you can look at video of the game, and it looks totally recognizable to games that come out today. It's all in there. Sort of like what Super Mario Bros. did for thousands of games that came out later.

 

[Von Hugh]

Has to be GTA 3.

 

[Mooreberg]

It is Grand Theft Auto III. Nothing else really comes close for the influence it has had on the industry and game design

For its influence on the public’s perception of video games and on how video game worlds are conceived and interacted with, there is nothing as important as GTA3. That game sealed a console war and PlayStation’s dominance, it skewed the east vs west balance forever, and popularized the single-player open world template on an unprecedented scale.

Minecraft and Fortnite are more important culturally and commercially, but their influence on how games are made isn’t even remotely comparable.

Grand Theft Auto V is the highest grossing media product ever.

 

[FoxMcChief]

What is the importance of Fortnite?

Millions of people actively playing and spending money on it. The social aspect is huge with its media events. The user created content that’s shared is very cool too. Fortnite might be the biggest game of all time.

What I don’t understand is why people hate on it. It’s not even close to the same product it was a year ago, or two years ago, and especially 3 years ago.

 

[Meicyn]

Everyone here is living in a millennial bubble. The unfortunate real answer is:

Every single kid between the age of 5-15 is playing this shit endlessly. It’s going to influence game sales and development so much once these kids grow up. And the predatory and questionable business practices of the game are already getting kids used to and stoical towards those experiences, which is only gonna make things get worse and worse as time goes on.

We live in a dark timeline.

Pretty accurate, even Fortnite has heavily adjusted their business model and development tools in the pursuit of stealing away Roblox players. Upon bootup, you’re treated to a Netflix-like selection screen of both official and player-made options to choose from compared to the Battle Royale centric offerings that brought it tremendous success in the past. The growth potential in that department is stagnant, and that is why you have a Lego mode, a Rock Band styled mode, a racing mode, and eventually we will have a Disney focused mode likely at the end of the year.

 

[touchfuzzy]

Fortnite

Minecraft.

First two posts and /thread. There's good arguments to be made for some others but nothing comes close to these two, IMO.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Grand Theft Auto V is the highest grossing media product ever.

Eh!

"World of Warcraft was a major critical and commercial success upon its original release in 2004 and quickly became the most popular MMORPG of all time, reaching a peak of 12 million subscribers in 2010.[4] The game had over one hundred million registered accounts by 2014[5] and by 2017, had grossed over $9.23 billion in revenue"

 

[rodrigolfp]

Millions of people actively playing and spending money on it. The social aspect is huge with its media events. The user created content that’s shared is very cool too. Fortnite might be the biggest game of all time.

What I don’t understand is why people hate on it. It’s not even close to the same product it was a year ago, or two years ago, and especially 3 years ago.

What number of players has anything of importance for the gaming industry?