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Game Genres — Descriptive Or Restrictive?
An opinion piece at Rock, Paper, Shotgun questions whether the way we classify video games limits creativity and innovation in game development. "If the next Modern Warfare introduced dramatically different themes, there would be uproar. Sure, set it on the moon, but make sure I’m a grunt following the NPCs who get to play the game, or I’ll swear at you on the internet." The author suggests that the rise of casual games may in part be attributable to their creators' willingness to break with established themes and blend together different types of play. "There's huge risk to blurring. It makes the game more difficult to market, it defies customers’ expectations, and it requires educating the public. It’s safe to make yet another COD clone, because we all know them and what they do. And they're what we want! But like the child who's never tried a new food, refusing to eat it because it's different leads to a very limited and dull palate."
Creator Strategy #1: Give people more of what they have demonstrated they want. Reality TV Show Model 7B, Over-Loud Snarky-Catch-Phraseful Hero Summer Popcorn Movie 6A, or the latest Honor Harrington book. It amuses me, you make it, I buy it, you get paid and feed your family. Repeat. It's called "The Entertainment Business," and Joss Whedon is secretly laughing at all of you who are writing deep existential doctoral theses about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Creator Strategy #2: Come up with something Entirely Brand New That Has Never Been Tried, convince a studio or publisher to invest millions into it, and hope to God someone besides you wants it. It's called "Art," it requires those dicey things "Risk" and "Vision," and lots of perfectly lovely and talented people who practice it are eating their one daily meal of ramen noodles as I write this. If they're lucky, their art catches on, it gets assimilated into The Entertainment Business, and the creator can kick back in preparation for becoming rich and laughing at the nerds earnestly considering writing deep existential doctoral theses about their game/movie/book/new Pez flavor.
I try new genres every year and can never actually enjoy them all but it is important to try new things. It brought me to Shadows of the Colossus (the most amazing game). You should play it.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~ Plato
When I was beta testing DC Universe Online, every new batch of testers to be allowed in had a hand full of people who would invariably complain: "If you don't add X, Y, and Z, you'll never be able to beat WoW!" or "Clicking in your own combo moves is ANNOYING! Where's the auto-attack?"
While DCUO labeled itself as an Action MMO (heavier on the action), that MMO(rpg) label still carried with it some pretty hefty preconceived notions regarding game mechanics and even story progression. It was the basis of a massive amount of discussion which, in my opinion, would have been better used as testing the beta instead of arm-chair developing.
Any classification system, whether its writing, movies or games is inherently limiting. There have been constant attempts, even by big companies to blend genres. The 'action -rpg' which has more or less replaced the pure RPG of years ago. All of the first person shooter technology folding into action/rpg games. Then there's the whole notions of strategy, grand strategy and so on. Even older games like X-com blended economics, tactical games and a strategic overview (sort of a crappy RTS) with city building. Star wars galaxies glues space shooter onto whatever you want to call the ground combat side of things. Those are more combined genres, it is both A and B just in different places. But something like dawn of war is half RPG half RTS at the same time (Warcraft III did this as well, and to a lesser extent WC2).
None of these classifications in gaming are particularly firm. One could also envision different (presumably better) classification systems. But changing how you define games comes with a huge consumer cost. I think you see more genre innovation in the casual space because 95% of them can fail. If you do that with call of duty, you take a big risk. Consumers have come to expect a particular type of experience, that's why they bought your product, don't mislead them into something else. And creating new IP is both hard and risky.