List of video game genres

Since the 1990s, shooters, most notably first-person shooters, have become widely successful in video gaming, accounting for a large percentage of video game sales.[12] Wolfenstein 3D, created by Id Software and released in 1992, was credited for pioneering gameplay and graphics elements incorporated by many other shooters.^[13] Also developed by Id and published one year after Wolfenstein 3D's release, Doom is broadly considered to be one of the most influential games in video gaming history.^[13] Other successful shooter series include Half-Life, a widely acclaimed and commercially successful series noted for its influence on contemporary shooters; and the Call of Duty franchise, with more than 250 million sales across all its titles.^[14]

Fighting games

Fighting games center around close-ranged combat, typically one-on-one fights or against a small number of equally powerful opponents, often involving violent and exaggerated unarmed attacks. Most fighting games feature a large number of playable characters and a competitive multiplayer mode. While most fighting games emphasize hand-to-hand combat,^[2] some fighting games such as Soulcalibur and Samurai Shodown center around combat with melee weapons. Many fighting games incorporate heavily emphasized attacks based on various martial arts systems. Fighting games were one of the dominant genres in video gaming until the late-1990s, where the genre saw a slight decline. This decline was short-lived however, for titles such as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Super Smash Bros. dominate the fighter demographic of the modern era.^[15] Different sub-genre games are starting to become more popular though. Super Smash Bros., and its deviation from the traditional fighting game rule set is one of these games that has gained a large following because of its "fun over form" party game development mentality.

Beat 'em up games

Beat 'em ups (or brawlers) are a related, but distinct genre to fighting games. While they both involve close-range combat, beat 'em ups put players against large waves of opponents as opposed to a few.^[2][11] Beat 'em ups often incorporate mechanics from other action genres, and multiplayer in beat 'em up games tends to be co-operative rather than competitive. Beat 'em ups saw a sudden decline in popularity in the early 1990s with the release of fighting games, but 3D beat 'em ups have kept the genre alive.^[16] Hack and Slash is a sub-genre often used to refer to weapons based beat 'em ups.

Stealth games

These games tend to emphasize sneaking around and avoiding enemy notice over direct conflict, for example, the Metal Gear series, and the Sly Cooper series. In a Stealth game, players are usually still able to engage in loud, conspicuous combat, but are often punished for it. In other games, such as Dishonored, the player can obtain their goal with or without stealth, but stealth is encouraged as the player is at a disadvantage over many of their enemies. The inclusion of stealth as a mechanic in a game does not necessarily make it a Stealth Game. For example, Skyrim has an entire perk tree dedicated to "Sneaking" despite that most of the dungeons in the game can be completed using a hack-and-slash strategy.

The first stealth game was Manbiki Shounen (Shoplifting Boy), published in November 1979.

Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear was the first mainstream stealth game, with the player starting the game unarmed,^[20] and sold over a million copies in the United States.^[21] Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake evolved the stealth gameplay of its predecessor.^[22] Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 are credited with pioneering stealth mechanics.^[23] Metal Gear Solid, which debuted at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show,^[24] was the first 3D stealth game,^[25] and is credited with popularizing the stealth game genre,^[26] as well as the hiding-behind-cover mechanic.^[27]

Survival games

Survival games start the player off with minimal resources, in a hostile, open-world environment, and require them to collect resources, craft tools, weapons, and shelter, in order to survive as long as possible. Many are set in procedurally-generated environments, and are open-ended with no set goals. They may overlap with the survival horror genre, in which the player must survive within a supernatural setting, such as a zombie apocalypse.

Rhythm games

Rhythm game or rhythm action is a genre of music-themed action video game that challenges a player's sense of rhythm. The genre includes dance games such as Dance Dance Revolution and music-based games such as Rock Band  and Guitar Hero. Games in the genre challenge the player to press buttons at precise times: the screen shows which button the player is required to press, and the game awards points both for accuracy and for synchronization with the beat.

Battle Royale games

A battle royale game is a genre that blends the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game with last man standing gameplay. Battle royale games challenge a large number of players, starting with minimal equipment, to search for weapons and armor and eliminate other opponents, while trying to stay in safe playable area which shrinks as the time passes, with the winner being the last competitor in the game. Notable battle royale games include

Although action-adventure games can divide into action or adventure games, they combine elements of their two component genres, typically featuring long-term obstacles that must be overcome using a tool or item as leverage (which is collected earlier), as well as many smaller obstacles almost constantly in the way, that require elements of action games to overcome. Action-adventure games tend to focus on exploration and usually involve item gathering, simple puzzle solving, and combat. "Action-adventure" has become a label which is sometimes attached to games which do not fit neatly into another well known genre. Because of their prevalence on video game consoles and the absence of typical adventure games, action-adventure games are often called "adventure games" by modern gamers.

