Gaming Genres - Pragmatic or Problematic

[Kurea]

I'm sure many of you have discussed this matter to death, and I'm sure you can easily find plenty of threads even here on the Escapist about this very topic, but I'm wondering how others feel about game genres. Sure, a good number of them are fairly self-explanatory (or seem to be anyway), genres like "RPG" ("It has character stats, it MUST be an RPG!"), "sports" ("It has balls, it must be a sports game!") and "MMO" ("It has tons of people experiencing it together simultaneously, it must be an epidemic! Sorry- MMO!"). However, what exactly is an "action" game? What deciding factors go into determining whether a game is an "adventure" story or not? Shopping for games based on genres like these is perplexing. Half-Life 2 is an "action" game, but so is Bayonetta, and yet one is an FPS and the other is hack-and-slash, and each has very different mechanics from the other. Games in the Zelda franchise are considered "adventure" titles, perhaps "action-adventure", but games in the "Monkey Island" series are also labeled as being "adventure" games, and the two series share very little in common beyond abstract details like pirates and swords (and fetch quests I suppose).

My question for you, my fellow Escapists, is this: How do you see the modern game genre paradigm as it exists today? Do you find it suitable as-is, or do you feel it needs to be refined to allow for more explicit genre descriptors, or do you think it's too specific already and should be more all-encompassing with its terminology? Whatever your thoughts are, I'd like to know. I personally think it's rather vague and misleading to use words like "action" and "strategy" and "casual", but I'm definitely open to other opinions. Again, I apologize if I'm beating a dead horse, or if I'm not exactly being succinct here. Thanks for reading, and considering, what I have to say.

 

[Fanta Grape]

Well genre titles are there purely for convenience reasons. You could most likely described genres by either core mechanic or an extra mechanic. A core mechanic would be a first-person shooter, where there's no ifs or buts, it's simply an FPS. The second one can be iffy. Zelda's primary focus is unlike any other game, but we at least know it's in third person, right? Are we supposed to imagine we are him or is it that we have to treat him as a character? Is combat a higher priority than puzzles? What decides this? The problem is, having traits from a game won't actually decide what genre it is. Anyone can tell you that Final Fantasy VII is a JRPG but while it is Japanese, you do no role playing. Fallout 3 is a better example of role playing, and hell, you might even consider half-life 2 to be a better role playing game.

The problem is there is no efficient method to fix these ambiguities up. The words already have their connotations and games are so vastly different that it's nearly impossible to categorise them into sub-sections, unless you go purely by core mechanics. But isn't the point of a genre to help give a general idea of a game? Just saying it's in first person and on rails won't say what kind of experience it is.

Tut tut. I guess I have no good answer.

 

[Saelune]

I think its best solved by just not limiting yourself. I favor RPGs, but I dont only play them. Ill play anything if its fun for me. Personally, its better to just compair it to other games.

 

[Kurea]

Well genre titles are there purely for convenience reasons. You could most likely described genres by either core mechanic or an extra mechanic. A core mechanic would be a first-person shooter, where there's no ifs or buts, it's simply an FPS. The second one can be iffy. Zelda's primary focus is unlike any other game, but we at least know it's in third person, right? Are we supposed to imagine we are him or is it that we have to treat him as a character? Is combat a higher priority than puzzles? What decides this? The problem is, having traits from a game won't actually decide what genre it is. Anyone can tell you that Final Fantasy VII is a JRPG but while it is Japanese, you do no role playing. Fallout 3 is a better example of role playing, and hell, you might even consider half-life 2 to be a better role playing game.

The problem is there is no efficient method to fix these ambiguities up. The words already have their connotations and games are so vastly different that it's nearly impossible to categorise them into sub-sections, unless you go purely by core mechanics. But isn't the point of a genre to help give a general idea of a game? Just saying it's in first person and on rails won't say what kind of experience it is.

Tut tut. I guess I have no good answer.

It's not an easy topic to address unfortunately. :\ It's also probably not that crucial either. XD

Seems to me my options for describing, say, God of War are either "action"/"action-adventure" which is downright vague but about the best we've got officially, or "third-person cinematic hack-and-slash" taking into account the fact that the series takes place in third person, relies on cutscenes and QTEs, and involves literal "hacking and slashing" (melee) as the primary means of dispatching foes. Of course the latter option only takes the game's mechanics into account, not the story or setting or tone. A full and appropriate genre title for God of War would be something like "third-person cinematic Greek tragedy hack-and-slash with limited RPG elements in the way of increasing max values of fluctuating resources", but that's just way too many words. XD

I suppose we have genres like "action" and "strategy" out of convenience. I'd like for there to be a happy middle ground, but that might be asking too much... On Steam, games are sorted into genre categories, but of course they're categories like the ones I've already been talking about. Seems to me that it would be more convenient for everyone involved to label games using acronyms like "FPS" and "RTS" and perhaps "TBRPG" (turn-based RPG), but that would only be a slight improvement. Plus, this is all coming from the perspective of a long-time gamer, so I can't speak for the average consumer who doesn't know what "FPS" stands for (and in this context it's not "Frames Per Second" to anyone who is unsure). I'm sure something is to be said of keeping things simple for non-gamers to distinguish between games and game types. I can't imagine a parent looking at Crysis 2, seeing it labeled as an "FPS", and knowing that's exactly what their little Timmy wants for Christmas.

Yeesh, I need to whittle down these rants. Thanks for your two cents, they're much appreciated.

 

[Kurea]

I think its best solved by just not limiting yourself. I favor RPGs, but I dont only play them. Ill play anything if its fun for me. Personally, its better to just compair it to other games.

