BS genre names

[Death Penalty]

Character Action is dumb.

The correct term is Spectacle Fighter.

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I don't like this one because "Fighter" means something else in the context of video games. "Character Action" seems broad, but anyone who discusses games knows the very specific thing it means.

To the broader topic, I think most of the coined phrases for genres are fine, because often you're trying to describe very specific experiences that on description can sound similar to vastly different experiences. As someone else said, both DMC and Uncharted are "action games", but it's more accurate to say that they're both members of vastly different genres with other games that emulate their playstyles or that they are emulating. Metroidvania is better than something like "sidescrolling adventure" because a Metroidvania game is actually structured extremely specifically.

Immersive sim kinda sucks though, even I have to admit.

 

[Catshade]

I just remembered that Contra and Contra-like games were often referred as "run 'n' gun". I assume with the advent of FPS that term lost its descriptive purpose.

 

[Sprat]

To be fair everything other than

Driving /racing
Platformer
Rpg
Adventure
Fighting
Sports
Simulation
Strategy

Are a bit pointless. They're just qualifiers for the actual genre

 

[Kneefoil]

Already been said, but both Character Action and Immersive Sim are really weak.

In spite of its derisive origin, I quite like the term Walking Simulator. It's a pretty quirky way of describing those games. However, I actually thought about this not too long ago: I was browsing MAL, thinking about anime genres, and it just kind of hit me that Walking Simulators could usually just be referred to as Slice of Life games, because even though they sometimes touch the bizarre with their setting, gameplay-wise, more often than not, you're doing very mundane things.

I mean, the umbrella would have to be shared with some other type of games, like life sims, but considering how messy pretty much all video game genres are, I don't think that would be a huge issue. I guess, if you wanted to differentiate Walking Sims from the rest, you could call them something like Slice of Life Adventure (SoLA).

 

[Pargon]

Tired:

• "Immersive simulator" - Extremely vague and non descriptive; used by a small minority of people and will never catch on.

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It's been in use for decades.
It's not a new thing a small number of people are trying to make happen.
But it's mostly been used to describe pc games until Bioshock/Dishonored - so console gamers are apparently unfamiliar with it.

I agree that is not the best genre name, but there hasn't been anything better suggested or accepted to replace it.
Most of the alternatives people suggest are too narrow and only cover a small section of imsims, or too broad and could apply to lots of other games which are not imsims.

If someone calls a game an immersive sim, I know exactly what type of game it's going to be.
And that's the point of genre names, isn't it?

 

[Acquiescence]

'Immersive sim' is what you call a game when you intentionally want to kill it stone dead.

 

[Tigress]

Role playing Games has to be the worst one, it's such a wide genre it basically tells you nothing about the game you're about to play.

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Yeah... I mean some games the word roleplaying fits. But so many it's really not role-playing. JRPG is the worst though cause in general those games aren't roleplaying at all (I mean I love JRPGs but they aren't roleplaying games). I mean in some ways it at least is ok cause the name JRPG actually does tell you what kind of game it is, but I just object to having roleplaying in the name. But maybe I'm just being stubbern cause when I think roleplaying I think choosing who your character is and what they do (I come from actually doing the original roleplaying, dice and paper).

 

[Windu]

Role playing Games has to be the worst one, it's such a wide genre it basically tells you nothing about the game you're about to play.

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That term really started with board games, makes more sense in that context.

 

[Jimnymebob]

"Soulsborne"

guys, "Souls" was ALWAYS adequate

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I'd just go for Action RPG in all honesty lol

 

[Pokémon]

"Party game" mostly in reference to a Nintendo game with multiplayer elements that is selling extremely well but "real gamers" don't want the games lumped in with their favorite games in a specific genre (i.e. Smash Bros, Mario Kart or Splatoon).
Smash Bros is not a party game, it's a fighting game. Mario Kart is not a party game, it's a racing game. Splatoon is not a party game, it's a 3rd person shooting game.

 

[Pyro]

Shlooter and Strand

 

[crimilde]

I love Team Ninja, but using a portmanteau like masocore for Nioh just sounds silly.

 

[mclem]

I've occasionally encountered people who regard "sidescroller" as an acceptable genre label, when really that's just referring to the direction of play and there's a ton of genres that could be played in that format.

I have also seen people who go one stage further and use the term sidescroller for a game that doesn't even scroll!

 

[Jakisthe]

It's been in use for decades.
It's not a new thing a small number of people are trying to make happen.
But it's mostly been used to describe pc games until Bioshock/Dishonored - so console gamers are apparently unfamiliar with it.