One of the first action-adventure games was the

Survival horror games focus on fear and attempt to scare the player via traditional horror fiction elements such as atmospherics, death, the undead, blood and gore. One crucial gameplay element in many of these games is the low quantity of ammunition, or number of breakable melee weapons. Notable examples include Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

The first survival horror game was AX-2: Uchuu Yusousen Nostromo (ＡＸ－２　宇宙輸送船ノストロモ), developed by Akira Takiguchi, a

Metroidvania games are a subgenre of platformer, named after its two first well-known franchises, Metroid and Castlevania. They feature large interconnected world maps the player can explore, but access to parts of the world is limited by doors or other obstacles that can only be opened after the player has acquired special tools, weapons or abilities within the game. Acquiring such improvements also aids the player in defeating more difficult enemies and locating shortcuts and secret areas, and often includes retracing one's steps across the map. Metroidvanias usually do not consist of any linear gameplay and often involve much backtracking – especially after new powerups or tools have been obtained.

Adventure

Adventure games were some of the earliest games created, beginning with the text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure in the 1970s. That game was originally titled simply "Adventure," and is the namesake of the genre. Over time, graphics have been introduced to the genre and the interface has evolved.

Unlike adventure films, adventure games are not defined by story or content. Rather, adventure describes a manner of gameplay without reflex challenges or action. They normally require the player to solve various puzzles by interacting with people or the environment, most often in a non-confrontational way. It is considered a "purist" genre and tends to exclude anything which includes action elements beyond a

Because they put little pressure on the player in the form of action-based challenges or time constraints, adventure games have had the unique ability to appeal to people who do not normally play video games. The genre peaked in popularity with the 1993 release of

In the late 1990s the genre suffered a large drop in popularity, mass-market releases became rare, and many proclaimed the adventure game to be dead. More accurately, it has become a niche genre. Adventure games are not entirely uncommon, but they tend to be very low budget in anticipation of modest sales. The genre was somewhat rejuvenated with the release of The Longest Journey in 1999, which emphasized stronger story elements and more interaction with different characters. A recent resurgence of adventure games on Nintendo consoles might signify a new interest in the genre.^[36] A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012, run by Doublefine Studios, also spoke to the continued interest in Adventure games. The game produced as a result was mired in controversy and production delays, and to some, signalled the true end of the genre outside of niche markets.

Text adventures

The earliest adventure games were text adventures, also known as interactive fiction. Games such as the popular Zork series of the late 1970s and early 1980s allowed the player to use a keyboard to enter commands such as "get rope" or "go west" while the computer describes what is happening. A great deal of programming went into parsing the player's text input.

Graphic adventures

A visual novel (ビジュアルノベル, bijuaru noberu) is a game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant stage plays. Many visual novels track statistics that the player must build in order to advance the plot, and permit a variety of endings, allowing more dynamic reactions to the player's actions than a typical linear adventure plot. Many visual novels are dating sims, including bishōjo games. Visual novels are especially prevalent in Japan, where in the mid-2000s they made up nearly 70% of PC games released.^[37] They are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games are sometimes ported to systems such as the Dreamcast or the PlayStation 2. The market for visual novels outside Japan, however, was nearly non-existent prior to the success of the Nintendo DS, for which several Japanese visual novels were released in the West, such as the Ace Attorney series and the School Days series.

Interactive movie

The

Around this time, real-time 3D adventure games appeared. These included Nightfall in 1998, Shenmue in 1999, realMyst in 2000, Shadow of Memories in 2001, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst in 2003 and the Yakuza franchise in 2005. They augmented traditional adventure gameplay with some of the attributes more commonly associated with action games, for example, freedom of motion and physics-based behavior.

Puzzle

Puzzle games are for those who like to put their brain to use and find the thrill in solving puzzles. Whether simple adaptations of real-world puzzles like

Breakout clone (also known as block-breaking or ball-and-paddle) is a sub-class of the puzzle genre. This genre is named for the dynamics of the player-controlled block (called a "paddle") which the game is based on that hits a ball towards different objects such as colored tiles, special tiles and indestructible tiles (called a "brick"). The term "brick buster" was coined in the early 2000s, mostly refers to more modern games. Some early examples is Arkanoid developed by Taito in 1986 and the original Breakout developed by Atari in 1976.

