Best gameplay/most cultural impact/significance to the gaming industry Pretty obvious criteria when considering what is in the list
...the top 100 weighted by that criteria. How did you expect the games to be selected. You can't compare vastly different gameplay mechanics and genres by just using one criteria metric. Everyone has their own definition of what "top" means and what qualifies something to be "top". As it isn't 20 different top 100 lists for every genre in gaming they had to broaden the criteria to cover the scope of gaming from its start to now. I make no allusions to it being a pefect system, but it is probably the only way a list such as this can be done and still be somewhat accurate in a reflection of all of gaming. Remember, just because you might not have played a game, or like it, or like the style of game it was, doesn't mean millions of other people didn't enjoy it or find it worthwhile. You mentioned farmville, well seeing as farmville was not the first "free to play" game made it didnt innovate the gaming industry but yes it was played by millions and the signifance of that has led to free to play games becoming more prevelant (which Im not a fan of) so maybe if it was a "top 500" list farmville would be there somewhere
Idk, I think Farmville has some claim to top 100 status on the same basis as Angry Birds (not ground breaking in itself, but opened many eyes to gaming in another form). Not that I disagree with the rest of your post, just addressing that particular point.
I don't see how 'Words With Friends' innovated the gaming industry as it is just a video game form of an old game, Scrabble.