Most gamers should be aware of the World Video Game Hall of Fame, the Strong Museum of Play’s official collection of video games deemed culturally and artistically important. Plenty of games that either released in or originated from arcades have been inducted into that group (for a recent update to their exposition, Defender joined the hall), but many more have not, even if they are quietly significant.
That especially goes for titles after the 1980s, where following the US market’s crash, some still seem to think arcades were fully over and done with. Other sources closer to arcades like RePlay Magazine and AAMA do have their own halls, but, whilst valid, those can be heavily focused on ‘inside baseball’ industry folk from the sales or business side, rather than the games and developers themselves (or even the locations and operators carrying this business on its back).
So, after some talks with a few friends of the site, we have decided to launch the first phase of a brand new area of AH that can offer what those generally don’t – the Arcade Heroes Hall of Fame.
Arcade Heroes Hall of Fame
At one point it would be good to have this sort of thing at a physical location, such as at my own arcade, but until then, we will settle for a virtual version. These will be represented through slideshows, although after looking over the sheer number of entries we’ll need to design, breaking things like games into separate sliders (1970s, 80s, 90s, etc) will make the most sense.
This also should serve as a small preview of the arcade history book I’ve been sporadically working on for the past while (I’m currently doing Konami in the 1980s). Some of the information I’ve gathered has come from the research that was put into the book; as one example, I did not know much about who Dave Nutting or Howell Ivy were before I started my research, but they created some major arcade hits and incorporated technologies that shaped the industry. Nutting as one example is the man who advocated for putting CPUs into arcade machines, doing so first with the Taito import of Gun Fight:
(Howell isn’t in the slides yet, but he will be in the next batch)
As you might have picked up, we are focusing on Creators and Games to start. The creators are the visionaries who have either come up with many of the games you have enjoyed over the years, or they provided other major contributions, leading the teams that developed subsequent titles as a producer or manager.
On the games, we are considering influence as well as “firsts”. We do recognize that firsts can often be difficult to nail down, so this is all “to the best of our knowledge”; where their ‘first’ status is less certain but influence is clear, they can instead be credited with popularizing a certain aspect. It is also important to note that we will be adding much more down the road; only thirty games out of 14,000+ fails to capture all of the “fame” that has come out of this business. That said, we’ve been working on this on and off throughout the year and it came down to just getting something out before 2026 came along.
We also value your feedback, so please let us know on social media or through the contact us page, what you think should be added, or if there are any errors that have slipped through.
For now, you can visit the page where we are operating both sliders, and depending on time, we’ll also add Locations there too. What do you think of the Arcade Heroes Hall of Fame?
