I went searching for platform games just recently and found 24 game categories to choose from.
Now, some may find this useful but I found it damn annoying. Not only is there platform, but there is also platformer. And if an uploader still cant figure out where to put his/her game there is the miscellaneous category.
Seriously, let's kill a few categories because they are totally unnecessary.
Beat-em up! What is this? Couldn't that fit under platform or something similar? We do already have shoot-em up.
Sport/ racing, they are the same thing!
Turn-based strategy/real-time strategy?? What's the difference?
Drive-em up- again 'what the hell?' get rid of it!
Bat & Ball?? Couldn't this come under sport? I mean how many types of bat and ball games can you have. Why does this get its own category? Why don't we just make a category for games with the colour blue in it!
Adventure- what kind of adventure? RPG, Platform???
A lot of these categories are pointless. Interactive fiction? What the hell is that??? Abandoned- I don't want to play someone’s unfinished game! Finish your damn game or don't upload it!
I mean please, put it in the Demo section if anything.
Same with Retro (what kind of retro- platform/RPG/shoot-em up???)
Okay, I think I can break down the categories into something much simpler:
- Platform
- RPG
- Puzzle
- Sport
- Shoot-Em up
- Application
- Engine (I suppose this site accepts people engines now, not just games. So I guess we need a spot to put all these custom movement engines. And tutorials can come under this too)
- Demo (only for demos- any type of game!)
- Other (For those lazy people who can't be bothered putting in one of the above)
I looked up video game genres on wikipedia and they seem to have it right. They have 8 major genres for video games: Action, Fighting, RPG, Massively Multiplayer Online, Platform, Simulation, Sport, Strategy.
So that's my rant.
But please Daily Click staff, sort out the game genres.
Make a poll and see what people think, but do something.
i totally agree, and a few years ago i suggested the removal of some genres but they wouldn't have it. I still think there are too many. I mean, "demo" is not a genre, it's a description or something like that :S
And the sub-categories idea isn't a bad one, but why not have it so that the uploader can choose two from the main categories instead, I mean like adventure/platformer or RPG/strategy, etcetera. That'd be cool.
Edwin you're an ignorant fool who doesn't know his categories. Adventure games are it's own genre and have been around since the early 80's. Maybe even earlier with some of the text only adventure games. Beat-em up is a fighting game like Double Dragon or Street Fighter. Sport and Racing are the same thing? Now I'm really concerned about your lack of knowledge. There are a lot of genres, they may have gone overboard on TDC so you've got a point but you've also made a point on how much of an idiot you are.
We have talked about this in the past, and we had decided to keep them inplace as is, simply because some games are tagged under one category and not another of the same type. I don't think it's one of those things we can edit either.
I'm gonna explain it to you. Read carefully as there will be a test on it next week (no, not really...)
Beat-em up! What is this? Couldn't that fit under platform or something similar?
Beat em up is another name for fighting games. More specifically scrolling fighters (like Streets of Rage)
Sport/ racing, they are the same thing!
I say keep them separate. You can race for sport, but Grand Theft Auto is hardly a sports game.
Turn-based strategy/real-time strategy?? What's the difference?
In the first one you take turns (think of a game of chess), while in the second one the game "keeps running" while you make your choices (think of Warcraft). The two different categories of RTS should be condensed into one though.
Drive-em up- again 'what the hell?' get rid of it!
This one I can agree with. Could be condensed into the Racing genre.
Bat & Ball?? Couldn't this come under sport? I mean how many types of bat and ball games can you have.
Since when is Breakout a sports game?
Adventure- what kind of adventure? RPG, Platform???
The Adventure genre is very loosely defined. Monkey Island and Tomb Raider could both be defined as Adventure games, while they are still two very different games.
Interactive fiction? What the hell is that???
Fiction are made up stories. Interactive means you can interact with something. So essentially Interactive Fiction are stories which you can change the outcome of as you play.
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
15th May, 2007 at 15:43:58 -
Bat & Ball?? Couldn't this come under sport? I mean how many types of bat and ball games can you have.
Since when is Breakout a sports game?
Yes, but it could still rather be under the "arcade" genre.
