The Video Game Hall Of Fame of Rochester New York hasannounced its 2023 inductees. In a field that included the likes of Angry Birds, Call of Duty, FIFA, Quake, and GoldenEye,Barbie Fashion Designerbeat out the competition to secure its place in video game history.
There’s no denying the importance of GoldenEye 007 bringing first-person shooters to consoles, and nobody is sayingAngry Birds isn’t a billion-dollar franchise, but Barbie Fashion Designer did something that none of these games could: it brought gaming to young girls in an age where games were almost exclusively marketed towards males.
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By today’s standards, Barbie Fashion Designer doesn’t offer a lot in terms of gameplay. You mostly dress up the titular Barbie using outfits, colors, and accessories, and then have her walk down a virtual runway. There was also an option to turn your digital creations to life using an inkjet printer on specially designed fabric that came with the Barbie Fashion Designer CD.
The game basically mimicked what young girls were already doing with real-life Barbie, but it worked. Barbie Fashion Designer would sell half a million copies during its first two months of sale, which was more than both Doom and Quake. It was the sixth best-selling PC game of 1996 and sold over 600,000 copies by the end of its first year of sale.
That’s not to say Barbie wasn’t without faults. You could criticize the game for perpetuating some unfortunate stereotypes, but you could also argue that Barbie Fashion Designer paved the way for character customization as a mechanic–something that appeals to more than just women. you may also see elements of Barbie Fashion Designer in modern life simulation games like The Sims.
“Barbie Fashion Designer became a jumping-off point for the girls’ games movement and shook up the software and gaming scene,” said Video Game Hall of Fame collections manager Says Kristy Hisert. “It also sparked important questions and debate. What does it mean to be a game for girls? Should there even be games ‘for girls’? What are the implications of these games? What are the consequences of gendering games?”
The other inductees for 2023 included Computer Space, an early arcade precursor to Asteroids; The Last of Us, which has since gone on to become a major hit for HBO Max; and Wii Sports, the 2006 blockbuster that changed the way we interact with video games.
Speaking of The Last of Us, Warner Bros. just released its first-quarter 2023 financial results and confirmed the HBO Max streaming series is a huge hit with an average of32 million viewers per episode. The Last of Us is also credited with making WB’s streaming services profitable for the first time ever.
