The picture in US may be different as PCs and games came shortly after communism fell ,so everything before 1990 I don't have any perspective on.But I can tell you what were the hottest games people were buying 3-mothnly salaries worth computers just to play them.Dune 2 did jack shit here in Bulgaria,in all internet cafes in mid 90's it was Warcraft II 8 FFA or 4v4 ,it was Doom of the RTS games and in my opinion paved the way for Starcraft.As for King's Bounty no one even head of it until much later ,HoMM is still one of the biggest PC games in Eastern Europe and had greatest impact on gaming as people were buying PC just to play Heroes hotseat.
I'm open so hear if that was not the case for US or western eurpoe ,but these two games had very big impact around here.
The list is not gunning for "most popular" titles, or titles that changed gaming cultures in specific parts of the world. On that note though, I'd LOVE to read such lists from specific regions of the world, so thanks for that insight.
This list is trying to look at the industry for the PC platform as a whole, and see which games were important in the growth and evolution of the platform to where it is today, irregardless of geographical location. The things that benefitted everyone, not just those guys or that bunch.
The HoMM games are awesome (up until 3 anyway) and Diablo 2 is loads of fun and both franchises sold well, but so did loads of other franchises that no one bothers to bring up in regards to this.
Gothic could also be credited for numerous third person ARPG stepchilds it spawned like Kingdoms of Amalur, Two Worlds and Divinity 2.
Except Gothic itself is a stepchild of two other games: Tomb Raider and Ultima 9. Gothic took their basic concept and ran with it, improved upon it in almost every way and released a underappreciated gem of a game...with the emphasis on "underappreciated", which is at least one reason why Gothic doesn't feature on this list. (Taking this one step further...how about King's Quest 8?)
well the article points at morrowind being important because it brought us to a true 3D world and exploration but Gothic did it first.
Thinking about this, I see that Morrowind's reason to be on the list is very thin. Ultima Underworld created a 3D environment which greatly rewarded exploration, but Morrowind is not the pinnacle of that...Morrowind manages "true 3D" and is far larger in scale, but it's not the undisputed champion in these fields. Then there are MMOs like Everquest and WoW which take the whole thing a step further.
Cool list and some good comments, but the lack of Alone in the Dark is disappointing.
An interesting suggestion...but it falls short in the same manner as King's Bounty. It spawned a highly successful franchise (on a console, though) and is the originator of a sub-genre of games, but unlike Dune 2, AitD is only an average game, more of a "proof of concept" than a game IMO.