How to Fix Gaming's Broken Genre Naming Conventions

[a ginger491]

Genres in video games tend to be named after a mechanic that is in them, which can sometimes lead to enormous confusion about the style of gameplay, But using traditional narrative forms of genre naming (comedy, mystery, action, documentary,etc.) is even worse.

Where do you put a game like the Batman Arkham series or Assassin's Creed? "Open world" doesn't tell you anything about the gameplay, and action/adventure is the most generic term to call a video game in the history of the universe. How would someone who has never played video games react when told that final fantasy, the elder scrolls, and WoW are all in the same genre? Or that WoW and EVE also share genres somehow.

Some of these are a little bit easier. Shooters tend to work fairly well. I can understand why Far Cry 3, Uncharted, Battlefield,and Ghost Recon are all in the same category. But then again where do you put a game like Dishonored?

Personally I think the naming conventions should be based around the primary mechanic in a game; shooter, brawler, RTS, and TBS are all good examples of mechanics taking on genre names. Some though, like RPG, are pretty terrible at telling you what the actual gameplay is going to be like.

Lets figure this out people, and then spread this new way to categorize video games to others so we can make sense of it all.

EDIT: I am not saying that I myself am confused or that the system isn't easy to work around for those of us who are pretty used to genres being totally useless to better understand what a game will be like. I'm saying that it would be much easier for the average consumer to have a more streamlined genre system based on core gameplay mechanics rather than just the obscenely broad strokes used today to categorize games.

 

[tippy2k2]

Honestly...I don't think you can.

Frankly, genres are not there to tell you exactly what you're getting. Genres are a broad paint brush to give you the bare bones of what you're buying. You can add a few things to it (for example, FEAR could be seen as a Horror FPS) but overall, you shouldn't expect to see the genre and know exactly what you're getting.

Even the "obvious" shooter examples you gave all are very different from each other. Far Cry 3 is an open world FPS with fantasy elements, Uncharted is a third person action adventure game, Battlefield is an open world military FPS, Ghost is a linear military FPS, and Ghost Recon is...something (I never played it).

So yeah, unless you intend to add about five descriptors to every genre, I'm just going to stick with the basics and expect myself to look into the game a little bit if I'm interested.

 

[a ginger491]

Even the "obvious" shooter examples you gave all are very different from each other. Far Cry 3 is an open world FPS with fantasy elements, Uncharted is a third person action adventure game, Battlefield is an open world military FPS, Ghost is a linear military FPS, and Ghost Recon is...something (I never played it).

Well I understand that. But what I'm saying is the main mechanic in each of those games is the same. As is the button mapping for the controls. In which I mean you are primarily using a firearm to dispatch most of the enemies in the game to make progress.
After thinking on it, I think games like arkham city and assassin's creed could possibly be rooted in beat em ups and fighting games, what with all the countering and combos. So conceivably one could call assassin's creed an "open world stealth beat em up" while I guess castle crashers is a "linear action beat em up."
I don't know if that works but I think if you break the games down to their primary mechanics, it will be much easier for the average person who doesn't have much time to research the games their buying to go into a store and find the type of game they are looking for. After they do that they can look on the back of the game box to know what subgenre the game they are looking at is.

 

[SecondPrize]

well i stick something like dishonoured in to a stealth folder on steam and it works for me

But it's a ninja-superhero game. I only have a couple games in the very niche stealth genre so I don't have a separate folder for them.
OP, the problem is with you, if you insist on only referring to the elder scrolls and final fantasy as only rpgs, instead of western and J rpg. The classification system gamers use goes a lot deeper than one catchall name for everything in one genre.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I'm enjoying the player submitted tags for games that you can find on games on Steam now.

Rather than the standard genre fittings - you can now search by player-defined tags. I think this could lead into a whole new way of categorising games, even if it was something like: search for games with player-endorsed tag 'portal-esque game', for a game that is similar to portal. I think this could be a really interesting way to categorise games.

Sure, the troll had to come into play and one of the most common tags applied to the game DayZ was 'Walking Simulator', but at least it is relevant to the experience of the players. I will be sad if campaigns are brought about to make player-defined tags useless, just to make something 'funny' appear on the game's steam page - I could imagine campaigns against big titles like CoD, to give them detrimental tags.

I like to think overall though that it has the potential to be a great benefit for categorising games.

 

[Mangod]

I'm enjoying the player submitted tags for games that you can find on games on Steam now.

Rather than the standard genre fittings - you can now search by player-defined tags. I think this could lead into a whole new way of categorising games, even if it was something like: search for games with player-endorsed tag 'portal-esque game', for a game that is similar to portal. I think this could be a really interesting way to categorise games.

