2006 Walk of Game Inductees Announced

The 2006 inductees for the Walk of Game, a Walk of Fame-style area in the San Francisco Sony Metreon honoring famous games and designers, have been announced. The inductees were chosen by online voters from a pool of nominees, some of which were recurring choices from the original 2004 nominees. The two designers chosen to receive Lifetime Achievement awards in the 2005 inductees were Sid Meier and John Carmack. Meier's contribution to the industry came in his groundbreaking simulation and strategy games, such as F-15 Strike Eagle, Civilization, Alpha Centauri, and Pirates!. Carmack's notoriety, meanwhile, stems from his programming and design landmarks, most famously seen in id Software's Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3D series. Four inductees were also chosen in the Games and Characters section. StarCraft, Blizzard Software's space-themed real-time strategy game, remains a popular online title 7 years after its initial release, especially after its widespread adoption in Korea. Final Fantasy, which catapulted developer Squaresoft to stardom in 1987, now counts 11 main series releases (with a twelfth on the way) and a horde of spinoffs, making it one of the two most popular console RPG series in the world. Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest, the first 3D MMORPG, continues to have a widespread player base, and new expansions released to this day even after the sequel's 2004 debut. Finally, Tomb Raider star Lara Croft gets her own star independent of the series, driven by her stardom that led two movies, a book by Douglas Coupland, and a once-ubiquitous presence in pop culture that once featured the virtual star on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Her new game, Tomb Raider Legend, will be released in early 2006.