The Smithsonian American Art Museum has announced the winners of The Art of Video Games Exhibit. People voted for months to choose the candidates to appear in the upcoming exhibition starting March 16, 2012 – September 30, 2012.

Eighty video games will be exhibited at the American Art Museum in the third floor North. Blizzard Entertainment’s video games: Diablo II and StarCraft are among the games to be exhibited.

Diablo II and StarCraft won in the Era 4: Transition category the Target Genre and Combat/Strategy Genre.

Chris Metzen and James Phinney were credited for the Lead Design of StarCraft; and Max Schaefer, Erich Shaefer and David Brevik for the Project and Design Leads of Diablo II (2000).

World of Warcraft is among the five playable games at the exhibition floor. These five playable games will be: Pac-Man, Super Mario Brothers, The Secret of Monkey Island, Myst and World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft won in the Era 5: Next Generation category. Credits go to:

Mark E. Kern – Team Lead.
William Petras -Art Director
Chris Metzen – Creative Director
Kevin Beardslee – Lead Animator. Justin Thavirat, Lead
Artist. Brandon Idol, Lead Character
Artist. Robert Pardo, Ayman
Adham, Lead Designers.

The complete list of 80 games to be exhibited are here.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum can be found here — view the Map.

* image by Ken Rahaim/Photographer at Smithsonian Institution