Our friends over at Next Generation have published a list of the "Top 100 PC Games of the 21st Century" and, like the previous top lists of console and handheld games, it's surprising, if not downright schizophrenic.

That's partly because this is a listing of the best-selling games since January of 2000, not the ones that earned the highest review scores. Next-Gen kicks off the list with a trifecta of games that all sound one letter away from hardcore porn: Hard Trucks 2, Ultimate Hunt Challenge and Slots 2: Betty Boop. We dare you to read those out loud at work without a slip of the tongue.

Picking up the pace are team multiplayer classics Tribes 2 and Star Wars: Battlefront, except nestled in-between them is Scooby Doo: Phantom of the Knight. Role playing classics Dark Age of Camelot and Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are book-ended by Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion and Clue: Murder at Boddy Mansion. Verdict: mansions are clearly places to avoid in the future.

Above: Is the emergent superstar of PC gaming, World of Warcraft, the top of the pops? Not quite yet

But the head-scratching only gets better when best-sellers like SpongeBob SquarePants, Barbie Pet Rescue and the 2000 version of Frogger are inexplicably topped by no. 22: Counter-Strike, the free mod to Half-Life that over half a million people chose to purchase... instead of downloading the free version.

The top of the list is the realm of traditional powerhouses EA, Microsoft and Blizzard - the latter's World of Warcraft and Diablo II landed at #3 and #2, respectively. The Sims took the top slot overall, with world-building games Zoo Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon and SimCity 3000 also sniffing the rare air.

Clearly, what this list illustrates is that the PC market is driven as much if not more by family-oriented purchases than the tastes of hardcore gamers. Next time you find yourself wondering why there are so many kiddie PC titles on the shelves at the store, remind yourself of this list's answer: they sell.

September 5, 2006