This doesn't really jive with my memories of the 80's and 90's. The gold box games were solid, as was Eye of the Beholder, but I wouldn't say that those games drove the industry. If you had asked me in the early 90's what the most important RPG was I would have without any reservation at all said Ultima. Now there is room for argument there (and my opinion has changed A LOT in the past 30 years) but it was definitely a highly influential series, and also definitely not D&D.
Okay my point might have been poorly worded, Ultima and Wizardry where driving force computer games, along with Bards Tale. However all of them, their devs said this, owed their design and existence to DnD. The actual DnD games came a bit later in the initial game development however those early RPGs that created the genre all revered DnD.
