[game_preservation] Descriptive terms for Video Games

[Jan Baart]

 > I'm going to abstain from the majority of this conversation because I 
think you're falling into a comfort trap that will not serve you well in 
the long run.

A comfort trap? I think you're getting the wrong impression here but 
I'll just leave it at that.

 >I would like to point out, though, that your statement "Almost every 
game contains action elements" is illustrative of why your system is 
disingenuous -- simply because most >games *you have been exposed to* 
have action elements doesn't mean you should assume the only ones worth 
categorizing do

Don't you think it is a bit far fetched and quite condescending to judge 
my knowledge about games by one exaggerated remark I used to point out a 
flaw in the use of Action as a genre? I'm well aware that there are 
plenty of games without any kind of physical/skill-based challenge 
either for the player or his avatar. But exchange the exaggerated 
"almost every" with "most" and it you get a perfectly valid statement 
that still shows the nonsensical nature of an "Action" label as a main 
genre in the sense that I understand genres. It is a perfectly valid 
identifier for elements of gameplay though which is what you seem to be 
doing with your genres. Please try to understand that we are just using 
different ideas of genre so you can't directly compare their use in such 
a simple way.

 >  To illustrate this, how would your system classify Tetris?  As 
Puzzle and nothing else?  If so, how would I use your system to look up 
puzzle games that specifically do not have > realtime/action elements, 
such as traditional checkers?  If not, how would I use your system to 
look up Tetris?

This just shows you either didn't fully read my mail, you didn't 
understand what I was saying or you can't differentiate between the 
terms as you use them and the terms as others might use them. Yes, it 
falls into one main genre, and that is Puzzle. That does not mean that 
is all the information you get about it though. The action-based falling 
block style puzzle games form their own subgenre. So, to answer your 
latter question, you would look up Tetris and similar games by selecting 
that subgenre in the search. Or you select Tetris and just click on its 
subgenre. How do you look up puzzle games without realtime elements? 
Well, when it comes to, lets say, Shanghai games you can just select the 
appropriate subgenre. Or, at least if we offer the interface for that, 
you could also easily search for a Puzzle game excluding Tetris' 
subgenre. But as your question was specifically mentioning Checkers, 
that is placed within the Traditional genre anyways as are all 
adaptations of real world games.

Also, I have to point out that you chose a very arbitrary example 
because it just happens to be a game that has the tags "puzzle-solving" 
and "real-time" on MobyGames when it is quite debatable that realtime 
puzzle and non-realtime puzzles are two clearly distinct genres. Let me 
ask you in return then, how does your system allow me to look up just 
those real-time puzzle-solving games which are similar to Tetris? Even 
if you had a filter that allows for two tags to combine, running it with 
those two would still result in a game like Pipe Mania showing up. How 
is that any better? The sheer fact that your users had to imitate a 
genre taxonomy by using groups shows that the system you have in place 
might be consistent and well-defined but too ambiguous. It clearly 
states "this has action and strategy elements... " but nowhere does it 
actually say "...and these elements form gameplay mechanic x".


>

>> And I maintain the stance that you can classify every single game

>> into one of them, with two exceptions:

>

> Whoa, stop right there.  Read what you just wrote.  Do you not see a 

> flaw in a classification system that allows exceptions?


No, because they are not exceptions outside of the classification. These 
"exceptions" get their own classifier. Would it be more useful to anyone 
if we would just drop every genre system because the following examples 
form exceptions?


>

>> - Games that feature distinct levels with completely different gameplay.

>> You had a lot of these on the old computer platforms. You know, three

>> levels, one a racing level, the next a platforming one and a puzzle in

>> between. You can never place those in a taxonomy other than giving these

>> mixes their own "genre". C'est la vie.

>

> Taxonomies are fine-grained, but not by overloading the top order of 

> the classification -- you'd have 500 classifications, which removes 

> your ability to put things in related groups.  For example, check out 

> the Wombat:  It's an animal, but that's not enough.  It's a mammal, 

> but that's not enough.  Go further, and it's a marsupial, but still 

> not enough.  The scientific classification has the order Diprotodontia 

> and suborder Vombatiformes, and now we finally have an idea of where 

> it belongs (with koalas).


