help needed: listing game genres

[Mark Cicero]

Hi everyone,

First off, I'm placing this here in the console talk forum partially because it's the one I infrequently frequent and partially because we just had a huge fight about whether Metroid was a FPA or a FPS and thus it seems appropriate (to me anyways).

I'm currently enrolled in a master's degree in library and information science. One of my courses this term is introduction to cataloging and we are supposed to write an essay for it (why? don't ask). My essay is basically going to be a 10 page description of why the people who created the library of congress subject headings have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to video games. When you use a library catalogue you should be able to search by subject, say English literature -- Shakespeare, or Women in sports, or similar type stuff. The subject headings for video games, believe it or not, are actually titles of various games. Now this might not seem odd to you but it is, A Tale of Two Cities is not a subject heading but Banjo-Kazooie is. It makes no sense. So I'm proposing that we should catalogue games by genres. This is where you come in.

The following is a list of genres that I'm going to include in my essay. My question is simple: what have I missed, or what shouldn't be there? I've gone over it a few times but I can't tell right now if it's ok because it's 3 in the morning. I almost missed including sports for crying out loud.

adventure
-- first person
-- third person
cinemagraphic (e.g. Shenmue. Is there enough of this type right now though to warrent it?)
children's
classic
fighter
-- arcade
-- simulation (I'm not sold on this one but I'll include it for now)
platform
racing
-- urban
-- rural
-- rally
-- simulator
-- cartoon
role playing game
-- real time battle
-- turn based battle
shooter
-- first person
-- third person
-- light gun
simulation
sports and sports entertainment (should I have fighters here instead?)
strategy

I'd really appreciate your help with this. I have a feeling this is going to be a 20 year project for myself, but I think it will be worth it. If I can convince librarians that video games are not just for geeky teenagers with no social skills then we have moved a gigantic leap forward in getting video games to be considered not only culturally (and maybe even academically) relevant but closer to having them being accepted as an important part of mainstream society. Idealistic? Yes. But I could make a living off of it if I try hard enough.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Shooter - Rail(StarFox, PanzerDragoon etc)

Shooter- FPS- Simulation(Counterstrike, SOCOM)

Shooter- FPS- Action(QuakeX, DoomX, SeriousSam etc)

Racing- Futuristic/battle(FZero, Wipeout, Quantim Redshift etc)

Action- Likely a few different sub genres-

Action- Stealth(MGS, Splinter Cell etc)

Action- 'Fighting' perhaps? Encompassing- GTA3, DeadToRights, The Getaway, Mafia and the like

Adventure- Horror(RE, ED etc)

Strategy- Real Time(WC, Sacrifice, Pikmin, Black&White)

Strategy- Turn Based

Fighting sims should be under sports(non surreal boxing titles), the rest- VF, Tekken etc, are their own genre.

 

[jvd]

how about

Rpg console ( final fantsy and phantsy star )

Rpg computer ( ultima's , everquests )

Rpg adventure (a rpg with action elements ala zelda on the n64)

How about fps rpg ( jedi knight , ultima 9 )

Dating sims .

There are 2d side scrollers

 

[LunaticBlue]

Heya, I'm majoring in Informatics so this is pretty interesting to me! What I would do is take the categories you've already listed and start making clear definitions for each them since overlapping is bound to occur. Does fighter mean Street Fighter or Ikagura? How would you categorize games like Daggerfall or Morrowind? First Person Shooter/Adventure or RolePlaying Real Time?

 

[zurich]

Ben's got it I think..

I did 2 summers work in records management at Canadian Tire, so his looks bang on to me.

 

[Rodéric]

Game genres... what an ugly way to describe a game.

Especially since many genres are linked to games which have absolutely nothing to do with the genre name.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Whatever.

Don't forget -

Puzzle (Tetris, Bust A Move)

Party (Mario Party, Fusion Frenzy, Whacked!)

Music (Space Channel 5, Samba, DDR)

I would break fighting into 2D and 3D and leave it at that, but you also need:

Beat 'em up (or similar) - (Baldur's Gate, Hunter, Golden Axe, Gauntlet, Powerstone)

 

[Mark Cicero]

LunaticBlue: The fun thing about being a cataloger means that there are no distinct definitions. Thus Metroid Prime can be both a FPS and a FPA at the same time.

Whether or not it seems the most popular way of creating a cataloging system, genres is the way it needs to be developed, at least for the Library of Congress system. I've thought about listing games by console, publisher, and/or developer but each of these has distinct drawbacks. I would include each of these as an important part of the record (and smack anyone with a big, dead, fish who did otherwise) but listing them as the subjects would be akin to listing Charles Dickens or TimeWarner as a subject heading. They stand as access points in a record not as a subject. Dickens' subject heading would be English Literature -- Victorian or something like that. It just doesn't work. Hmm. I think I just found another page and a bit for my essay though.

I'll post an updated list later on. I've made shifted some around and added some others (eg. text-based). On a sad note, computer games is in even worse shape than video games is in. And yes, they are considered two seperate items for some damn reason or another. I really wish someone would think before they add entries indiscriminantly.