Pushing the Genre In Games

Looking back on the crazy short life span of video games is always interesting. Very few mediums have this particular and unusual a trajectory. I mean think about it, only in video games could you get both “The Witcher: Wild Hunt” and Shovel Knight in the same medium. Sure Movies and Music have a wide variety of styles and Genre’s, but you still interact with it in the same way. You either listen or watch and then it’s over. In gaming, we build up hand-eye coordination, button mashing or precisely waiting for the right moment. Or we waggle a Wiimote. And soon enough we will start interacting with a virtual reality that’s all around us.
So with that said you can imagine that things can sometimes get a bit jumbled up. For example “The DICE awards” which is the industry standard when it comes to appreciation in gaming came up with some interesting winners in some interesting categories. Action Game of the Year: Destiny, Adventure Game of the Year: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Fighting Game of the Year Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Racing Game of the Year: Mario Kart 8, Now I have some questions if not issues about all of theses winners. First off, these are all great games but there is an enormous conglomerate of gamers that don’t think Smash Bros. Is a fighting game, and I don’t categorize Destiny as an Action game? Also, I’m not so sure Shadows of Mordor is an Adventure game. And even if you disagree with me, that’s kind of the point. Genre has become a huge gray area in today’s games.

No idea whats going on, but its beautiful

As an example of how loose the game genre has become Randy Pitchford described his upcoming game “BattleBorn” as an “FPS; hobby-grade coop campaign; genre-blended, multi-mode competitive e-sports; meta-growth, choice + epic”… I love Randy Pitchford, and I think the games he makes are great but respectively what the hell does that mean? How do you categorize that? To be honest, I don’t have an answer for all the crazy styles in a game we get these days. And it’s probably for the best that these games push the ideas of what genre means. Genre’s will continue to become more and more amorphous with the impending virtual reality.
Having the Digital marketplace around us also pushes things around. Steam, Playstation Network, and the Xbox Marketplace all bring this new way for people to consume games, and along with that we get genre’s that we haven’t played in a while. If it weren’t for online marketplaces, I’m sure we certainly wouldn’t see the rise of the 2D side scrolling game. And with things like Kickstarter we can play new games that resemble the ones I grew up with. Yooka Laylee is not the last 3D platformer we will see rise from an obscure genre.
Games like Mass Effect and Shadow of Mordor push the idea of what a Role Playing game is. And the push it so far that you might consider them Shooter’s or Action Games. Video Games have come a long way since the days of collecting coins and punching brick walls when you jump. The more I write, the more I think to myself that this isn’t such a problem. But it does become disorganized the longer we move towards the future. So the game of the year awards will become more and more scattered the crazier the developers get. But if that means we get more innovative and strange ideas in games then I suppose that’s the only thing that matters.