[game_preservation] Descriptive terms for Video Games

[Rowan Kaiser]

Well, there are two aspects to discussing genre which have come up here, I
think. The first is genre as a classification tool, which theoretically
gives people the opportunity to determine the essential characteristics of a
game in a word or three or ten, which is, I think, the aim of the initial
question here.

On the other hand, there's genre as a social construction, which, regardless
of accuracy (how is *Tetris *a *puzzle* game? It's an abstract action game!)
is used and will be used. This, Jim, I think is where you had problems with
your RPG classification. You may consider it inaccurate, but the social
construction is popular shorthand. It is how gamers understand games, I
think.

Rowan

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 8:17 PM, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:


> On 6/14/2011 1:34 PM, Jan Baart wrote:

>

>> Try doing the same for StarFox and you'll end up with

>> Comanche, Battlefield 1942, Falcon 4.0, LEGO Star Wars, Spyro the Dragon

>> and Tribes 2, partly due to their tagging and partly due to the fact

>> that apparently you can't filter for two "non-sport" tags at the same

>> time. Though none of the tags that StarFox has make it apparent in any

>> way that this is actually an "on rails" type of game anyways, so there's

>> no way filtering using the tags it has would ever "get rid" of games

>> that are not on rails, thus never resulting in a selection of actually

>> similar games.

>>

>

> This isn't a failure of tagging systems or classifications; this is a

> failure of MobyGames.  Specifically:

>

> - No way to check unlimited number of tags (you stop at Action - 3rd-person

> - Flight)

> - No gameplay element tag for "on rails"

>

> I blame myself for not being responsible enough with the taxonomy before I

> left MobyGames.  Despite this, the MobyGames community somewhat

> self-corrected for this by creating a "Rail Shooters" game group:

> http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/rail-shooters

>

> In other words, I blame the MobyGames framework for not being

> fully-featured enough, but I still think the concept is sound and true.

>

>

>  Again, this does not mean that we shouldn't pursue approaches like

>> multi-category tags (setting, perspective, concepts, ...). I'm all for

>> it. But in my opinion there are good reasons not to abandon a

>> traditional genre taxonomy. Which is why at our database website we use

>> both. We have tags (not visible yet but they're there) but we also have

>> an editorially tagged genre. One per game. This might seem outdated, but

>> in the end it serves our users.

>>

>

> The problem with this is that there are some games that are equally two or

> more genres.  Your single genre is therefore subjective.  I maintain that

> the goal of any taxonomy is to be objective, so that there is no debate or

> confusion what makes up a game.

>

> Brian and I tried to do this with MobyGames, with partial success.  What we

> found was that users who are used to classifying something a certain way,

> incorrectly or not, are very stubborn and defensive when it's pointed out

> they are "doing it wrong", especially if they're volunteering their time and

> think of themselves as subject matter experts.  For example, I had a very

> drawn-out fight with members of the MobyGames community over their belief

> that "Survival Horror" should be a main genre classification, and that

> "action/adventure/third-person/shooter/horror" was somehow not concise or

> encompassing enough.

>

> One of the battles that I lost was over "role-playing game" as a main genre

> classification.  By definition, all role-playing games are adventures.  But

> the community that was fighting with me was stuck in the mindset that

> "adventure" meant something like The Longest Journey or Secret of Monkey

> Island and felt that RPGs were distinct enough to warrant their own main

> genre.  I caved after a lengthy debate to avoid alienating our userbase.

>

>

>  Sorry for the long and controversial read. I'm sure a lot of you

>> probably won't agree with a lot of what I said but there you go ;)

>>

>

> I certainly don't :-)  I think that some people are uncomfortable with a

> game not being able to fall into a single genre, so they create many

> "meta-genres" to give a game a single label, even if it's not the best way

> to classify something.

>

> The most concerning trend along these lines, in my opinion, is when I ask

> what type of game something is that someone is trying to tell me and they

> call it an "Indie" game.  "Indie" tells me nothing, and is not a genre, yet

> this is already quite prevalent in commercial media.

>

> --

> Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/

> Check out some trippy MindCandy at        http://www.mindcandydvd.com/

> A child borne of the home computer wars:  http://trixter.oldskool.org/

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