This year, six more well-loved games will be entered into the World Video Game Hall of Fame and among them is The Legend of Zelda. Occupying part of The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, the Hall of Fame recognizes all types of video games that have kept their popularity over an extended period and that have had a considerable influence on the video game industry in one form or another. 

The Legend of Zelda was originally released on the NES in 1986 and was a turning point in gaming as it used a non-linear gameplay style now prevalent in today's games. The series' popularity has consistently grown and has since spawned 17 titles (number 18 is due to come out in 2017 along with the Nintendo "NX" system.) making Link, Zelda, and Ganon household names.

Starting last year, the first "class" of games to enter the Hall of Fame were DOOM, Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and World of Warcraft. This year, the finalists, selected by a committee of journalists, scholars, and video game industry members were The Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto III, The Oregon Trail, The Sims, Sonic the Hedgehog and Space Invaders.

A very generous man by the name of Paul Sams donated over 1,500 items out of his personal collection to The Strong National Museum of Play. Spanning through the items include gems from Diablo, StarCraft, and WarCraft. 

During his time as COO of Blizzard Entertainment and president of the French-based Blizzard Entertainment SAS group, over the course of two decades, Blizzard products have made the way into his collection and now he's giving them to the community. 

The Past and Future of the Products

Paul Sams joined Blizzard back in 1996, serving nearly two decades with the company to date. Rising from director of business development before gaining his current position in 2004, Sams was able to see some of Blizzard's best projects come to the light of day.

When choosing a place to donate his private collection to, Sams decided on The Strong National Museum of Play in New York as the perfect location so generations in upcoming decades could learn from Blizzard's products and see how gaming has changed. 

"This collection holds a very dear place in my heart and I wanted to ensure that the materials would be properly preserved for many decades to come. The dedicated and talented team at The Strong were the obvious choice to care for the collection. Most importantly, I wanted to ensure that broadest audience of gamers and fans of entertainment and play would be able to share in this extensive collection of gaming history."

 - Paul Sams of Blizzard Entertainment SAS

Current Projects Ongoing

Though Legendary Pictures is taking the reigns on the World of Warcraft movie, Blizzard developed the popular Warcraft game, that has an expected movie release in June of 2016. Earlier this week a 40-second trailer was leaked on the internet and information regarding the leaked trailer can be found at "Warcraft 2016 movie trailer leaked - check it out before it's taken down". What do you think of the private collection that Sams has donated? Will it become a popular exhibit at The Strong National Museum of Play? Share your thoughts below on the special items revealed below.