Top 10 Most Influential Games of all Time 

Um... awesome! The fact that all three of you had widely divergent criteria for your lists was fantastic. Zee's list was super historical, Tom's more contemporary, and Sam's super personal. And therefore, all the bases got covered pretty well and the very concept of the list, "what is influential?" got covered more in depth than it would have if you were all approaching it the exact same way. Excellent!

Most influential imo: *D&D* popularized roleplaying games, *Catan* popularized euro games, *MTG* popularized TCGs, *Monopoly* popularized boardgames in general, *Chess* popularized strategy games, *Dominion* popularized deck builders, *Risk* popularized wargames, *Cosmic Encounter* popularized player powers, *Poker* popularized card games in general and *Dice* popularized dice/self explanatory.

Diplomacy introduced the idea of losing friends over a game, lol.

I think modern wargaming owes a lot to Stratego. It brought the idea of freely moving around a board that resembles a real-world location, setting up ambushes, and trying to capture one strategic piece/location (as opposed to RISK, which requires complete conquest).

I 100% agree with Tom about Dominion. 50 Years from now the Dominion deck building ideas will still be incorporated in some games.

The only category I can think of that doesn't seem to have been represented at all is word games - there are a lot of them and the feature is quite distinct from everything on this list. I don't know what the 'first' was but I would guess Scrabble is the obvious choice?

fantastic to have another top ten list to watch, keep up the excellent viewing guys, thanks for all the work!

This is definitely one of the most interesting top 10 lists so far. Three quite different and valid viewpoints on the subject, which made the video very worthwhile to watch.

Another great Top 10. The chemistry with these 3 and their willingness to agree and disagree make for a great watch. Keep em coming boys.

Very interesting top ten topic and lots of good discussion, glad to see you guys back with a top ten list. Also, I love the three points of view that you all bring to the discussion. Last thing here, @ Sam, "Leave No Man Behind"; damn straight.

Yeah ! Back on track guys ! This one was a proposition of mine when I commented Turkey Games. At least, you're not talking of the same games over and over. I love the approach. Thanks for this ! More of this !

Love the top 10 lists you guys, keep em coming :) I have a recommendation for a top 10 list that people might enjoy: Top 10 Games with the Best Flavor. Slightly different from your previous "best theme" list, as that list involved games where the theme and mechanics meshed well. A "best flavor" list would involve things like the richest/most interesting backstory, best artwork, character descriptions, basically everything that is not crucial to the mechanics of the game.

I gotta say, I really enjoyed how each list had such a different scope and point of view. I was definitely expecting more modern games (if you had planned the different perspectives thing ahead, one list being games under, say, 20 years old could've been really interesting) but I was glad to see how it turned out. Nice work!

great topic guys. Nice job!

Oy, guys... again, it would be really helpful if you defined your terms before coming up with these lists. As usual, Zee turns in a dutiful, studied list, Tom relies on his breadth of knowledge and experience to breeze through the exercise, and Sam didn't understand the assignment. Before counting him out, though, there is actually a ton of value in Sam's approach to this top ten list. While I think Tom intended a certain amount of objectivity in coming up with a list of very influential games, that task quickly folds. There are so many ways to approach the concept of influence and so many assumptions you have to make to be on the same project that Zee and Tom, although similar in intention, ended up revealing two incredibly problematic and arbitrary lists. Although he wouldn't be able to put it in an argument, Sam actually had a great instinct for this project. You can't be objective without defining a voluminous number of terms, all of which hadn't been defined. So he worked on a much more interesting and valuable project: total subjectivity. Although, I really have nothing in common with Sam's gaming interests, listening to him go though a personal history of games that have influenced him is WAY more interesting and valuable than watching Tom and Zee poke around in the dark with conjectures and opinions based on their experience with every game ever. Please make a top ten list called: "Top 10 Games in my gaming Biography." Viewers will already know the number one spot for each of you, but it will be so interesting to hear your gaming biographies. I love your banter, but the bickering can be irritating and a lot of that will go away if you get everyone on the same page before you start.

Zee's list was on fire! He got it right. I thought the opposite on the start, that Zee's list would be not that good, boy was I wrong. Good job guys, all you lists were good but Zee had it the best.

I was going into this with scepticism, I thought those list were going to be pretty same-y, but of course, every one interpreted this topic a little differently - that's what I love about this videos :-) And I actually would like to see what Sam started to do in another video: everyones top 10 games, that peronally influenced them the most. That would be more of a trip down memory lane, I think that would be fun to watch and have some surprises in store.

