I feel you. There's a difference between liking a game and a game that literally EVERYONE is rocking with. For example, Castlevania Symphony of the Night is one of my personal GOAT games but I can't argue that it was more well-known among non-gamers than the likes of Pokemon Go, Call of Duty or Fortnite. (I don't play any of those)
Trying to be as objective possible, I'll try going by year:
1980-
Pac-man
1984-
Tetris
1985-
Super Mario Bros (There wouldn't be an industry without this game)
1988-
Dragon Quest III (In Japan*)
1989-
Super Mario Bros 3
1991-
Street Fighter 2, Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog
1992-
Sonic 2, Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat, A Link to the Past
1993- Mortal Kombat 2,
NBA JAM
1996-
Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64
1997-
Goldeneye 007, Pokemon Red/Blue
1998-
Final Fantasy VII, Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2
2000- Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Pokemon Gold/Silver
2001-
GTA 3, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Halo, Final Fantasy X
2002- GTA Vice City, Metroid Prime, Soul Calibur 2, Kingdom Hearts
2003- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
2004-
GTA San Andreas, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft
2005- Kingdom Hearts 2
2009- Modern Warfare 2
2010- Black Ops
2011-2012-
Minecraft, Black Ops 2
2016-
Pokemon Go, Undertale
2018-2020-
Fortnite
(
Bolded = definite gamechangers)
First person shooters in general (especially
Call of Duty)ran the streets through most of the late 2000s through the late 2010s until Pokemon Go and Fortnite really took off.
(* Dragon Quest was so huge in Japan that Enix had to pass an internal rule to only release the games on weekends because everybody was skipping school/work to go play it

)
MGS2 could have made the list, but the Raiden bait-and-switch killed a lot of people's hype.
It pains me to leave out games like Chrono Trigger, FF6, Super Metroid, Symphony of the Night, and Earthbound, but those were sleeper GOATS compared to the likes of Goldeneye, Pokemon, and FF7. RPG's in general were slept on pre-FF7.
I might be reaching on some of these, though.