The Impact and Influence of Popular Video Games

Since 1958, video games have evolved and grown in popularity and influence across generations. To people who have grown up with video games their whole lives, the most impactful games for them might be Mario, Pokémon, and CoD (Call of Duty). My first video game was Wipe Out, an obstacle course game on the Xbox 360. As someone who plays video games for almost three to four hours a day, video games have helped me make friends. Video games are among the many things that make me happy every day. But now, as a 14-year-old, the games that have been so influential and impactful are Minecraft, Fortnite, and, likewise, Pokémon, to many adults that I know. What makes a video game influential and impactful is how popular it was in its prime. If it still has a long-lasting success, and if they earn a good amount of money while still having a good reception.

Minecraft is a widely known game with many people who have played or still play it to this day. Minecraft is the best-selling game of all time, with 350 million sales. It came out in 2011 with little content in the game, but over time, the game added more content to do. Minecraft, from my experience and many others’ opinions, is a very replayable game; it’s not a game you just beat once and discard. You play it multiple times with new world spawns and maybe new or the same friends, the many different ways you can start, either going for a speedrun, which is trying to beat the game as fast as possible, or hardcore, which is when you cannot die, and if you die, you lose the world and cannot respawn. But another thing about Minecraft is one of the couple of games that allows and actually encourages the use of mods. Because of those modifications, you can have things like a Pokémon mod where you’re able to catch Pokémon and battle gym leaders, or a mod where you can become a dragon tamer like someone from HTTYD (How to Train Your Dragon). But Minecraft is very popular across generations because of how simple it is; it’s so easy to play, and you don’t need to play with the sole goal of winning. You can focus on the little things like making farms, taming animals, and building houses.

Pokémon is not only a game but a whole community. While Pokémon might not be as popular with kids these days, it started many people’s childhoods, including mine. People across all generations have played Pokémon games, whether it’s Red and Blue in the 90’s, Ruby and Sapphire in the early 2000’s, Pokémon Platinum in the Late 2000’s, or Sword and Shield in the late 2010’s. So many people have grown up with Pokémon and had fun playing the games. There has been a great deal of effort and emotion invested in these games. As a result, Pokémon is the highest-grossing franchise of all time, making billions of dollars. It is the highest-grossing franchise because of its many sources of income and popularity

Fortnite took the world by storm in 2018. Everyone wanted to play with their friends in a new style of battle royal game with a huge new mechanic of building. Fortnite brought many new mechanics to the world of gaming. But a huge one is the battle pass, which widely popularized the idea, leading to so many games adding their own versions or a battle pass. But Fortnite is not just for casuals; it also has a huge competitive scene that I personally enjoy watching. People are fighting in-game for the chance to win skins or earn rewards. The Fortnite World Cup, the first huge tournament Fortnite held, had a peak viewership of 2.3 million viewers, and with a 30 million dollar prize pool.  Fortnite also does something called seasons and chapters, which cause changes in the map and to the battle pass. Every new season, there is a new battle pass, and from season three onward, they started incorporating live events, which are well events that happen at the end of the season or in the middle, either to introduce new changes to the map, showcase new icon skins(skins of people from real life) with concerts, also at the end of every season and chapter there are live events that are used to introduce or continue the story. 

While there are many games that are considered the “best” or the most influential, it’s a subjective topic. Pokémon’s widespread popularity, Minecraft’s longevity, and Fortnite’s features make them the most influential video games in history. 

This article was written in partnership with Steppingstone.