[game_preservation] Descriptive terms for Video Games

[Henry Lowood]

Rowan, I agree that those three (plus one) are bedrock.  The one I would 
add is developer, in addition to publisher.  Henry

On 6/16/2011 2:55 PM, Rowan Kaiser wrote:

> Agreed, which goes back to my initial suggestion: sort by 

> platform/year of release/publisher. If you want to add genre as a 

> searchable term, go for it, but those three things are both objective 

> and useful.

>

> Rowan

>

> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Henry Lowood <lowood at stanford.edu 

> <mailto:lowood at stanford.edu>> wrote:

>

>     All,

>

>     While the discussion has been great, not all of it is germane to

>     the original question of how to catalog items in a collection.  

>     There is a difference between a level of description that allows

>     collection users to find (and discover) items and a perhaps more

>     detailed level that addresses conceptual points such as genre,

>     game mechanics, etc. One way to think of this is the difference

>     between a library catalog and a scholarly bibliography (and there

>     are different kinds of bibliographies, with whole books devoted to

>     the techniques of description pertaining to them).  I guess my

>     point is that genre is a fluid, debatable concept and fertile

>     field for discussion and difference of opinion, but I'm not sure

>     if a library or museum cataloger necessarily wants to spend a lot

>     of time figuring out exactly which genre applies to a given item. 

>     In the Stanford Libraries' catalog, with millions of items, I

>     wouldn't be surprised if only a few thousand items have genre

>     descriptors--which is not to say that genre is unimportant for

>     fiction, just that it is usually not a necessary piece of

>     information to describe a particular book for the purposes of a

>     catalog.

>

>     Henry

>

>

>     On 6/15/2011 7:20 PM, Rowan Kaiser wrote:

>>     What we need is a Pandora for video games.

>>

>>

>>     Rowan

>>

>>     On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:17 PM, Jim Leonard

>>     <trixter at oldskool.org <mailto:trixter at oldskool.org>> wrote:

>>

>>         On 6/15/2011 7:55 AM, Jan Baart wrote:

>>

>>             - Action-Adventure might stick out as a hybrid between

>>             often used terms

>>             Action and Adventure. You might notice we have no Action

>>             main genre as

>>             we think it is entirely useless label. Almost every game

>>             contains action

>>             elements and there's absolutely no way to properly define

>>             what

>>             constitutes an "Action game". E.g. the "Action"

>>             definition at MobyGames

>>             fits sports games perfectly as well. As a rough

>>             definition for

>>             Action-Adventure you might consider something like this:

>>             "Action-Adventures are all games mixing adventure game

>>             elements like

>>             exploration, story and puzzles with the physical

>>             challenges of an action

>>             game without either type dominating". That definition has

>>             its problems

>>             for sure, but it still gives you a good idea of what it

>>             encompasses.

>>             - Arcade might be controversial too but I don't think

>>             going into detail

>>             here helps, let us just say it encompasses, among others,

>>             ball & paddle

>>             games and maze games.

>>

>>

>>         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.  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.  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?

>>

>>             *Jim Leonard

>>

>>             *> In other words, I blame the MobyGames framework for

>>             not being

>>             fully-featured enough, but I still think the concept is

>>             sound and true. *

>>             *

>>             Jim, please note that I did not mean to critisize the

>>             system itself, but

>>             rather the implementation. I love having a well thought

>>             of multi-layered

>>             approach to classifying a game in place and your work in

>>             that regard was

>>             certainly pioneering (as was MobyGames as a whole).

>>

>>

>>         No offense taken -- I was blaming the implementation as well,

>>         I was confirming your thoughts.  I'm allowed to point out my

>>         own failures :-)

>>

>>

>>         > I just think there

>>         > is a need for a traditional genre taxonomy on top of that.

>>

>>         I disagree, so that's where I'll leave that.  I can voice

>>         dissension, but I can't change your mind.

>>

>>

>>             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?

>>

>>

>>             - 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).

>>

>>         By forcing a single arbitrary "social" classification onto a

>>         game, you will always have exceptions that don't fit a single

>>         classification.

>>

>>

>>             - 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.

>>

>>

>>             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.

>>

>>         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.

>>

>>

>>             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.

>>

>>         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

>>         <http://www.pcgame.com> which was eventually merged into

>>         gamedex.com <http://gamedex.com>.  Through the magic of

>>         archive.org <http://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.

>>

>>         -- 

>>         Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org

>>         <mailto: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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>>

>>

>>

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>

>     -- 

>     Henry Lowood

>     Curator for History of Science&  Technology Collections;

>        Film&  Media Collections

>     HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall

>     Stanford University Libraries, Stanford CA 94305-6004

>     650-723-4602  <tel:650-723-4602>;lowood at stanford.edu  <mailto:lowood at stanford.edu>;http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood  <http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>

>

>


-- 
Henry Lowood
Curator for History of Science&  Technology Collections;
   Film&  Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood

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