[game_preservation] Descriptive terms for Video Games

[Andrew Armstrong]

I'd echo that MobyGames got it right even if you don't choose the same 
wording (be it "Category" "Genre" or whatever); the in-game descriptions 
of gameplay along with the more traditional story genres are both good 
to use. If a catalogue system can accept them why not?

After all, while many researchers might have a field of gameplay type 
("Strategy", "RPG", "Action"...) to look at, they also might cross 
reference a specific story/setting genre ("World War 2", "Present Day", 
"Fantasy"); combining both is powerful.

The problem is having both means lots of categories so it takes a while 
to make sure every game fits. Wikipedia, Home of the Underdogs, and 
other sites have issues - Mobygames and GiantBomb a bit less so 
(although possibly miss some slightly newer definitions and categories; 
I need to start compiling a megalist of them or something).

Andrew

On 10/06/2011 02:53, Jim Leonard wrote:

> On 6/9/2011 5:46 PM, Alex Handy wrote:

>> Something like the strategy genre could then be refined into

>> sub-categories: turn-based, real-time, fast-paced, plodding, tactical,

>> multi-tasking, etc...

>>

>> Perhaps another idea would be to refine the tags used in existing online

>> game listings. Giant Bomb and Moby Games sort of have tag clouds....

>> kinda.... http://www.giantbomb.com/

>

> Actually, MobyGames was going for categorization; it was my hope that 

> games could be described by their taxonomy (adventure, turn-based, 

> bird's-eye view, etc. could be used not only to show Ultima but other 

> Ultima-like games).  It was never meant to be a tag cloud.