I would like to see "WWII Grunt" up there

I vote Gordon Freeman, Ms. Pac Man, Guybrush Threepwood, and John Madden.

I don't see why not. These characters have become every bit as part of American culture as American developed games. Nothing shows off our melting pot abilities better. Take Chris and Clair Redfield: American faces, Japanese development. Do they count? What about Niko from GTAIV? American development, Italian emigrant. If we're looking for both American in character and origin, we don't have that many memoriable characters: Gordon Freeman and Master Chief. That's about it.

To put it another way, would you drape a Homer Simpson banner on the Eiffel Tower?

No, I'd drape a Shredder banner on the Eiffel Tower to kick off a new order.

But seriously, why would I care for a VG Mt Rushmore?

 

What is a game?(throws wine glass on the floor and it breaks to pieces) A miserable little pile of secrets.

Interesting, but does Pwn or Die miss the point of Mt. Rushmore? The towering South Dakota sculpture is the quintessential American monument. No disrespect, but do Mario and Sonic, the products of iconic Japanese game companies, belong there? Ditto for Lara Croft, a monied Englishwoman.

no disrespect, but the point of Pwn or Die wasnt to replace Mt. Rushmore to but have a Mt. Rushmore type monument for the video game world in honor of the great (people?) that paved the way. Are you upset that some group of people used mt. rushmore as a basis for a piece of art? (i assume a picture is art)

 

PS. according to wikipeda, pacman is japanese not american

Lara Croft's chest should not be included. If they want a female, there's one clear choice: Samus Aran, the First Lady of Gaming.

When Jack Thompson runs his mouth, does anyone really care what he has to say anymore?

Mt. Rushmore is a shame. I'm certian George Washington would have seen it as the government flexing its muscle through the pointless defacing of natural geologica features.

Gordon Freeman should get on instead of a hedgehog (I mean, humanity is more important than citizenship, right?). 

Mt. Rushmore is a symbol of America.  A Mt. Rushmore of video games would not be tied to America, but would be a monument of video games themselves.

Come to think of it, Master Chief was not born on Earth, but on one of the colonies (Eridanus 2) of the United Nations.  He wouldn't qualify, not unless it was the nationality of the developers that counted, in which case they should be the ones on the monument.

A pong paddle, the spaceship from asteroids, the space marine from doom, and the prince from prince of persia.

I vote for Claude or CJ from the GTA series. Not because their American, but because they did a lot more in bringing video games to the mainstream than Master Chief could ever hope to do.

I honestly dont see why there is so much against Master Chief being on the monument. He is the face of the Xbox/Xbox 360 and the first Halo set the bar for other FPS games.

Replace Sonic with Snake, and Croft with Samus and Video Game Rushmoore is perfect

Companies: Bungie, Atari, ID

Characters: Master Chief

-- http://pixelantes.blogspot.com/

Pong Paddle?

George Washington wasn't born in the US. He was born in the British Colonies.

I'm actually surprised the choices made are being disputed. Not that people don't have their own favs. But america versus everyone else just because Mt. Rushmore was used as a basis for the comparison?

Gaming is not an area specific phenomena. If it wasn't for japanese characters like mario videogames might not have taken off as well as they did in the U.S. I doubt we would be void of them, but it's tough to judge.

Really I think the least of our concerns in this kind of discussion should be country of origin. A better barometer for which game characters should be recognized in a Mt. Rushmore style display of videogames would be which characters brought the most to the medium. I think the original four choices are good ones.

Basically I'm saying rather then considering the real world countries these fake characters come from, why not just consider all characters part of the United States of Videogames. Leave the real world connotations out of it.