Logical game

Logical puzzle games exhibit logic and mechanisms that are consistent throughout the entire game. Solving them typically requires deductive reasoning skills.

Physics game

A physics game is a type of logical puzzle video game where the player must use the

Popular physics-based logic puzzle games include Portal, The Talos Principle, Braid, Fez, World of Goo, Cut the Rope, and Inside.

These also include projectile collision games such as Angry Birds, Peggle, Monster Strike, and Crush the Castle.

Programming game

A

A hidden object game (sometimes called hidden picture or hidden object puzzle adventure (HOPA)) is a genre of puzzle video game in which the player must find items from a list that are hidden within a scene.

In tile-matching video games, the player manipulates tiles in order to make them disappear according to a matching criterion. The genre began with 1985's

Puzzle platformers are characterized by their use of a platform game structure to drive a game whose challenge is derived primarily from puzzles.^[45]

Enix's 1983 release Door Door and Sega's 1985 release Doki Doki Penguin Land (for the SG-1000) are perhaps the first examples, though the genre is diverse, and classifications can vary.^[46] Doki Doki Penguin Land allowed players to run and jump in typical platform fashion, but they could also destroy blocks, and were tasked with guiding an egg to the bottom of the level without letting it break.^[46]

The Lost Vikings (1993) was a popular game in this genre. It has three characters players can switch between, each with different abilities. All three characters are needed to complete the level goals.^[47]

Role-playing video games draw their gameplay from traditional tabletop

The action role-playing game or action RPG is a type of

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPG, emerged in the mid to late 1990s as a commercial,

The roguelike video game subgenre borrows its name and gameplay elements from the 1980 computer game

The tactical role-playing game subgenre principally refers to games which incorporate gameplay from strategy games as an alternative to traditional RPG systems.^[50] Like standard RPG, the player controls a finite party and battles a similar number of enemies, but this genre incorporates strategic gameplay such as tactical movement on an isometric grid.^[50] The genre has its origins in tabletop role-playing games, where each player has time to decide his or her characters' actions.

Sandbox RPG

Sandbox RPG or

Also known as DRPG (Dungeon RPG), this subgenre consists of RPGs where the player leads a party of adventurers in

]

Monster Tamer

A variant of the RPG formula where the player recruits monsters to fight for or alongside them. Collected creatures can often be raised or bred to create stronger monsters or to increase their abilities in battle. An example of a monster tamer game is Pokémon.

Simulation

Main article: Simulation video game

Simulation video games is a diverse super-category of games, generally designed to closely simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality.

Construction and management simulation

Main article: Construction and management simulation

Construction and management simulations (or CMS) are a type of simulation game which task players to build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources.

In city-building games the player acts as overall planner or leader to meet the needs and wants of game characters by initiating structures for food, shelter, health, spiritual care, economic growth, etc. Success is achieved when the city budget makes a growing profit and citizens experience an upgraded lifestyle in housing, health, and goods. While military development is often included, the emphasis is on economic strength. Perhaps the most known game of this type is SimCity, which has had great influence on later city-building games like Cities: Skylines. SimCity, however, also belongs to the God Games genre since it gives the player god-like abilities in manipulating the world. Caesar was a long-running series in this genre, with the original game spawning three sequels.

Business simulation games generally attempt to simulate an economy or business, with the player controlling the economy of the game.

A government simulation game (or "political game") involves the simulation of the policies, government or politics of a country, but typically excludes warfare. Recently, these types of games have gained the moniker "serious game".

Life simulation

Main article: Life simulation game

Life simulation games (or artificial life games) involve living or controlling one or more artificial lives. A life simulation game can revolve around individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation of an ecosystem.

Biological simulations may allow the player to experiment with

Wolf

Unlike other genres of games, god games often do not have a set goal that allows a player to win the game. The focus of a god game tends to be control over the lives of people, anywhere from micromanaging a family to overseeing the rise of a civilization.

Vehicle simulation games are a genre of

Train simulators simulate the vehicles, environments and often economics associated with railway transport. These are frequently historical in nature, reminiscing on the evolution and emergence of the railroad in various countries and the economic booms that often accompanied them.

Strategy video games focus on gameplay requiring careful and skillful thinking and planning in order to achieve victory and the action scales from world domination to squad-based tactics. "In most strategy video games," says Andrew Rollings, "the player is given a godlike view of the game world, indirectly controlling the units under his command."

