Far better pick than the Dark Souls one the other day. While I am no Sims fan (and I am, sort of, a DS fan), it is undeniable that the influence this game has had is widespread and has influenced even the biggest of AAA titles. Kudos.

@Barighm: Odd choice of a hill to die on; the X controller is widely deemed the best; next you'll be arguing X does not have the best shooters, best online platform, best racers and best platformers. They do....let it be. Sony has had some great single players games over the last 2 years, has the vast majority of the Japanese indies (if that's your thing) and the more powerful and cheaper console at the beginning of the gen and has VR capabilities for that crowd....that is your argument, move off it and you move from a fan to a fanboy.

@Tamz: No one, and I mean no one, that played W3 would compare it, in any way, to a Souls game.....Witcher devs/ writers were very, very clearly influenced by Bioware and Bethesda......they are Bioware w/o the politics. If the dev claimed Ayn Rand influenced W3 do you think that would be legit.....if there is nothing comparable in the game, "influence" doesn't mean what you think it means ffs. What a joke.

@pittsburghler: You did see where I say I finished 4 of the DS games....no? 100% them all......and can honestly say, the claims that DS is hard is a fanboy lie....the BEGINNING of DS is really tough....once you get good gear, only the occasional boss isn't a cakewalk.....the trash mobs are tough when you have no gear.....most of them don;t scale, so you level way past them.....and then the only challenge is trying to beat the f'n lag in the games :)

@xantufrog: Ummm, brah, if a game sells well it will influence other gamemakers....if it is niche, it might influence some indies, but that's it....that's what DS has done...and the folk claiming games are Souls like are generally referring to a weightier-type combat that they believe DS introduced....firstly DS didn;t introduce that type of combat, but more importantly, these comparisons are most often laughable.....again, name me a AAA that DS influenced....name 1.....if you can;t (which you can;t) you're just spewing fanboyism for a game you, personally, like.....writer likes the game - check; mod likes the game, check.

@Tamz: lol...thanks....but instead of just being a DS fanboy, why not actually try to make a case that it is as influential as you claim. Show me the AAA's it has influenced...we both know you can't. Souls will always be a niche title, but its influence is extremely limited. You want influencers....look at GTA, look at Red Dead, look at everything Bioware has done, look at Bethesda....these are the influencers....you can tell it by how many games they sell, which means there are a lot of fans of what they do....and other devs want to copy that. Hey, I like DS, I have completed 4 of them; they're good games....certainly not great, and they certainly haven't influenced gaming in a significant way.

lol.....not sure how many games are on this "influential" list according to this schmoe, but there better be a lot if DS is there. Nearly every game from 2011 noted above outsold DS and their sequels continue to outsell DS sequels. Is there a true AAA out there that copied anything from DS? Fanboyism.....reminds me of the fanboys that said Zelda BotW would influence every RPG from then on.....if they meant every other Zelda from then on, they win....if they meant anyone else would copy anything....lolololol. Please.

@deviltaz35: Say what? CDPR has produced only Witcher....and of that series, only 3 was any good....unless you're really into brothels, in which case 2 was good as well (just a guess). Oh, maybe you're into the standalone Gwent? I never understand fanboys...of anything. For open world games, CDPR is vastly inferior to the worlds of Rockstar, Bioware or Ubisoft.....not remotely close. CDPR does 1 thing better than all the others, they don;t bow to the PC culture and inject their games with foolishness.....and kudos to them for that....but that doesn't nearly make up for the bugginess of their games or the clunkiness of the combat (or that damn horse!).

lol...so, streaming, which would lead to more direct sales of his games, he thinks has a future; subscription services, which would lead to fewer direct sales of his games, he thinks has no future......who woulda saw that coming :P It's interesting that he notes many gamers spend months on games, without recognizing the underlying cause.....Fortnite and Apex (Roblox, etc.) are not this popular because they are great games....they're free........many, many gamers play games for months on end (PC is rife with this) because games are (relatively) expensive for many......lower the price in a subscription model and I'm willing to bet him, that the number of games played per gamer goes way up...just a guess of course :)

@aross2004: lol...touchy fanboy.....the articles in here have been so prejudiced, that this site is about to die....3-5 years ago, every article had dozens/ hundreds of comments....now there are barely a handful on almost all.....just a few of a certain fanboy left in here at all......and as they die, I'm not sure they'll ever acknowledge (hell, they might be so blind/ ignorant they don't even realize) it was their blatant bias that drove everyone away....enjoy the last little bit....shame.