Game Genres

What’s a Game Genre?

Game genres are used to classify video games based on their gameplay interface rather than visual or story differences. Game genres are defined by a set of gameplay challenges and are classified independent of their setting or game-world content.

Video games have become more popular and much more complex over the past years.  There are heaps of game genres out there now and just like with movies, not all are suited for every player. The genre of a game is basically the group the game belongs to, Call of duty is a FPS; Skyrim is a RPG and so on. But genres of games can become confusing especially when they are more than one genre in one. Games like Portal fit the genre of FPS because it’s played in first person but it’s seen by a puzzle game by everyone who’s played it or seen it.

Arcade games started off great, but as better consoles and eventually computers came along, arcade games have been slowly dying off. It’s interesting to see that puzzle games have been bumped up to some of the most played games but that’s all thanks to the apps on smartphones. Action games remain on a steady streak along with strategy, RPGs and Action adventure.

Game genres are very important to the game and the gaming community because that’s what helps the players decide what game to play. 

Emergent Narrative

Does the story of the game really matter anymore? Did it ever matter?
Back when pacman was released and the first Super Mario game came out did anyone play those for the story? Lets be honest here, pacman had no story and Marios was to simply save the princess. They aren't the most appealing stories. Till this very day there are countless amounts of games that are released and don't follow and rely on a story but instead rely on the game-play and if its addictive or not. Games such as Call of Duty or Battlefield are perfect examples. Who buys those game for the campaign? Its all about the multiplayer, just playing with friends is why people buy the game in the first place and that's why they've both been such a popular franchise.

Games these days are starting to leave out the campaign or story of it and are just sticking with the multiplayer function. A highly anticipated game coming soon, Star Wars battle Front will be released without a campaign and just the multiplayer game mode, Why? Because it doesn't matter anymore.

Verisimilitude vs Stylized Aesthetics

Graphics don't really make up any game. A game can be great without the crazy realistic looking graphics. the highest grossing games of all time  were all games without exceeding high graphics, in fact they're quite the contrary. Games such as Minecraft, Super Mario Bros. and Pacman all included in that list and all out sold games such as Watchdogs, Crysis and titan fall.  Most high visual AAA games spend millions of dollars and countless years working on high resolution graphics but often cause the game to fail in terms of gameplay due to overlooking game breaking bugs and other technical issues which ruin the experience for the gamer. Destiny, an MMORPG was created and leaned towards having high quality visuals but failed to maintain a high player count due to lack of content and story whereas World Of Warcraft has to this day extremely outdated graphics but still manages to maintain one of the highest subscriber based player count even after 10+ years.

Amazing realistic games may lead to high expectations in 

terms of the all-round experience but tend to let down, they are not what makes a game enjoyable but if executed properly (Witcher 3) can lead to an amazing gaming adventure !