4X game

4X refers to a genre of strategy video game with four primary goals: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. A 4X game can be

Artillery is the generic name for early two or three-player (usually

Auto battler, also known as "auto chess", is a type of strategy game that features

Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA)

The moniker "real-time strategy" (RTS), usually applied only to certain computer strategy games, (however, this genre is probably the most well known of strategy games and is what most websites mean when they say "strategy games") indicates that the action in the game is continuous, and players will have to make their decisions and actions within the backdrop of a constantly changing game state. Real-time strategy gameplay is characterised by obtaining resources, building bases, researching technologies and producing units. Blizzard Entertainment's

Real-time tactics (RTT)

Real-time tactics (abbreviated RTT

Tower defense games have a very simple layout. Usually, computer-controlled monsters move along a set path, and the player must place, or "build" towers along this path to kill the enemies. In some games, towers are placed along a set path for the enemies, while in others towers can interrupt enemy movement and change their path. In most tower defense games different towers have different abilities such as poisoning enemies or slowing them down. The player is awarded money for killing enemies, and this money can be used to buy more towers, or buy upgrades for a tower such as increased power or range.

Turn-based strategy (TBS)

The term turn-based strategy (TBS) is usually reserved for certain computer strategy games, to distinguish them from real-time strategy games. A player of a turn-based game is allowed a period of analysis before committing to a game action, and some games allow a certain number of moves or actions to take place in a turn. Like real-time strategy games, this genre can include many strategy games which are not solely turn-based games, and games which may contain other features not related to whether the game is turn-based or not. Examples of this genre are the

The gameplay of turn-based tactics games (TBT) is characterized by the expectation of players to complete their tasks using the combat forces provided to them, and usually by the provision of a realistic (or at least believable) representation of military tactics and operations. Examples of this genre include the

Wargames are a subgenre of strategy video games that emphasize strategic or tactical warfare on a map. Wargames generally take one of four archetypal forms, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time and whether the game's focus is upon military strategy or tactics.

Grand strategy wargame

A grand strategy wargame is a

Sports are video games that simulate

Racing

There are different types of racing games that the player competes against time or opponents using some means of transportation. Sub-genres include

Competitive games are those that have a high competitive factor but do not represent traditional sports, such as games in which the concept is fictional and designed by the developer (e.g. Ball Jacks and Rocket League).

Sports-based fighting

Sports-based fighting games are titles that fall firmly within the definitions of both the Fighting game and Sports game genre, such as boxing and wrestling video games. As such, they are usually put in their own separate subgenres. Often the fighting is far more realistic than in traditional fighting games (though the amount of realism can greatly vary), and many feature real-world franchises or fighters. Examples of this include the

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO and MMOG) is a multiplayer online video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet. Many games have at least one persistent world, however others just have large numbers of players competing at once in one form or another without any lasting effect to the world at all. These games can be found for most network-capable platforms, including the personal computer, video game console, or smartphones and other mobile devices. An example is the widely played game Minecraft which can be played both as an MMO or a single player game.

MMO games can enable players to cooperate and compete with each other on a large scale, and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. They include a variety of gameplay types, representing many video game genres, such as

There are three general categories of casino games: gaming machines, table games, and random number games. Gaming machines, such as the slot machine and pachinko, are usually played by one player at a time and do not require the involvement of players to play. Tables games, such as blackjack or craps, involve one or more players who are competing against the house (the casino itself) rather than each other. Random number games may be played at a table or through the purchase of paper tickets or cards, such as keno or bingo.

Digital collectible card game

A digital collectible card game (DCCG) is a computer or video game usually played online that emulates

A digital therapeutic video game is a digital treatment for a cognitive impairment, such as ADHD, delivered through the experience of a video game. These video games create immersive engagement that activates the brain networks selectively in order to improve cognitive function with strengthening over time. Games like EndeavorRx and EndeavorOTC present specific sensory stimuli and simultaneous motor challenges to the user or patient in order to target neural systems in the brain related to paying attention and sustaining focus. The efficacy of these treatments have been rigorously evaluated across multiple clinical studies for those diagnosed with ADHD, validating the benefit to users. ^[71]

Gacha game

Gacha games are

Horror games are games that incorporate elements of horror fiction into their narrative, generally irrespective of the type of gameplay. It is one of the few major video game categories that are recognized by narrative elements rather than by gameplay, gameplay mode, or platform. Survival horror is a subgenre of horror games focused on action-adventure style of gameplay.^[74]

Idle game

In an IGN article, Cookie Clicker is credited as one of the few games to have played a major role in the establishment of the genre of idle gaming.^[75]

This genre involves games that orient the player with a trivial task, such as clicking a cookie; and as the game progresses, the player is gradually rewarded certain upgrades for completing said task. In all, these games require very little involvement from the player, and in most cases they play themselves; hence the use of the word "idle".

