The original Oregon Trail has been described in Serious Games and Edutainment Applications as "one of the most famous ancestors" of the serious game subgenre.[17] The text-based and graphical versions of The Oregon Trail are often described as different iterations of the same game when discussing the game's legacy; Colin Campbell of Polygon, for example, has described it collectively as one of the most successful games of all time, calling it a cultural icon.[15] Kevin Wong of Vice claimed that the collective game was "synonymous with edutainment".[6] Due to its widespread popularity, The Oregon Trail, referring to all versions of the game released over 40 years, was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2016.[18] Time named the game as one of the 100 greatest video games in 2012, and placed it 9th on its list of the 50 best games in 2016.[19][20]