Let's rename some gaming genres to make them more accurate

kfwyre
2019-11-30T17:11:02Z

A recent discussion got me thinking about how a lot of the standard genre descriptions for games are either opaque to the unfamiliar or seemingly incongruous with what they are describing. Almost any game can be described as a "role playing" game because you "play" the "role" of a given character. Adventure games often aren't very "adventurous" and often just mean that characters talk to each other instead of shoot each other. In survival games you survive; in racing games you race; in casual games you... well, usually match 3 but not always? Also why are we so focused on camera for some games (e.g. first-person shooter) but not for others (e.g. third-person sports)?

So, let's throw away everything we know about genres and start fresh. No baggage from gaming history; no widely understood conventions; no games that reference other games (e.g. "Souls-like"). Your goal is to make gaming genres as clear and accurate as possible, at the expense of convenience, tradition, and, in some cases, good taste.

Turn "roguelike" into "procedural death labyrinth". Turn "battle royale" into "shrinking-zone dead-is-dead killfest". Feel free to propose not just genre redefinitions but whole a whole taxonomy if you feel it's warranted. After all, some genres need a hierarchy of identifiers.

Be as formal or loose as you want, and the main purpose of this is to have fun, though if some great new terms happen to fall out of it you won't hear me complaining.

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