In early 2014, Orteil released an early version of Idle Game Maker, a tool allowing customized idle games to be made without coding knowledge.^[76]

Party game

A photography game tasks players with taking photos using the in-game camera system, typically awarding more points for better composed images. Photography mechanics are often implemented as sidequests in games in other genres, but there are also games where photography is the main gameplay mode. These include Pokémon Snap, Afrika and the Fatal Frame series.

Social deduction game

A social deduction game is a game in which players attempt to uncover each other's hidden role or team allegiance. During gameplay, players can use logic and deductive reasoning to try to deduce one another's roles, while other players can bluff to keep players from suspecting them. A notable example of the social deduction video game is Among Us, which received a massive influx of popularity in 2020 due to many well-known Twitch streamers and YouTubers playing it.

Trivia game

Trivia games are growing in popularity, especially on mobile phones where people may only have a few minutes to play the game. In trivia games, the object is to answer questions with the goal of obtaining points. They may be based on real-life trivia game shows such as Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? or Family Feud.

Typing game

A typing game is any game that uses typing as the main method of interaction. While they initially started as a type of educational game, they later became more entertainment focused as indie developers explored possibilities within the genre.

Video game genres by purpose

While most video games are designed as entertainment, many video games are designed with additional purposes. These purposes are as varied as the nature of information itself—to inform, persuade, or stimulate. These games can have any kind of gameplay, from puzzles to action to adventure.

Advergame

Advergames, in the context of video game genres, refers to promotional software specifically made to advertise a product, organization or viewpoint. The first advergames were distributed on floppy disk by the Chef Boyardee, Coca-Cola, and Samsung brands,^[77] while the first cereal box advergame was Chex Quest in 1996.^[78] The majority of advergames are found online and mostly include simple and cheaply made Flash games. Some advergames were released to consoles, like Pepsiman for Sony PlayStation.

Art game

Art games are designed so as to emphasize art or whose structures are intended to produce some kind of non-

Casual game

Casual games are designed to be easily picked up and put down again with relatively low time commitment, allowing for potentially short bursts of play. This genre of gaming is meant to be a short and relaxing pastime, a rest in between other occupations and so is most popular with demographics who have less free time. They usually have very simple rules or play techniques and a very low degree of strategy.^[79] They have no lengthy tutorials and require no special skills, making them easy to learn and play as a pastime. Retaining players involves a lot of careful design of levels, challenges and events. Market leaders in this genre are often boldly coloured, designed for intuitive interaction and have a high balance of reward to time to keep people coming back. Designers of these games should add a lot of "juice" (sound and motion elements that excite the senses) to make them stand out in a sea of highly similar games.

Casual games typically are played in web browsers or on mobile devices, although they now are starting to become popular on game consoles. The games often have auto-saving and syncing as standard so the games can be minimized, put into sleep, or otherwise put down with no loss to the player. There are comparatively low production and distribution costs for the producer.^[80]

Christian game

Christian games attempt to provide the dual purposes of spreading the Christian religion to non-believers through the medium of video games, and providing gamers who identify as Christian with a common pool of games. Christian video games were first developed by Wisdom Tree for the NES, without license. While largely regarded as derivative titles by the mainstream gaming culture,^{[citation needed]} Christian games have nevertheless expanded in distribution since their inception.

Educational game

Educational games, as the name implies, attempt to teach the user using the game as a vehicle. Most of these types of games target young users from the ages of about three years to mid-

Esports games are

Exergame (Fitness Game)

An exergame (

Personalized games are created for one specific player or a group of players usually as a gift. They are hand-made to feature real names, places and events from the recipient's life. Usual occasions for such games are birthdays, anniversaries, and engagement proposals.

Serious game

Serious games are intended to educate or train the player. These games tend to promote "education, science, social change, health care or even the military."^[81] Some of these games have no specific ending or goal in the game. Rather, the player learns a real life lesson from the game. For example, games from websites such as Newsgaming.com and gamesforchange.org raise political issues using the distinct properties of games.

