The arrow of time with respect to computers splits into two two distinctions:
BC ( before Carmack): circa 1993
and AC (after Carmack).
It is a simply game but it changed the course of history in terms of what direction gaming went, thus the heavy hardware designs to support that type of games.
Quake was basically the only reason to get a 486DX--floating point support.
The crazy GPU push--later culminating in CUDA and all that other nonsense--is completely due to the Quake OpenGL and 3dfx support.
High-speed internet at home was mostly useful for playing on QuakeWorld, and later derivatives Half-Life, and the Unreal series (not a derivative, but you get the idea).
So, yeah.
EDIT:
One might also point out that the death of the great workstation companies (SGI, HP, etc.) happened because they were no longer competitive in the CAD space, specifically because consumer-level graphics cards were improving driven by the demands of gaming.
and AC (after Carmack).
It is a simply game but it changed the course of history in terms of what direction gaming went, thus the heavy hardware designs to support that type of games.