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On Genre and the Tree of Gaming

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On Genre and the Tree of Gaming

Unread postby icycalm » 02 Apr 2009 14:22

This guy is very stupid, but on occasion even very stupid people will stumble on the truth by a sort of instinct, even though they will afterwards be incapable of explaining anything about it:

PROMETHEUS wrote:Personally I never cared at all for 1CC lists or stuff like that, 1CC-ing a thousand games of the same difficulty in the same genre isn't any more difficult than clearing only one of them. It only means you did a memorizing effort on a lot of different games.


http://www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=535.0

All will be eventually explained in an upcoming article.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Apr 2009 15:12

This was originally posted in, and deleted by me from, a rather unrelated thread:

cool_breeze wrote:Icy_calm wrote:

Now games are divided into genres, each genre being defined according to a core set of rules which remains unchanged among all games within it. In first-person shooters, for example, one of those core rules is the first-person perspective.

From Wikipedia:

Genres in video games are somewhat different than other forms of art because they are very seldom based on theme, style, tone, or audience as in film or literature. Instead most video game genres are based on the way in which the player interacts with the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre#Video_games_genres

I have a problem with the use of the word genre in the context of videogames. Presently, it is as meaningless as the term gameplay, which Alex skewered in another post. At first I thought Alex was saying something subtle by defining a videogame genre by way of a set of rules. I assumed Alex meant rules as in game rules eg. amount of damage inflicted by a gunshot at close range, but his example of "first-person perspective" + shooting equals FPS is not a game rule but a description of a representative passage of play.

One particular example of a difficult game to classify by genre is "Advent Rising" on Xbox. A typical passage of play looks like a 3rd-person action game with shooting and melee and mental powers. Like many such games, it has a first-person perspective option useful for ranged combat. You could in theory play the whole game as a first-person shooter, although you would not as it is hard to use in close range. More interestingly, it also has a flick-targetting combat system where the player can nudge the left joystick in the direction of an onscreen enemy, and his focus reticule will switch to that enemy. By default, the focus shifts to an enemy that comes within a given range of the player character. The sensitivity of the default focus behaviour can be adjusted in an options submenu by slider bar. The default is around 75% sensitivity. If you set the sensitivity to 100%, the game feels like a rail shooter, the focus jumps quickly from dying enemy to fresh nearby enemy in a mob attack and all the player has to do is pull the trigger on his weapon/melee/psionic attack. When you set the sensitivity to zero percent, it plays like a skill-based manual aim shooter. The inbetween settings give the game a different feel, either moving towards a manual aim shooter or an auto-aim shooter where you need to manage your ammo and health. It occurred to me the slider bar was also controlling the genre of the game, if you accept the definition of a genre as the way a player interacts with a game. In other words, the slider bar controls the player's degree of involvement or interaction in the aiming his attacks. This setting can be changed during play, and there are some justifications for switching the sensitivity depending upon the ingame situation.

If options such as switching perspectives or adjusting auto-aim are made a part of play, it weakens the usefulness of the current definition of genre, the best you can say is that such a game is mostly but not solely a 3rd person action game.


And my reply:

cool_breeze wrote:Icy_calm wrote:


If you can't figure out what my forum username is, DO NOT POST IN THIS FORUM EVER AGAIN.

As for the rest...

cool_breeze wrote:It occurred to me the slider bar was also controlling the genre of the game


Jesus Fucking Christ. A slider bar controlling the genre of the game. WHAT ARE WE GOING TO HEAR NEXT?

The slider bar is just another game rule. Does one extra rule affect the game's genre? Of course it does -- every rule affects a game's genre, though some do so more than others.

Just wait until my "Genre" article. All will be explained in there.

Also,

cool_breeze wrote:Presently, it is as meaningless as the term gameplay, which Alex skewered in another post.


In another *article*, not post.
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Unread postby Bradford » 03 Apr 2009 15:30

cool_breeze wrote:If options such as switching perspectives or adjusting auto-aim are made a part of play, it weakens the usefulness of the current definition of genre, the best you can say is that such a game is mostly but not solely a 3rd person action game.


You don't appear to know what the purpose (and therefore what makes them useful) of defining and identifying genres is in the first place. If you did, you would realize that your previous post consists of worrying about a problem that doesn't exist.

This might be more clear if there were a centralized place on this forum where icy had clearly explained from start to finish the nature and purpose of genres. Unfortunely, his explanations, when he has given them, are scattered throughout a number of different discussions. If no one beats me to it, I'll try to compile them in the new 'genre' thread later today.

The bottom line is, though, genres are imperfect inventions solely for the purpose of criticism. There is no perfect definition, nor is one needed for them to be useful. Advent Rising (from your description; I haven't played it) is an action game. It also has FPS, Third-person, and rail-shooter elements. Why is that not good enough? What could you accomplish if the game's genre was more specifically defined? If the answer is "nothing," then you're clearly wasting your time trying to do so.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Apr 2009 16:02

Basically, you could call it the "Advent Rising" genre, if you wanted to be more precise, and Advent Rising itself would simply be the first game to be included in that new genre. However, if this new genre were never followed up by other games (i.e. if no one copied its design), then this new genre label would end up being useless, and thus no one would adopt it and it would eventually become forgotten.

Just imagine, for example, if Fire Emblem had never received any sequels, and if no one had copied it. Then we wouldn't have the SRPG genre today. We would only have Fire Emblem. In this case, you could still have called this type of game the "Fire Emblem genre" or the "SRPG genre", but since it would consist of only a single game, there would be little needed for this label, and thus no one would end up using it.