Being first doesn't make a game more influential, so I'm with Tom on the LotR debate. Pandemic is far more influential as a co-op game and has had a greater impact on designers and the gaming community. That said, Sam's list is obviously very personal to him and may not fit into what I would consider influential. Nothing wrong with that, that's why it's awesome that we get three different lists here.

As a German I am very disappointed in Tom for not drinking beer! ;-) Thanks for taking the time to redo the top 10, guys. I can imagine that it was a lot harder to go through the motions and the discussions while knowing the lists of the other participants a priori.

it's cool to hear you guys talk about go, my favourite game!

Maybe people wont talk about Dominion in 40 to 50 years, but I sincerely think the mechanic, as it was used in Dominion, will still be there. That's influential. (ps : Monopoly published by Plaid Hat ?)

Dominion is the game that got me into the hobby, so I'm glad to see it on the list. Also, I KNEW DnD had to be up there. It's just too huge not to be.

I would have included Caylus (worker placement games), Mafia/Werewolf (social deduction / party games), Acquire (streamlined "Euro" games / economic game), and 1830 (18xx series and other economic / stock games). Granted, they would be MUCH farther down on the list than the big names, but those really did contribute a lot.

Probably get shot down for this but Warhammer Fantasy Battle/Warhammer 40K would have been on my list. OK, not the most revolutionary or original in terms of it's gameplay or mechanics and their recent history has alienated most everybody in the gaming community. But, in the 90s pretty much every town and city in the UK had a Games Workshop bursting with (my wife insists I add the word "stinky" ) teenage boys, some even accompanied by bored looking girlfriends. Most of them still do.They have stores all across Europe and the USA. Even Limoges, my local French city has one and KFC only arrived here last year!! Every hobby type shop be it trains, plane airfix, even Hobbycraft stocked it. My local city, Bristol, had two GW stores. I know people with absolutely no interest in gaming, fantasy or roleplaying in any way shape or form (including D&D MtG etc etc), who will still have had this 40K army or that WFB army at some point in their teenage/university years, even if it was just to paint the miniatures. Surely for it's wide appeal, influence and success outside what we would think of as the usual gaming and/or RPGing crowd/community it should be up there.

I love Zee's approach to this list! Very well-thought-out.

To add to the co-op conversation, what about Arkham Horror? It originally came out over a decade before LotR, is very adult oriented and the new edition is still played on a regular basis.

1830 should be considered for really starting/popularizing the whole train game craze.

What about Dominoes?? Tile placement and scoring?

I feel that I have decent knowledge in games but you guys really opened my eyes. My list would be so different after watching this then before. I can't agree with you guys more on all your lists.

I just watched this for the second time and am surprised to realise backgammon is missing. It's 5000 years old in principle and probably influenced all roll and move games.

I never play the original Catan anymore, but Seafarers and/or Cities and Knights still make it to our family's table several times a year. It's a great game. Still.

I have no idea how AH's Civilization didn't end up on this list. So many games have endeavored to replicate its deep, empire building gameplay into a more manageable time frame. Like, maybe, Catan?

Good lists, guys. Pretty much what I spelled out apart from Magic, which is in a blind spot for me; I just don't think about it at all, but absolutely does deserve to be here. Solid lists.

I think Tom's list made the most sense. I think Zee interpreted the list as the top ten pioneering games, that is, the very first games to introduce some type of mechanism. But that's not what influential means.

I think overall you guys nailed it - particularly Tom's top 3 as far as influence on modern games are concerned.

Offtopic note about who invented flight, that I as a Brazilian felt obliged to mention: Look up who was Santos Dummond, the man behind the first flight actually witnessed by someone other than himself (of themselves) in the case of the Wright Brothers...

Nice topic, but I think a list with only post-Settlers games would be more interesting. Dominion was a good choice.

Zee is so wrong about Dominion. Like it or not, it's been highly influential, and as Tom said, brought in a whole new style of gaming. I often hear people reference it when discussing new games.

Ok it has to be said, Dominion is not the first game that introduced deck building mechanic as part of the game. In early magic there were a game style called Rochester draft, where people were building their decks from a common card pool.

Great job guys, entertaining and interesting as always....my nomination would've been maybe Shadows Over Camelot...?(I think Tom mentioned it briefly...?) Just for the introduction to the "traitor" element? Thoughts?