The reason it is a problem to "fix" is because there are games which have already selected different categories - so if we remove and change some categories, then games will appear in the wrong category or won't appear at all. I suppose it depends on whether that bothers some people or not
Surely it'd be a case of selecting all the games from a redundant category and changing them to a valid category that fits... i.e. Platformer -> Platform, Driving -> Sport, Bat 'n Ball -> Arcade, Real-time Strategy + Turn-based Strategy -> Strategy...etc. As it's a database I'm pretty sure a line of SQL or whatever could do it.
It'd be a better system if the genres were like blog tags, so you could select 'Platform + Demo + Arcade' but that's getting a bit over the top in terms of having to keep your archive in order.
But still the Final Fantasy series are Adventure/RPG but mostly referred to as RPG. Adventure is just too broad in teams of genres. It's just the easy way out. Games like King's Quest I suppose would probably fit that agenda.
But then again those types of games would have their own category too.
I say go with the wiki video game genres:
- Action
- Fighting
- RPG
- Multiplayer Online
- Platform
- Simulation
- Sport
- Strategy
I like the categories that way. What's wrong with too much genres anyway. A lot of people who like RTS games don't like TBS games, so it makes no sense to merge them into 'Strategy'. Even if we did merge them into one genre, there'd be another prick telling us to take it apart. And sub-categories are well.. annoying, considering that we don't have enough games to really make it worth the time.
I think there's so many genres coz everyone tends to make those type of games. Bat and ball (Pong, breakout games), drive 'em ups (GTA clones), abandoned games (with code included), those things that don't exist outside the community are so common here that they get their own section. And some "Wikipedia categories" like MMOs wouldn't really exist here, lol. I'd be suprised to see a platform genre outside klik & abandonware sites, though.
For one thing, you make yourself look like an idiot for questioning things like "Adventure", "Beat-em-up", "Sports" and "Interactive Fiction". Those genres exist on major game sites, and there's plenty more on Home of the Underdogs. The more games there are, the more genres there'll be. But I think you're right in one way. Drive-em-up and racing could be combined, and so can arcade-action, engine-tutorial, platform-platformer. Retro shouldn't be a genre, but there was one time in the community when there was a 2-bit color game craze, which probably spawned it.
Maybe one day we'll clean up the whole DC system, not just the genres..
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
"Adventure is just too broad in teams of genres. It's just the easy way out. Games like King's Quest I suppose would probably fit that agenda.
But then again those types of games would have their own category too."
King's Quest isn't the only adventure game in existence, you know? And where would you place those games then. Action? Platform?!
Here's my list:
- Action
- Fighting
- RPG
- Multiplayer Online
- Platform
- Simulation
- Sport
- Strategy
- Adventure (because they wouldn't fit into any other category)
- Racing (too different from most sports games in terms of gameplay)
- Puzzle (again, too different)
- Arcade (maybe)
- Engine (It would be helpful while searching for engines, etc)
- Application (because I wouldn't categorize WebWiz as an action game)
- Other
Actually, with a multicheck list view (Like most torrent sites), it wouldn't be that bad at all. Might be more manageable than changing every entry in the database.
"There was a time when you could click on a genre and the top downloads list changed to a top list for that genre. I liked that."
> I think someone got rid of that because it's bad for the littler games.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I think,as some has said before, that a game can fit into many genres.
In the "old days", when games where very simple it might have been easier to sort them into categories. What remains of that sorting system now is very out of date. For example: modern FPS games must have a great deal of RPG in them, otherwise they're not fun to play.
Different genres also reffers to different elements of a game: Platform is a description of the graphics, Ball & Bat what you are supposed to do, and Adventure what it feels lika playing it.
Either you must have many genres to choose from, or you must be able to make a multiple choice.
Hmm... there are a lot of mixed genres these days. The Total War series is both turn-based and real-time. Warcraft 3, Spellforce is certainly RPG-RTS. UFO Aftershock is somewhat RPG-TBS. Dominions, X-Com 1 and 2 are RPG-Turn based strategy. X-Com 3 is RPG-TBS-RTS. X-Com 4 is Flight Sim-RPG-TBS. Some sports games also have lots of RPG elements, management/trading in them. I played NBA Live 07 as a manager on my friend's comp, replaced almost all the Boston Celtics players, lol.
So... should we just get rid of genres? Then how would we search for games we like?
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
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