Sure, the troll had to come into play and one of the most common tags applied to the game DayZ was 'Walking Simulator', but at least it is relevant to the experience of the players. I will be sad if campaigns are brought about to make player-defined tags useless, just to make something 'funny' appear on the game's steam page - I could imagine campaigns against big titles like CoD, to give them detrimental tags.

I like to think overall though that it has the potential to be a great benefit for categorising games.

Yeah, I don't think user tags are such a good idea. Someone I work with suggested "White Supremacist Simulator" for CoD: Ghosts, just as an example of what user tags for games can result in. And as a dig against the MMS genre, while we're at it.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I'm enjoying the player submitted tags for games that you can find on games on Steam now.

Rather than the standard genre fittings - you can now search by player-defined tags. I think this could lead into a whole new way of categorising games, even if it was something like: search for games with player-endorsed tag 'portal-esque game', for a game that is similar to portal. I think this could be a really interesting way to categorise games.

Sure, the troll had to come into play and one of the most common tags applied to the game DayZ was 'Walking Simulator', but at least it is relevant to the experience of the players. I will be sad if campaigns are brought about to make player-defined tags useless, just to make something 'funny' appear on the game's steam page - I could imagine campaigns against big titles like CoD, to give them detrimental tags.

I like to think overall though that it has the potential to be a great benefit for categorising games.

Yeah, I don't think user tags are such a good idea. Someone I work with suggested "White Supremacist Simulator" for CoD: Ghosts, just as an example of what user tags for games can result in. And as a dig against the MMS genre, while we're at it.

But that won't make it to the top tagged list and appear on CoD's Steam page though, unless lots of people do it though? Isn't that how it works? Picking the ones that are most commonly put forward - otherwise yes, anything could appear on there and it would prove pretty fruitless.

Obviously it's open for manipulation, but I think lesser titles won't be so preyed upon like the AAAs and we could get some useful tagging. And although the example I gave does leave a somewhat misleading tag on DayZ, because it isn't literally a 'walking simulator', it does encapsulate the experience of many players of that game - a lot of running and not much else going on.

But I could also see something like Game of Thrones being released by Telltale and the tags on day one being: 'Boobs' 'Sex' 'Swords' or something unuseful/juvenile like that.

So it's not perfect, but it's interesting, I think.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

With regards to assassins creed i would call it an 'open world 3rd person fighting game' because that is what the core mechanic is. The exploration side of the game is irrelevant really...it's intrinsic to open world games and should go without saying.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

I disagree. I'd actually prefer if videogames used more narrative focused genres, instead of simply calling them Open World, FPS, RPG, etc. I'd call Assassin's Creed Historical Sci-Fi to keep it short, because from a story POV, that's what it is. Open World Historical Sci-Fi Adventures With Altair and His Buddy Desmond in the Holy Land!, if you want the whole thing.

And to explain why I'd prefer things that way, I don't think it's necessary to mention particular gameplay elements. We're talking videogames here. It's implied that you're going to shoot/punch/kick/stab/kill things in some manner.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I think it's best to keep the basic genre titles at this point, mainly because lots of games have multiple genres mixed in for good measure, especially RPG elements,

For example, for years people haven't been sure what to identify the Zelda series's genre, leading to it just being called "action adventure." You could also call it an RPG, Dungeon crawler, puzzle game, platformer, and even an FPS.

Zelda's not the only case, lots of games don't conform to single genres, yet it would be confusing to create a whole bunch of new sub genres for no reason.

 

[a ginger491]

I'll break down EVE and WoW too, just to show how they 'share' the same genre despite being different games:

EVE - Sci-Fi Space Simulator MMORPG

WoW - Fantasy Adventure MMORPG

Main Genre - MMORPG
Sub-Genre - Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Sub-Sub-Genre - Space Simulator/Adventure

I think it could be easier for consumers to look at those games from their mechanical perspectives. Looking at both WoW and EVE they both appear to have combat elements taken from real time strategy. As in you repeatedly click on an enemy to attack it, and then use a macro menu for special attacks. I know I am totally butchering genres as we know them right now, but from a mechanical perspective lots of MMO combat is rooted in turn based or real time strategy games. hell all Final Fantasy was for a long time was turn based strategy with RPG elements. I think that looking at the mechanics will really make things easier to group together.

 

[a ginger491]

OP, the problem is with you, if you insist on only referring to the elder scrolls and final fantasy as only rpgs, instead of western and J rpg. The classification system gamers use goes a lot deeper than one catchall name for everything in one genre.

yes I understand that. But what does JRPG mean to someone new to gaming? Which is becoming increasingly more common now that games have hit the mainstream.
I've been saying recently that it may be easier to base a genre off of the core gameplay mechanic, and subgenres based on how other things work in the game. Many JRPGs are based in turn based strategy right? so would it not be fair to call Final Fantasy 7 a TBS game with RPG elements? Or to call Skyrim a fighter/shooter with RPG elements?