I think you used the wrong template on the Monopoly Designer / Publisher lol! Great vid! Just FYI if you didn't notice it

Although Tom and Zee hit most of the high lights I think you missed a couple: Scrabble. It basically defined word games. Acquire. Possibly the father of euro games.

I'm very surprised that WH40K was not mentioned. I mean, you want to talk about something that keeps the lights on at many stores. I mean, just about every game that uses contemporary minis owes it's existence to 40K and associated Games Workshop products.

Not sure if it counts but in my mind the grandfather of all party games is Twister. That said, great to have another top 10 list. A bit surprising that Axis and Allies didn't appear on Tom's list, unless I missed that part.

Interesting video. Here's a list I came up with. This list is based off what influenced myself as a gamer and games which I feel had an impact on other games. The number 1-10 isn't significat, it's just the way they came out in my mind. 1) Final Fantasy III- Open world RPG with a detailed level-up system and individual character stories. 2) Dungeons and Dragons- The leader in the "NAT 20" and led the way for other gaming systems like Shadowrun, D20, and Spelljammer to name a few. 3) Golden Eye- This 1st person shooter changed the1st person shooter in a way that gamers who never played this game won't understand. 4) Ultima Online- This MMO paved the way for many to follow. While WoW is obviously the leader of the pack for MMO's now, Ultima was my first MMO love and paved the way for many to follow. 5) Warhammer Fantasy Battles- This table top game has been around for more than 25 years and there is still a US Mster each year to determine the top player in the US and the top region in the US. 6) Warhammer 40k- The futuristic version of Warhammer and has played a significant role for other games. If you look at Starcraft you could identify the races with eldar, tyranids, space marines. 7) Heroquest- This action RPG based board game led to 2 moreversions and the original can be seen for as much as $300.00 on ebay. 8) Street Fighter- With out this game I highly doubt we have the level of fighing based games as we do now. I spent many hours before and after school at 7elevn playing this game. 9) Magic the Gathering- This game is still a huge deal and many other CCG's have used this as a starting point. I remember being 13 and tyring to build tournament decks in the mid '90's. 10) Risk- This was my learning game before gettting into Axis and Allies. You then saw Shogun and many other games based off the same "concept". Like I said, that's my list based off the influences they had on me and the impacts I feel and saw have on the other games that exist today. Many of the games listed in their video, I never playerd or care to play.

This Top 10 brought to you by Virgil's Sodas and Root Beers ;) Also, I think the term Sam was looking for to describe his #9 pick is Asymmetrical. One person playing against several others and both sides having different objectives.

Influence under the influence Tom! Lol love the videos keep the coming.

I was surprised at no Scrabble (or, I suppose, some other word game, if you can find one more influential)

I would be interested in hearing where you would have placed Diplomacy on your lists. Seems like a rather influential game to me!

Whew, an new top 10 video. All is right in the world again. Man, I really need those dice. Chessex? what size are they?

Great list guys. Don't listen to some of these silly commenters, All 3 of you had excellent lists that were YOUR lists and how you interpreted them to be. Awesome job. Haters gonna hate!

9 mans morris, backgammon, chess, go, parcheesi all over a 1000 years old and still played so its not like humanity hasn't had things to play before 250 years ago

Tom and Zee keep mentioning that D&D isn't a board game but no one said anything like that for Magic, Dominion, or Poker.

TALISMAN- first of its kind. The closest board game to D&D back in the early-mid 80's.

Sam - I still have my original copy of Clue: The Museum Caper from the 1980s. I love it so much I kept it all these years.

And on the games mentioned, the only one I missed being on the list is Ticket to Ride. It is the one game, that after I introduced it, had the most people that went on and bought it afterwards. Even my mom bought a copy for herself after playing it. I understand that it might not have introduced anything new, but I believe its simplicity attracted a whole bunch of new people into the hobby, and this makes it important.

all great games, but the one I think you missed is Scrabble: any word game is compared to Scrabble, but there are two specific mechanics that turn up in many other places: 1. drawing back up to a fixed hand size (whether of tiles or cards) 2. laying interconnecting lines (Qwirkle and Iota are two recent ones which are basically Scrabble with shapes)

Nice list, but I really miss some games on it, like: Maffia/Werewolf (social deduction), Heroquest (dungeon mini's), Age of Steam (train games)... but most of all: No Citadels (role selection)? :P