So how would you classify a Minotaur in that? Cause that is exactly what 
you are trying here. You cannot compare a naturally evolved group of 
objects (animals) with a completely artificial one (games). These kind 
of games are essentially multiple games tacked together. And please do 
not pretend they do not form an exception in your system. If you have a 
game with two levels, the first a platformer and the second a jigsaw 
puzzle what you would do at MobyGames essentially boils down to tagging 
both independently (the platformer is action, the jigsaw strategy) and 
then combine those tags. So that game now says "action" and "strategy" 
while that combination is not representative of either part of the game. 
At least I am accepting there are exceptions like this.

>

> By forcing a single arbitrary "social" classification onto a game, you 

> will always have exceptions that don't fit a single classification.


Yes, but how is this inferior to a system that only allows 
classifications that tell you nothing at all about the actual game? 
Curiously your animal example perfectly fits this. Your genres are like 
classifying a Wombat as a mammal. Not wrong, but not very useful either 
if you really want to know what an extinct Wombat was like a million 
years from now.

>

>> - Games that do actually define their own granular genre but that no one

>> followed up on, resulting in a genre with so few entries that it is

>> probably not worth having its own granular genre. These do indeed end up

>> in catch-all kind of classifiers, but where's the problem with that 

>> really?

>

> I believe every game is worth describing correctly, regardless of how 

> few peers it has.


Well, if you really wanted to you could obviously give it its distinct 
genre even with only a few examples of it in existance. I have no 
problem with that, I merely mentioned this exception as it is a common 
complaint about genre taxonomies that they make up genres just to fit in 
specific games. The problem is, describing correctly(!) is not enough. 
If I say I am a human, I have described myself 100% correct. But does 
that tell you anything? The challenge lies in coming up with a system 
that described correctly and detailled enough.



>> I can only speak for myself but this is not the reason why I try to have

>> a "single label" system. My reason is usability of the database itself.

>> I want to provide users an easy way to find similar games. Be it because

>> they liked the initial game or because they are researching a certain

>> type of game. For this purpose, it IS the best way, in my humble opinion

>> of course. Again, I'm all for a multi-layer and tag based approach, but

>> I think it should be an alternative method, not the only one.

>

> Ah, then let me divulge what MobyGames "Game Groups" were SUPPOSED to 

> be:  They were supposed to be groups of attributes, not simple lists 

> of arbitrary games.  Meaning, an "Ultima-like games" game group was 

> SUPPOSED to be a group of 

> adventure+roleplaying+top-down+turn-based+medieval fantasy, so that 

> every game like Ultima would pop up automatically, generated by the 

> database, even as new games were added (or removed!) over the years. 

> For reasons I won't go into in a public forum, we did not implement it 

> that way, but that was the original idea.


I am not sure how we ended up discussing MG game groups?

>

> My point is to design the system properly and then deal with the 

> implementation and usage later.  Don't cripple the classification 

> system just to meet an arbitrary user interface goal.


Do not confuse me talking about "use" as a reference to user interface. 
When I say "I am doing this and that like this so you can use it" then I 
mean that in the sense that it is actually useful.


>

>> They might not make

>> sense objectively, but they're there and established, we have to live

>> with that.

>

> I disagree, which is what I was trying to prove with MobyGames.


But you did not reinvent any terms, you just avoided them by using an 
entirely different system of classification. What I am referring to is 
that we should not artificially come up with a better name for an 
established type of game (like First-Person Shooters) just because we do 
not like the term that is in use right now. In the end, it remains an 
abstract term for a specific type of game. It doesn't matter what it is 
called, if we would call FPS "G6RSN" from now on that would not change 
anything. It would still be the same group of games with the same unique 
combination of gameplay elements.


>

> For an example of the slippery slope this leads to:  There was a game 

> site that tried to compete with gamespot and mobygames in the early 

> 2000s called www.pcgame.com which was eventually merged into 

> gamedex.com.  Through the magic of archive.org, you can check what 

> their "cats" page looked like:

>

> http://web.archive.org/web/20030605150611/http://www.gamedex.com/cats/

>

> I sincerely hope this isn't what you're aiming for.


They say you should never lose hope but I am not sure that is true in 
this case ;) Honestly, I think those categories are horrible. They are 
contradictory and not well-named along with another dozen of reasons to 
critisize them. But, if you're referring to the number of categories 
itself, why not? We need exactly as many categories as there are types 
of games. Why would I artificially try to combine entirely different 
games into the same category. If there tens of thousands of species (not 
counting insects which have millions) needed to properly classify 
animals, why is everyone reluctant to have a few hundred categories of 
games?

To everyone: I am sorry about the direction this is taking but terms 
like "disingenuous" require a proper response.