Pac-Man Has Been Slighted

Pac-Man is my favorite video game ever. One reason is that it was the first video game I ever played, probably starting when I was about 10 or so. We didn't have an arcade in our neighborhood, so we would walk over to the local party store and play for a quarter a game. Aside from the nostalgia, the other reason why it's my favorite is that I simply don't play many others. We have not easily resisted the temptation to buy any home gaming consoles, although I came very close to buying a PS as a graduation present for myself. I am too easily addicted to video games and figured that I would never have finished my dissertation or now I would never be productive enough to get tenure if we had lots of gaming options at home. The exception to this rule is my one-and-only computer game, Civilization, and even there I struggle with limiting my playing time.

So imagine my outrage when I read that Pac-Man did not make the list of the 10 video games that belong in a museum!!! Unbelievable! I realize that it's not terribly sophisticated or challenging, but it's a classic. So here are the ones that made the list. I don't even know what half of them are:

"Civilization" (series)
"Doom""
"Sensible World of Soccer"
"SimCity" (series)
"Spacewar!"
"Star Raiders"
"Super Mario Bros. 3"
"Tetris"
"Warcraft" (series)
"Zork"

For my ICPSR friends, the article also discussed the Library of Congress effort to preserve digital entertainment.