Some definite influential games mentioned there. I worked in a games shop from 94 to 02 and can backup those comments/recommendations. However Games Workshop needs to be thrown into the mix, whether we consider fantasy, 40k or side games like Blood Bowl. In short miniatures gaming. This extrapolates across to games like Hero Quest (By MB licensing). Between RPG's (Mainly D&D), Miniature Gaming (GW) and Magic the Gathering, we stayed in business (Those three would have been about 70% of revenue). Commercially wise, games like Catan done ok, but their biggest benefit was bringing people into other board games of the time (So Influential gateway game). I'd mention Axis and Allies as it's what got me into gaming back in the 80's, but I agree it was Risk Advanced and if Risk is mentioned it's technically covered. Anyway, great list Dice Tower Team.

Very entertaining list. Thanks

Interesting topic, and I enjoyed Sam taking it in a different direction by making it personal to him. But if D&D can be included - which I completely agree with - I am surprised that table top miniatures wargaming didn't get a shout. The whole genre of board war games was born out of it, which in turn influenced other genres, and D&D itself came from medieval miniatures gaming.

Did you think about Carcassonne? It brings a famous thing: Meeple! I'm not sure if this game was the first, but I think it brings tiles placement.

i enjoyed watching the Video. But I think that Rommé (or Rummy how you would call it) has to be mentioned. Because this was the first game that brought up the idea to collect sets or rows to win a game. Even modern games like Catan or Ticket to Ride are using this mechanic.

Great stuff (long time lurker; A&A, D&D, Wadjet player - and if you can tell me how to actually play that last gorgeously produced game: Huzzah!). A piece like this screams out for a final predictive segment. As in: which upcoming, new or unreleased, game X with "new mechanics" Y will be influential for Z reasons... What's the new paradigm, or a movement in that direction? Best, Chris.

Never played Dominion before, but I would like to point out that it was Zee who said 225 years for modern games and then everything before that as ancient. If you take it that way, a game like Dominion still being talked about in another 10-20 years after it's been out for 10 is hovering around 10% of the modern gaming era. That certainly isn't a blip to ignore. In the greater scale of all gaming history, sure, but certainly for modern games I think it is definitely a powerhouse.

What about Oware (I think it is the oldest) or some other type of Mancala game. If I remember correctly they were the first games to have something resembling a board, and we still use the mancala mechanic a lot in modern games.

I don't know how, but Zees face at about 48:44 needs to be a part of Catans box art, ads, etc.

I'd like to see a top ten travel-friendly games. I recently went on a cruise with my wife and we brought along the game, Hive. Got me thinking about other games that travel well.

I think Diplomacy introduced negotiation in games, Tom. ;)

Is the Game of Goose not known in America? As far as I know it's the earliest example that combines moving on a board with dice rolling. First examples where made around 1600. The game is still available in stores today.

I'd love to through out Tafl games as being very influential (such as Hnefatafl). Many historians agree they probably influenced modern chess and they are the earliest form of asymmetrical game I'm aware of. While I'm not surprised they didn't make anyone's list seeing as they aren't as popular today, I just wanted to give a shout out for those who also had their inner nerd excited by this list. I only know of Hnefatafl due to my Norwegian ancestry, but it's a great game none the less. I would place it up there with chess and go as classics, check it out if you're interested.

There are a few more than three ames older than 250 years: chess (and relatives - shatranj, shoji, xiangqi, etc), checkers, go, backgammon, parcheesi, senet, royal game of Ur, rithmomachy, dominoes, cribbage, mancala, hnefstafl, fox and geese, aware, morris, dreidel... plus many, many card games.

My list would include Senet or Royal game of Ur, which was most popular game for thousands of years and introduced racing and dice and play pawns to people for the longest time. Chess -if considered board game - has been one of the most known games almost everyone knows and referenced everywhere

I really enjoyed your video and couldn't agree more with your conclusions, but most especially about D&D. I have an interesting side note though (considering the collapse of our current empire and much of the world falling into chaos of late). "Monopoly" was (stolen) based on 1904's "The Landlord Game" which included a second round that was designed to teach "just how unfair monopolies can be". One has to wonder how much different things might be had Parker Brothers decided not to drop that. Cheers.

