Currently, much of the history of video games as an artistic medium is an oral history – both in terms of describing events within the history, and in terms of describing the impact and popularity of games within the larger world. Some hard data to provide insight on the second category is publically available, but it is currently unstructured data, making it difficult to draw any real insight into what games were successful or popular, outside of the more obvious titles that demonstrated long-term viability through multiple sequels across different console generations. One of the sources of this data is Nintendo Power magazine’s “Power Poll”, which ran every issue through the magazines’ first issue into the 1990s, and which ranked the popularity of titles for Nintendo’s console and handheld systems.