I never pay attention to genres when deciding if I'll like anything, be they games or otherwise. I find it too confining, and, well... boring. And besides, not all games in a specific genre are good.

Genres like "strategy" and "casual" just make looking for new games a bit of a bother if you don't already know in advance what you're looking for. I guess comparisons are an easy alternative in written and spoken reviews. "It's like GTA meets Cooking Mama," as a hypothetical example. I have NO idea what kind of game that would be... but I'd certainly like to try it, if only for a few seconds.

 

[Asti]

Genres are problematic in any medium. They are loose categories built around consumer expectations and shouldn't be treated as absolutes.

I think games have a good variety of genres as we have both names for gameplay types ((FP)-Shooter, RPG, Simulation, Strategy, Adventure...) and we can draw from more content related categories known from film and TV like Fantasy, Science Fiction, Action, Mystery, and so forth.

 

[Richardplex]

Anything we try and label has inherent issues. I mean, we tried to label creatures like reptiles and mammals and birds and whatnot, but then the platypuses and echidnas stuck their middle fingers up at our labels and started laying eggs, yet still having the cheek to call themselves mammals, the nerve!

 

[Zhukov]

Eh, for the most part I don't really have a problem with genre labels.

However, some of them of poorly defined to a rather irritating degree. For example, "action-adventure" covers damn near anything under the sun. And don't even get me started on the term "RPG". Eaarg.

On a somewhat tangental note, I really wish people would stop acting snobbish about genres. You know, "That's just some nerdy fantasy crap, I want to play a real game." "This isn't a RPG any more, it's been dumbed down for the CoD fans." Yeah, you get the idea.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Like movies/music/books most games should be labeled with more then one genre or sub-genre, and even that they ofcourse never tells the whole story, so look up some gameplay on top and you should be golden.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I really think we need better genre names for certain genres like the beat'em ups/hack and slashers. I just really think those names kinda suck. Also, RPGs shouldn't be called RPGs unless they have actual role-playing, I'm looking at you JRPGs (I'm not hating on them, I like them, but they aren't RPGs).

We got some good named genres like platformers, RPGs, FPSs, sports, fighters, stealth, etc. I think action is definitely too vague. I think adventure is probably a good one, it may have to be supplemented with something else depending on the gameplay. Zelda is definitely an adventure game but it is more than that. Also, interactive movie type games don't really have a name at all. Heavy Rain is not an adventure game, it's basically a drama.

 

[Fishyash]

I don't usually put genres into consideration for my opinion, but they DO have to be labeled.

I think that if a game puts elements in other games then the dominant element should be the genre. You don't call CoD an RPG even though the multiplayer has leveling up and perks, for example.

Also genres like 'action' are a bit too widespread nowadays for games (lots more games have action than they used to). Genre names should have the activity (not the setting) describe it.

To be honest it's now pretty hard to label genres now, since lots of games have been taking things from other genres to make it what it is.

 

[StBishop]

I wouldn't call Half life an action game. I know it's called that on steam, but really I think action is a shitty name for a genre, I don't know anyone who uses it.

I would call Half Life a FPS, a story centred one, sure. But it's an FPS.

I would call Bayonetta a hack and slash, I'd put it in the same category as Dynasty Warriors, and God of War.

I'd agree on Adventure for Both Monkey Island and Zelda (having a very limited experience with both) but I'd me more inclined to call Monkey Island a "Point and Click" or "Point and Click Adventure Game".

I tend to categorise games by gameplay rather than themes, because usually most games fall into the following: Fantasy, Science Fiction, War, Crime Drama, Thriller, and very occasionally, Horror. (Forgot Western, probably because I can't take it seriously.)
I'm being rather liberal with the "Crime Drama" one, including both the GTA and Saints Row series in there along with the Max Payne and other types of games. (Which come to think of it are all similar in gameplay too.)

But yeah, there's genre for subject material but most games (unfortunatrly don't take that as seriously as other media) and there's the (in my mind) more applicable and useful genres for game style.

 

[StBishop]

Anything we try and label has inherent issues. I mean, we tried to label creatures like reptiles and mammals and birds and whatnot, but then the platypuses and echidnas stuck their middle fingers up at our labels and started laying eggs, yet still having the cheek to call themselves mammals, the nerve!

So then we labelled them Monotremes. Ha! We out smarted them.

 

[Bostur]

The Escapist designed a pretty cool genre wheel a long time ago:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_283/8400-Introducing-The-Escapists-Genre-Wheel


The genres lose meaning when companies use them as marketing tools. Some genres get stamped as being cool and then they need to be on every game cover. Action-adventure is the perfect example, every game ever made is an action-adventure. RPG is becoming another buzz word, every game needs to be an RPG these days.

I think distinct genres are handy as consumer information describing gameplay. It's nice to know what kind of game in general I'm about to buy. Is this game about jumping across platforms, shooting stuff or analyzing lots of numbers?
No label is ever accurate, but an aproximation can still be useful.

'Adventure' used to be a very distinct genre that doesn't exist anymore except for some obscure indy titles. Of course it doesn't help that the word 'Adventure' is a much broader term in common language than the original genre was.

 

[Llil]

Genre labels can be really useful as long as they're specific enough. Something like "point and click adventure game" or "2D run and gun platformer". Just "Action" or "RPG" doesn't really tell what the game is like.

Of course, this does make the number of genres pretty huge, and categorising games in a good way could be difficult.

 

[Phlakes]

Right now they suck. Especially when you get into RPG territory. We need new names for all those, because RPG has basically lost its meaning and now means "anything with RPG elements".