Images: Games that win a spot in history

SimCity spawned the "god game" genre. Rather than merely being a game participant, players of the simulation game, created by designer Will Wright and first released in 1989, get to design and build their own virtual world. Players also get to defining their own goals; "winning" could mean a different thing to each so-called god, though a destructive earthquake or alien aircraft would likely be seen as a danger for any developer.

Italian researcher Matteo Bittanti, who works at Stanford University's Humanities Lab, told The New York Times that SimCity "completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon." According to the Times, and the Sims game franchise it inspired has sold 85 million copies.