Periodic Table of Video Games [Poster]

Have you ever had an awesome idea rattling loudly around inside your head for months, or even years, but for some reason you can’t bring yourself to start? I’ve had this idea for years to make a poster of all the best games ever made. It would be organized like a periodic table of elements, grouped by genre, with each game’s release date instead of atomic weight.

It would be an incredible (and incredibly geeky!) conversation piece. My friends and I could debate about which games made the cut and how they were organized into which genres, and get excited about which games were our favorites from childhood (or, ahem, college). It would spark so many great memories–I couldn’t think of a better way to explain my life-long love of games with the people around me.

Well guess what? This year, I finally started making it… and today, I finally finished it! Gimme a high-five!

The Best Video Games of All Time

What happens when a gamer geek and a science nerd love each other in a very special way? They spawn a legendary drop called Periodic Table of Video Games.

Celebrating over 300 (332 to be exact) of history’s best video games across 40 genres, this totally OP graphic artwork will bring you and your friends countless hours of nostalgia—and more than a few “lively debates” once you really dive in.

Intrigued? Excited? Ready for a super video game geek-out?

Where can I get the poster?

Unfortunately I no longer sell prints of this poster. But feel free to download the full sized version and print it yourself, or use it as a wallpaper, or take it to your favorite tattoo artist (it will look great as a backpiece!).

How did you decide which games to include?

Researching the content for this poster was by far the hardest part of creating it. I spent nearly 100 hours researching which games were critically-acclaimed, and which were widely panned by critics but beloved by players. Which games were groundbreaking for their time, and which games spawned entirely new genres that we still play today, decades later.

And, I must confess: since it’s my poster, I even took some creative license to include a few games you might not have heard of, but that are super interesting to me personally. Like the open-source 2D space shooter that my girlfriend and I used to play together until the wee hours of the morning. Now she’s my wife—so if you’re single and looking, maybe give this game a try. 😉

In the end, I had to cut a bunch of games that I really would have loved to include. But I could only fit so many on the poster! 332 should be enough to keep you and your friends interested for a good long time, and it’s guaranteed to spark some lively discussions when your gamer friends come over and start debating which games deserved to make—or not make—the cut.

How did you decide on the genres?

Choosing the game genres and how/where to categorize each game is probably going to cause the most discussion and, let’s be honest, arguments. 🙂 As I’m sure you know, most modern games are big, complex, and could fall into any number of different genres depending on how you think about it.

For example, is Dead Space a third-person shooter, or a survival horror? Is Super Mario 64 a third-person adventure, or a platformer? Is Forza a vehicle sim, or a racing game? How does a rational person even begin to categorize games like Journey or Katamari Damacy in a way that makes everyone happy?

Since there are many ways to classify almost any game, I approached the challenge as both an art and a science. Hopefully, my decisions will give you some good food for thought as well as spark some interesting debates as you discuss with your friends. And if you think I’m just completely wrong about something, let me know—I’d be happy to add my voice to the debate, and I’m always open to changing my mind after a good persuasive argument. Give me your opinion down in the comments (I read and respond to every one).

Which game genres are on the poster?

There are 40 game genres on the poster, including: Action RPG, Arcade Shooter, Battle Royale, Beat ’em Up, Block Breaker, Clicker, Construction and Management, Dungeon Crawl, Fighting, First-person Shooter, Graphic Adventure, Hack ‘n’ Slash, Hero Shooter, Interactive Movie, JRPG, Life Simulation, Light Gun Shooter, Maze, Metroidvania, MMORPG, MOBA, Music, Open-world RPG, Platformer, Puzzle, Racing, Real-time Strategy, Real-time Tactics, Run ‘n’ Gun, Shoot ’em Up, Sports, Stealth, Survival Horror, Tactical RPG, Tactical Shooter, Text Adventure, Third-person Action-adventure, Turn-based Strategy, Vehicle Sim, and (…drumroll please… ) Walking Simulator!

That’s a big list, because I wanted to represent all the major game genres, and many of the arguably “minor” genres. Click the graphic at the top of this post to see a big version with all the games and genres in context!

Which video games are on the poster?

It’s a long list! Click on the graphic at the top of this post to see a big version with all the games.

What’s the oldest game on the poster?

The oldest game on the poster is Bertie the Brain, which was created over 70 years ago, in 1950! It’s one of the very first video games ever created. The computer running it was over 13 feet (4 meters) tall, and contained an artificial intelligence that could play tic-tac-toe. Video games have come a long way in the past 70+ years!