The stealth genre can totally break this way of naming things though, is the stealth aspect more important than how gameplay is done? Would it be better to call Mark of the ninja a stealth game first or an action platformer first? similarly, would it be better to primarily call assassin's creed a stealth game or a brawler?

 

[hermes]

I have no problem with the current genre convention. A genre is defined by including several shared characteristics and similarities between the elements to make it recommendable and distinguishable for people. You liked Dragonlance? Then it is possible that you might enjoy Lord of the Rings. You liked Metallica? Then it is possible that you might enjoy Rob Zombie... That is all there is to it.

Since games main element is interactivity, its natural that the genres are defined around the mechanisms you use to interact and the environment you interact with. Labels like modern FPS, or post-apocalyptic RPG are explicit at conveying the nature of what you will be doing for x hours in it, and because of it, they are good enough for most people.

The problem many people have is when they want to be more specific than that, in order to further separate a game from the rest. It doesn't help that modern games are constantly pushing the boundaries of genres, or including elements of different genres into them; but that is common in any medium and contrary to the idea of genres. For many people, the label thriller is enough, but how do you differentiate L.A. Confidential with Godfather? American Crime is an option, but then what separates Goodfellas with Ocean's 11? American Crime drama is fine, but then American Hustle and The Untouchables fall into the same category. Genres and categories are not disjunctive, they are not isolated and they are not all-encompassing, because games have reached a level of sophistication where trying to accurately describe it with a few words is a disservice... at most, we aspire to a simplification in order to express a point.

 

[MysticSlayer]

OP, the problem is with you, if you insist on only referring to the elder scrolls and final fantasy as only rpgs, instead of western and J rpg. The classification system gamers use goes a lot deeper than one catchall name for everything in one genre.

yes I understand that. But what does JRPG mean to someone new to gaming? Which is becoming increasingly more common now that games have hit the mainstream.

It probably means nothing, but that doesn't make it a good descriptor. Drawing a parallel with, say, metal music, terms such as power, death, black, thrash, doom, progressive, etc. mean absolutely nothing to a newcomer, but it means a lot to those who listen to metal regularly and it also serves as a way of telling newcomers, "You do know there are different styles than the one you didn't like, right?" In the same way, saying JRPG, WRPG, ARPG, etc. means nothing to a newcomer, but it does let them know that RPGs are far more varied than at first glance, and it serves as a good way of exploring the broader RPG genre as they continue gaming. That's really what sub-genres are for.

Personally, I think our naming conventions are at least decent. They aren't perfect, but they have helped us break down games so that we can understand some basics of them depending on the genre and sub-genre they are part of. Sure, some games are relatively harder to classify, and there are occasionally debates about what exactly defines a genre (the RPG genre gets debated over to an insane degree at times), but we seem to have at least a decent grasp of genre conventions with gaming.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

And to explain why I'd prefer things that way, I don't think it's necessary to mention particular gameplay elements. We're talking videogames here. It's implied that you're going to shoot/punch/kick/stab/kill things in some manner.

I could name many, many, many games that don't have you doing any one of those things during gameplay. Not all games are violent. There's a massive variety of potential gameplay styles out there and, since it's the main defining element of game, I think it's important to mention that.

"Historical Sci-Fi" is fine for a book or movie, but it tells me nothing about what kind of game I'm buying. Will it involve unravelling mysteries, logic puzzles, card games, shootouts, sneaking, combo-driven melee combat, strategy?

I get that there are more narrative focused games now, but games still don't need to focus on that to be considered games. Defining the likes of Civilisation or Dungeons of Dredmor based on their narrative content wouldn't help anybody.

 

[Something Amyss]

The easiest solution is to stop treating single-word or short blurb descriptions as gospel. They organise things into a loose collection of concepts, and they do that most of the time.

 

[Mersadeon]

I think, like with all works of art, that you have to use several "genre" names to describe any work - and even then you will not get all that close to the truth. But that's ok, because genres in videogames aren't as important and ingrained as they are in movies, where genre-conventions are so rigid, it is a suprise if you can find a movie that has to be described with three genre-"words" to give a picture of.
Steam's Tag system is ok, I guess, but really this is something that can't be fixed - genres are organically named either for similar genres in other media or for the work that in pubic perception founded or exemplified the genre. As such, they will always be loose and inaccurate. That is the nature of genres.