Live Interactive Game

Live interactive games, also known as bullet screen interactive game, are a genre of games built on live streaming platforms. During a live broadcast, the host initiates the game, and viewers can participate by forming teams, giving likes, sending gifts, and posting comments. The barrage mechanism translates these signals into in-game resources or effects, transforming the live broadcast from a one-to-many format to a space where viewers can also interact with each other.^{[citation needed]}

Sandbox / open world games

Sandbox and open-world games are not specifically video game genres, as they generally describe gameplay features, but often games will be described as a sandbox or an open-world game as if it were a defining genre. They are included here for such distinguishing purposes.

Sandbox

A sandbox game is a video with a gameplay element that gives the player a great degree of creativity to complete tasks towards a goal within the game, if such a goal exists. Some games exist as pure sandbox games with no objectives; these are also known as non-games or software toys. More commonly, sandbox games results from these creative elements being incorporated into other genres and allowing for emergent gameplay. Sandbox games are often associated with open world concepts which gives the player freedom of movement and progression in the game's world. The "sandbox" term derives from the nature of a sandbox that lets children create nearly anything they want within it.

Early sandbox games came out of space trading and combat games like Elite (1984) and city-building simulations and tycoon games like SimCity (1989). The releases of The Sims and Grand Theft Auto III in 2000 and 2001, respectively, demonstrated that games with highly detailed interacting systems that encouraged player experimentation could also be seen as sandbox games. Sandbox games also found ground with the ability to interact socially and share user-generated content across the Internet like Second Life (2003). Minecraft (2011) is one of the most successful examples of a sandbox game, with players able to enjoy in both creative modes and through more goal-driven survival modes.

Creative

Creative games are games that are often grounded into other genres but have certain modes of gameplay that allow for a Sandbox and/or Openworld Gameplay, It is extremely common for a "Creative" Game mode to use the same aspects, assets, mechanics, etc. of the Parent Game. However, this isn't always the case as some games have used assets unavailable in the normal Game. Story/Narrative is often removed or non-existent in these modes. However, while generally rare, creative modes have been seen to have an independent story from the main game or even be an entirely independent game.

Open world

In video games, an open world is a game mechanic of using a virtual world that the player can explore and approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. While games have used open-world designs since the 1980s, the implementation in Grand Theft Auto III (2001) set a standard that has been used since.

Games with open or free-roaming worlds typically lack level structures like walls and locked doors, or the invisible walls in more open areas that prevent the player from venturing beyond them; only at the bounds of an open-world game will players be limited by geographic features like vast oceans or impassible mountains. Players typically do not encounter loading screens common in linear level designs when moving about the game world, with the open-world game using strategic storage and memory techniques to load the game world in a dynamic and seamless manner. Open-world games still enforce many restrictions in the game environment, either because of absolute technical limitations or in-game limitations imposed by a game's linearity.

While the openness of the game world is an important facet to games featuring open worlds, the main draw of open-world games is about providing the player with autonomy – not so much the freedom to do anything they want in the game (which is nearly impossible with current computing technology), but the ability to choose how to approach the game and its challenges in the order and manner as the player desires while still constrained by gameplay rules. Examples of high level of autonomy in computer games can be found in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) or in single-player games adhering to the open-world concept such as the Fallout series. The main appeal of open-world gameplay is that they provide a simulated reality and allow players to develop their character and its behaviour in the direction and the pace of their own choosing. In these cases, there is often no concrete goal or end to the game, although there may be the main storyline, such as with games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Scientific studies

As video games are increasingly the subject of scientific studies, game genres are themselves becoming a subject of study.

An early attempt at analysis of the action and adventure genres appeared in a Game Developers Conference 2000 paper 'Mostly Armless: Grabbing the 3D World'. This critiqued a variety of adventure and action games to categorize gameplay and interaction for adventure, action, and hybrid genres. It provided a graph of the genres along the axes of 'immediacy' vs 'complexity', with an 'ideal-zone' for gameplay that covered and linked adventure and action games. It detailed various interaction styles present in these genres and extrapolated to future user interface and gameplay possibilities for these and other genres. Some of these have since been adopted by persistent worlds. For example,

In a University of Queensland study, game enjoyment was correlated with attributes such as immersion, social interaction, and the nature of the goals.^[83] These may be underlying factors in differentiating game genres.

Statistical scaling techniques were used in a study presented at the 2007 Siggraph Video Game Symposium to convert subject ratings of game similarity into visual maps of game genres. The maps reproduced some of the commonly identified genres such as first-person shooters and god games.^[84] A Michigan State University study found that men have a higher preference for genres that require competition and three-dimensional navigation and manipulation than women do.^[85]

See also

Notes

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Video games by genre.

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