Note that I haven't played Advent Rising either, so I am not sure if it's a good example or not. Regardless, all the above holds for it even if it's not a good example. You could easily apply the above mentality to every game ever made.
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Unread postby cool_breeze » 03 Apr 2009 16:04

Bradforf wrote:What could you accomplish if the game's genre was more specifically defined?


I am not interested in classifying one particular game, I am interested in a better understanding of the term genre in digital games. Hollywood studios have become rich by understanding exactly what is a film genre; and, marketing and fulfilling the expectations of that genre eg. romantic comedy. My favorite musicians either create a new genre or produce something that manipulates one or more genres ie. they manipulate your intellect and feeling by manipulating your expectations. Both Hollywood and postmodern artists have pursued a deeper understanding of genre. As an art consumer, my enjoyment in fields other than digital games is enhanced by an understanding of genres as an agent of manipulation. I am interested in exploring the idea of videogame genre to increase my enjoyment of games.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Apr 2009 16:24

cool_breeze wrote:I am not interested in classifying one particular game, I am interested in a better understanding of the term genre in digital games.


To understand the concept of genre (not the TERM 'genre', the CONCEPT), you have to understand how it arises. And it arises from individual games. Like I said, stop posting random things and wait for the fuckin' article.

cool_breeze wrote:Hollywood studios have become rich by understanding exactly what is a film genre; and, marketing and fulfilling the expectations of that genre eg. romantic comedy.


And so do game publishers. In fact the only people who don't understand genre are gamers and game journalists; the designers understand genre just fine (at least on a subconscious level).

cool_breeze wrote:My favorite musicians either create a new genre or produce something that manipulates one or more genres ie. they manipulate your intellect and feeling by manipulating your expectations.


Phrases like "manipulate your intellect" come from either a) Kids, b) people whose native language is not English, or c) artfags. Only the second kind of people are allowed to post in this forum -- if you are a kid or an artfag you should not be posting here. Try Select Button or gamefaqs instead.

cool_breeze wrote:postmodern artists


ARTFAG ALERT! ARTFAG ALERT!

Kid, the term "postmodern artist" is an oxymoron. The term postmoderism, as it is widely used, signals the death of art. Read these two essays if you want to know more:

http://insomnia.ac/essays/the_conspiracy_of_art/
http://insomnia.ac/essays/the_piracy_of_art/

cool_breeze wrote:As an art consumer


This is a hideous phrase. Not wrong, just ugly.

cool_breeze wrote:my enjoyment in fields other than digital games is enhanced by an understanding of genres as an agent of manipulation.


That's it. One more retarded post like this and you are banned. You have been warned.

cool_breeze wrote:I am interested in exploring the idea of videogame genre to increase my enjoyment of games.


Then just stop spewing your moronic, uneducated rubbish views and wait for the fucking article.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Aug 2010 16:41

http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/0 ... s-so-much/

phail

complete and utter phailure

"Why do we love genres?", lol.

Might as well ask "Why do we love words?", lol.

Fucking moron.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jan 2014 20:08

Finally someone catches on to what's going on:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=758003

Kuro wrote:A first person future when VR hits?

If VR catches on, will most games be in the first person? Will it be like when 3D got popular and now 90% of non-indie console/PC games are in 3D?


But the first reply is epic fail again:

Durante wrote:Everything that is VR is "first person" to some extent. You are looking at some virtual reality through your eyes, and moving the camera from its position and around its axes directly.


Yet another person who can't tell the difference between player and avatar. From the player's perspective OF COURSE everything is first-person retard! Not only in VR games but in everything! That's what it means to have eyes! But the OP is talking about videogame GENRES for fuck's sake, and we determine those from the AVATAR's perspective, not according to whether or not the player has eyes!
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Aug 2021 02:45

I am working on a Civ-style tech tree of this right now in this program: https://app.diagrams.net/

If anyone knows of a better one let me know. I should have something to show you soon.
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Aug 2021 04:22

Working on the Tree of Gaming diagram
https://www.patreon.com/posts/54409439

Image

icycalm wrote:After the great viral success of the normal distribution of game genres graph, I've been inspired to work on a diagram of videogame evolution, a kind of Civ "tech tree" of videogame technologies—which is exactly what I mean by "tree of gaming"; all these expressions mean the same thing.
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Unread postby icycalm » 03 Aug 2021 04:01

https://www.patreon.com/posts/54456052

icycalm wrote:Image

The Tree of Videogames (and Art)

Worked a full day for this on the back of several sleepless days starbasing. Now imma take a few days off because your friendly neighborhood superman has his limits too, plus I have a fledgling space empire to run and need my rest.

We're not done with this, not by a long shot. I have a ton of things to explain, but it will take time.


P.S. If this Patreon disappears overnight, it means I have been banned. All the content is safely backed-up, and you'll be able to find me on my sites, forums and Discord, as always. You can also reach me at icycalm@culture.vg. If I get banned from here, I am moving my subscription service to crypto, and will be emailing you details in due course.

Enjoy.


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Unread postby icycalm » 09 Aug 2021 14:31

Improved the diagram a little by fixing a couple of games that are third-person (and which I had erroneously labelled as first-person), and adding some detail into the MMO genealogy (Maze War as the creator of network play and ultimately MUD, and then MUD feeding into Ultima Online).

There are plenty of areas in which I could improve things further, but I'd need more space for it, which would mean a reworking of the entire diagram, meaning another full day or two of work. I might do this in a year or two, but for now what we have does its job perfectly fine.
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