Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Perhaps platforms such as the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360 Kinect system will
make it easier to create new game genres, or will they simply be used to adapt exist-
ing ones?
We use genres extensively in everyday life. Research has shown that young
children very soon learn to use genres in their conversations about the world around
them (Jaglom and Gardner, 1981). Film and TV guides use genres extensively. The
vast majority of us would have a pretty clear idea whether a fi lm we were watching
for the fi rst time should be classifi ed as a western, or a comedy, or a romantic-
comedy, or a romantic-comedy-western; sounds familiar, doesn't it. This also goes
for TV programs that are new to us; most of us would have a clear idea of what a
game show, a sitcom, or a soap opera should be like. What about reality TV as a
TV genre? If reality TV is a TV genre, then what characterizes it?
Genres are a pretty powerful form of abstraction. They are a form of theory we
employ in everyday life on a constantly recurring basis. So the fi rst thing about genre
is that it is a great example of a theory that we all use easily and understand in our
everyday lives. It is no surprise then that we have come to use genres to classify
games.
So, if it's so easy and natural to use genres as a way of making sense of the
mass of media surrounding us, it should be easy to defi ne them? Now the trouble
starts. Let's further consider fi lm genres. How do you defi ne the “ western ” genre in
feature fi lms? You might say, all the fi lms about cowboys. But there are fi lms about
cowboys that are not westerns. The Horse Whisperer and Midnight Cowboy are just
two examples of many that come to my mind. I am sure you can think of your own.
We can try to refi ne our defi nition. Westerns are about cowboys, in the nine-
teenth century, in the United States. But lots of westerns aren't about cowboys. They
might be about building railroads, crossing and settling the Great Plains, wars
between settlers and Native Americans, and so on. In fact, most characters in west-
erns aren't cowboys at all.
The real point here is that we easily recognize genres but fi nd it very diffi cult
to defi ne them. This is almost certainly because genres are just one example of the
way our brains make sense of the world by fi nding patterns in the overload of stimuli
that bombard us all in every waking moment. The pattern matching part of genres
is not something that involves rational and conscious thought. This means that while
we can work with genres and pretty easily identify examples of fi lms that belong to
them, most of the time we don't actually know how we do it.
There is more to it than this. We have chosen the type of genres you might fi nd
in a TV fi lm guide but there are other classifi cations for fi lms that we would readily
recognize as fi lm genres. There is the “Hollywood” genre as opposed to “ art movies ”
and “Bollywood,” for instance. This type of genre classifi cation is not based on a
theme or story type but on particular ways of making fi lms. It means that the same
fi lm can be in several different genres. It all depends on your purpose in categorizing
them. Not only are genres easy to recognize but diffi cult to defi ne, they are also very
much dependent on who is using the genre and what their purpose is in doing so.
In fi lm or in computer games, the genres we recognize and use were not just invented
by a single person. They arise from a sort of dialogue that happens between people
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