The ten games selected by the panel as the most important games of all time--sure to be a list of great contention--are the pioneering MIT-originated 1961 space combat game Spacewar!, Doug Neubauer's 1979 space sim Star Raiders (Atari 8-bit), Infocom's 1980 text adventure Zork (PC), Alexey Pajitnov's 1985 puzzle game Tetris, Will Wright's 1989 urban sandbox SimCity (PC), Nintendo's 1990 platformer Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES), Microprose's appropriately named 1991 history simulator Sid Meier's Civilization (PC), id Software's influential 1993 shooter Doom (PC), Blizzard's WarCraft (PC) RTS franchise beginning in 1994, and Sensible Software's classic 1994 sports game Sensible World of Soccer (AMI).

SimCity is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," said researcher Matteo Bittanti. "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

Despite the information-based nature of video games, the history of the form has been poorly maintained, due to factors such as the plethora of formats that have come and gone over the years, the rapid obsolescence of games due to continued technological advancement, as well as the disposable, hit-driven business model that leads most publishers to largely ignore their older propertites. Many older games, particularly those requiring unique hardware, exist only in very limited numbers, and some no longer at all.

On game preservation, Spector warned, "We have to be really careful here because the technology is just going to make this harder for us. The game canon is a way of saying, this is the stuff we have to protect first."

"Creating this list is an assertion that digital games have a cultural significance and a historical significance," said Lowood. "Maybe we should do something about preserving them."