Shamus Young said:
What would you name these game types?
If I were to do it--I mean
really do it--I would reconfigure the game genre nomenclature, as a whole. In my world, every game would have its own taxonomic ranks, just like animals and plants. First would come number of players, then theme or setting, then secondary gameplay aspect and, finally, primary gameplay aspect.
So Fallout 3 would be a "single-player, retro-futuristic, free-exploration-based stat building game." The "secondary aspect" would be determined by how you interact with the world around you and the "primary aspect" would be determined by how your character evolves throughout the game, if at all.
For games which are equally dependent on two separate "aspects" for interaction with the environment, a "tertiary aspect" would also be listed. So Bioshock would be a "single-player, retro-futuristic, first-person, linear-exploration-based ability collection game." In many cases, the secondary aspect of one game would be the tertiary aspect of another. Zelda would be a "single-player, fantasy, linear-exploration-based, dungeon crawling item collection game"
The ordering of the ranks isn't so much in accordance with the importance of each towards the game, but to make for an easier transition from the genre namings we have today. Is it easy on the ears? Absolutely not. Is it confusing as shit? Certainly. Does it work...? Eh, not really. Kind of a metaphor for my life, really.