Genre & Subgenre Guide

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Again...it's not tough to "patch", but annoying as hell to fix.

[tactical_nuke]

Moved a big chunk of games to Fitness. Let me know if you find some more or a whole series/group of games needs moving.

[tactical_nuke]

Also, help me out with the Game Creator Genre, I only know the examples in the guide.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Well, there's a lot of iterations on RPG Maker:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG_Maker

I thought about Garry's Mod, but I think that's more Sandbox? But Sandbox, in your list, is only under RPG...

[tactical_nuke]

Garry's mod is mostly just a physics engine that you can import stuff into so I would classify it as an action game. Action/adventure >> action / sandbox / physics

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Curious... I saw this brought up on another site. How would you classify Borderlands?

[tactical_nuke]

I've never actually played a game in the series but from what I gather, it's an action RPG with the action part meaning shooting. I would make RPG the Genre and Action RPG / 3rd Person Shooter the sub genre.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

If a person were to search for Borderlands as a Shooter genre, which many arguably equate it with, they wouldn't find it. Does that make sense?

[tactical_nuke]

Wouldn't they just search the name?

[Shadow Kisuragi]

What if I wanted to search for "Shooter" games on Xbox 360 for my next game to play? Borderlands wouldn't come up, as it's technically considered an RPG.

[Duke.Togo]

I would personally classify Borderlands as a Shooter. It may have RPG elements, but it's primary game mechanic is FPS.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

^ That's essentially what I'm getting at. Borderlands is just a prime example of the clouded genres that exist in today's games. Borderlands, by definition, is a role-playing game, but many people identify it as a Shooter since the RPG elements are integrated so well. Is it an Action RPG, or a Third-Person Shooter with RPG elements?

Should we support being able to support having multiple PRIMARY genres? Should we support having multiple subgenres? I hesitate on having multiple primary genres, as games should be statically cataloged by genres, but games aren't as clear cut as they used to be. Case in point: Microsoft allows a game to have up to 5 Genre specifications for Xbox One. Ryse, for instance, is officially cataloged according to the developer:

Genre:Action & Adventure, Fighting
https://store.xbox.com/en...54-42c2-b16e-2dcf67d2c147

EDIT: Thread that reminded me about this: http://www.trueachievemen...ead.aspx?threadid=4530360

[tactical_nuke]

Ah well like I said, I've never played it. I didn't even look up gameplay footage so that's why my classification was off. So like it says in the guide, shooting is more prominent than the RPG elements so Action RPG is the Subgenre.

[tactical_nuke]

Should we support being able to support having multiple PRIMARY genres?

For the sake of simplicity I'd say no. You can usually narrow it down to a primary one anyway. Only a few games get a perfect balance of main Genres.

Should we support having multiple subgenres?

We already do that. Tons of games have more than 1. In fact, it's necessary most of the time.

[techwizard]

i was about to suggest multiple primary genres too but i was thinking instead of calling it that, why not a primary genre and an alternate genre?

for example borderlands could look like this on the game page:

Primary Genre - RPG
Primary Subgenre - ActionRPG

Alternate Genre - Shooter
Alternate Subgenre - First Person Shooter [why are people referring to it as third person? it's an FPS not over the shoulder ]