The way that we classify games has risen mostly out of convenience for what mechanics one can see in the game, FPS, RPG, etc. This has led to sort of an in-club amongst the, dare I say it, gamer community. Those non-video game players have to learn what is meant by most of these terms and what they imply. The current genre terms don't even really make sense to the community. The terms don't really encompass the core mechanics of what games have become.
To clarify this think about RPG's and Zelda games. Now traditionally role playing games mean a game in which one plays a role that is not themselves. The terminology comes from the tabletop games of old in which players did just that (I'm an elf wizard) and did combat with an abstract system of numbers (I cast magic missile for 2d4). Where the strange part comes in is that in the transfer from Tabletop RPG's to video game RPG's the abstract numbers kept their meaning while the role playing elements were essentially eliminated. Most games nowadays have the players take new roles, but most games are not RPG's. This is where Zelda games come in. By traditional thinking, Zelda games would be RPG's, since the player takes the role of Link, but in the current genres they are clearly not. This is due to a lack of a numerical system of progress (outside of the simple hearts and damage systems which aren't really the focus).
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| Hearts are more of a measure of how many times you can screw up something |
So what are RPG's nowadays then? Many games use complex numerical combat systems (Borderlands, Mass Effect) but really don't fit into the modern idea of an RPG. The term has become obsolete due to the blending of elements that are present in most modern games. The quintessential RPG is a game that takes place in a fantasy universe with numerical interactivity in combat and progress that uses a level up system to allow greater control of said numerical combat. Let me remind you that this is supposed to be one of gaming broadest genres.
So all this blending and mixing of previous genres has left game classification in a sorry state. Rarely can games be classified with less then three terms nowadays. For example, Mass Effect is a Sci-fi third-person shooter action RPG. Even that doesn't really tell us anything about the game other then it there are guns and numbers in it. The solution is to classify games not on their mechanics, which have blended, but what makes us want to play the game (this is where Extra Crediz comes in). Mass Effect shouldn't be a Sci-fi third-person shooter action RPG; it should be a Sci-fi adventure game. In Mass Effect you are in a science fiction universe, going on an adventure, game classified.
Essentially what this classification system is going for is what the PLAYER wants to do in a game, not the developer. This leads to a lot less confusion in what a game is trying to do. For example, it limits the idea of what a shooter is. The old classification meant any game with a gun in it, which leads to problems with games like Portal. With the new classification a shooter game would be anything in which the act of shooting things is the reason for playing the game. This means Gears of War and Call of Duty would fit in this genre, but not Portal.
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| Street Fighter becomes a competitive fighter, while Devil May Cry remains a fighter |
The best part about this new system is that not all games need to be reclassified, we just need to rethink why they are classified. Real-time strategy games remain essentially unchanged (for now) due to the fact that people play these for their strategic elements. Puzzle games would be broadened to include not just Tetris-style block fitting but games in which the main focus is solving puzzles. This makes Zelda an adventure puzzle game.
The system is far from perfect, as it would lead to a massive broadening of the adventure genre, but it is way better then the mess that we have now. It allows games that were previously difficult to classify due to *gasp* not having a central gameplay mechanic easy to define. Games with overlapping genres (such as the broad term fighter) can be simply modified to clarify where in gaming they belong. I don't expect every one's views to change overnight, but I think as a whole we are already moving in this direction for genre classification as games become less definable by their mechanics. If I hear the term "RPG elements" one more time I'm going to hurt somebody.
