What would be on the game list for Tier 1 games?

[Boz]

I was having a discussion with a friend about what games were actually tier 1 and what games could have been considered tier 2. It' my contention that there's maybe two or three dozen games that were so popular and so ubiquitous that they could have been considered tier 1. Games like Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Defender, Dig Dig, Frogger, Centipede, Star Wars & Pacman fall in to this list.

Tier two games from my perspective were titles like Gyruss, Q-Bert, Qix, Zaxxon, Moon Patrol.

Am I off on this? I mean, if you wanted to have a home collection of nothing but top tier games (as judged by saturation and popularity) it'd be somewhere between 25 and 40 games, right?

[javeryh]

That sounds about right although the list is going to vary greatly depending on who you talk to.

[Beretta]

That sounds about right although the list is going to vary greatly depending on who you talk to.

+1 agree..

i missed the arcade scene when the "classics" was new..

most of what i consider classic would be mid/late 80's and early 90's games.

example i've never (to my knowledge) even played in the arcade some of the games you just mentioned.

centipede, ms pacman (never actually played the original pacman) frogger and donkey kong and star wars out of your list i've played, never played asteroids, defender, dig dug, moon patrol, q-bert, gyruss

i might have once or twice played zaxxon and qix, could'nt swear to that though.


i find it curious that out of this list you would leave galaga and burger time off it.

still while those games are all well and good if i made up a list of must have games, none of them you just mentioned would make the cut.

to me classic's would be games like

shinobi
shadow dancer
bad dudes
double dragon
rastan
rampage (original)
robocop
narc
ikea warriors / gaurilla war
terminator 2
lethal enforcers
knights of the round
mortal kombat II

what most people consider "classic" i simply missed.. they was not main stream games by the time i had MY arcade experience.. while i can appreciate them they are'nt my top picks and most of them i never spent many quarters on with the exception of ms pacman.

[Epyx]

Am I off on this? I mean, if you wanted to have a home collection of nothing but top tier games (as judged by saturation and popularity) it'd be somewhere between 25 and 40 games, right?

Ya, depending on the criteria this is going to vary...ie what are the years in question?  What is the definition of golden age in terms of years...are we even talking just golden years?  Are there exceptions? etc etc...see how it could vary in about every direction and that isn't even just getting into the subjective opinions

Then there are the cult popularity versus actual sales games...some games sold terribly when they were first released but went on to become cult classics versus others that sold well but don't hold up well at all...

[Epyx]

What you could do is take an average based on the KLOV lists:

http://www.klov.com/TOP100.php

I would take the games from both top collected and top rated from this site as a starting point.