Sam thumbs up for Lord of the rings! :) Great lists and it was actually great that they were different and I think all had a good idea for the list. Keep the Top 10:s coming!! Oh and PS for Tom we just played LOTR on our last game night a week ago! ;)

Dice Tower Chess is from India, homey. Every continent has had their influence on the game however (see "en passant"). Shogi is a cool Japanese version where you get to use the pieces that you capture. Chess has so many cool variants to it (Suicide Chess, Chess 960, Bughouse Chess).

Empire Builder and its spin-offs, which is a lot older than Through the Desert, I feel was a bigger influence on Ticket to Ride. And it kind of started the whole railroad genre of games.

"Snakes and Ladders" also is an very old and very influential game. I think it would be in or near my Top 10.

I am surprised no one even mentioned Bridge. It might just be my age group, but as a kid, it seemed that *everyone's* mom and dad played Bridge, at least one night a week. When one heard the term "playing cards" - it evoked images of parents playing Bridge.

Zee, roll and move was in backgammon!

i had a question. so im designing a game but i realized that the name that i had in mind is taken by a game that is already out. It is a different game and has different mechanics than the game with the same name. Also its on boardgamegeek and its like in the 600s-700s in terms of ranking. Would i still be able to use the name or do i have to go with a different name?

Omitted: Diplomacy, Mafia/Werewolf. I think those two games have introduced some revolutionary mechanics and have an ongoing legacy, if not individual staying power.

I'm shocked that no one specifically mentioned mancala, given how many games use the mechanism nowadays. At least a mention in there somewhere.

Totally agree with the MTG, Catan, and Cosmic influences...I would have rather lumped all the older, chess, go, etc. into a single group, or just said, obviously they all are influencing games so we won't go there...:) From a REALLY modern gaming standpoint, would you think something like a Golem Arcana will be a future influence from the innovative app/gaming hybrid mechanic, or was there something that did that before?

Of course Dominion has to be on that list. It created a whole new mechanism and genre!

I thought you might include Alien Frontiers since Kickstarting games is such a huge thing now.

Hmm the Monopoly info appears to be the Dead of Winter info - Monopoly wasn't designed in 2014 by Jonathan Gilmour and Isaac Vega, taking 100 minutes! Check around 35:00 mark

Settlers of Catan is the board game that got me into the massive world of modern board gaming and I love it. I can also understand Sam's reason as to why he dislikes the game. There's just some games that don't stick with you, especially when you discover better and funner alternatives. So to hate Sam's opinion -which probably is just a misunderstanding on his stance on the game- on Catan is sorta weird and really illogical in the end.

THANK YOU, Zee, for putting D&D on the list, and TOM for putting it No. 1. It just would not have been a good list without it. D&D ist important not so much for the game itself but for the HUGE impact it had on modern gaming as a whole. For 4 decades now it has established countless tropes and memes throughout gaming and pop culture.

Top ten list idea: unofficial or official variants of games that make them better. Example-with Agricola, me and my wife do a card drafting system which makes it where you can develop a more cohesive strategy for your play through. (we've tried all types, my favorite is throwing down four or five cards down on the table one of us picks first, other picks second, all cards are renewed and turn order is flipped for next pick. We do this with both occupation and minor improvement cards)

Klondike Solitaire? I believe that co-op games couldn't exist without Solitaire. Heck, it was also the first "computer game" many people ever played.

I'm not sure how influential Cosmic Encounter is. Tom is the only person I ever hear talk about it.

One could argue the pips in Backgammon are Action Points, no?

kinda surprised to not see ticket to ride anywhere. It has to be making around as much as catan is at this point.

I had never heard of a co-operative game until I played Pandemic and it was my gateway into boardgaming. Dominion followed shortly thereafter. Then Catan. Then Carcassone. etc. etc.

The most startling exclusions to me would be Civilization and Diplomacy, and Acquire comes close behind as a closer precursor to the entire genre of geometry and economics games (usually involving railroads)

These lists bring up a question. Is there a game timeline out there? If not, there needs to be. Would be interesting to see their release by year.

next time for cards maybe just list Hoyles. Deteministic combat and negotiation Cosmic Encouter? think Diplomacy did both those far earlier and probably more influentially.

I wonder if Small World might one day be considered for this list, based on the affect that Wil Wheaton's show has had on the hobby. Small World was the first game they played, and it reintroduced me to the hobby. I am fairly sure I am not alone in this.

I had no idea that Plaid Hat's Isaac Vega designed Monopoly, haha!