I agree that is not the best genre name, but there hasn't been anything better suggested or accepted to replace it.
Most of the alternatives people suggest are too narrow and only cover a small section of imsims, or too broad and could apply to lots of other games which are not imsims.

If someone calls a game an immersive sim, I know exactly what type of game it's going to be.
And that's the point of genre names, isn't it?

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I've been gaming for decades, grew up on the types of games often called that, and have not heard the term in anything even remotely constituting wide use until perhaps 3, maybe 4 years ago. Spector might have called them that, but it very much did not take off until recently.
What's more, the point of genres is not only to signal to people already in the know about what they mean, it's to indicate to those who don't what the games might include, and to do so in a way that doesn't automatically embellish the content. Immersive sim - to say nothing of the even worse term "imsim" - fails on the last two points, so regardless of how old it is (and it's age as a genre title is highly questionable vs a term which happened to have been used in some capacity at some point), it's still bad.

 

[Voyevoda]

The first Strand Game.

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I'm surprised this is only the 8th reply.

 

[Deleted member 13370]

I actually think open air is a gerat way to describe BotW. Real life open air experiences are obviously a large influence on the game and while playing a game will naturally never give you the same experience as being in nature, it's easily the one game that has come the closest for me.

My coice is without a doubt MOBA. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena describes literally every competitive online game with levels, ever made. It's not a genre.

 

[banter]

The correct term is looter shooter, and I think that's a perfectly adequate way of describing those games.

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Arrow comparison simulator is more accurate though.

To be fair everything other than

Driving /racing
Platformer
Rpg
Adventure
Fighting
Sports
Simulation
Strategy

Are a bit pointless. They're just qualifiers for the actual genre

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Yes and no. Unfortunately at this point the industry has shit all over the term rpg to where it is the equivalent of describing a person as human. While factual, it won't actually help anyone who is looking for them. It now requires qualifiers.

 

[Mentalist]

I have no idea what an action RPG is anymore

-it used to be a term to describe Diablo clones
-then at some point it transitioned into a "3rd person, non-isometric real-time combat RPG, a la Dragon Age 2"
-now people want to use it specifically to describe Soulslikes.

And shlooter is just a fancy way of saying Diablo with guns.

Imsims are a genre, because Warren Spector said so back in 2000, and it's easier than calling a game "Deus Ex clone" . They're also called 0451 games, but that's a reference on a whole other level.

The problem with genres is that prior to the OG xbox/PS2 gen, PC gaming and console gaming were developing in parallel with their own naming conventions for distinct genres. But as consoles became more and more PC-like, we started seeing a lot of games making transitions to a larger audience, going both ways. With few exceptions (like RTS games not really being a console thing), all games are everywhere now, so it's a different landscape for naming conventions.

 

[Shining Star]

"Dating Sim" which people use for any visual novel that has romance.

 

[Cosmic Voyager]

I always thought that name referred to things like Euro Truck Simulator and Train Simulator up until a few weeks ago.

I still don't really know what it refers to lol. Is it like walking simulators or something?

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No. It refers to games with open-ended levels where you can accomplish objectives however you prefer to play (stealth, combat, magic, guns, etc.) and the world is highly reactive to your actions.

Examples include Deus Ex, Prey, Dishonored, Bioshock, Thief, System Shock, etc.

 

[Cosmic Voyager]

people who hate genre descriptors that give you a very good idea of what the game is like because they're not the dewey decimal of video games are the worst

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agreed lol. People shit on Metroidvania and Soulslike, and then fail to provide any adequate alternatives, it's annoying as fuck

 

[Cosmic Voyager]

Soulsborne.

It should be called Soulsbornesekiro instead.

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Make that soulsbornekiroring

 

[Deleted member 7883]

guys. GUYS. Breath of the Wild is an open air game. None of this open world bullshit.

 

[Narroo]

Character Action is dumb.

The correct term is Spectacle Fighter.

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I could have sworn that "Character Action" is a new name that only popped up a few years ago, and that "Extreme Action" used to be the genre name. "Extreme Action (game)" is a better name since any action game can be spectacle based. GoW is spectacle based to a fault, but the actual gameplay is pretty mild, compared to DMC3 which is much more extreme in terms of gameplay action.

 

[Pargon]

I've been gaming for decades, grew up on the types of games often called that, and have not heard the term in anything even remotely constituting wide use until perhaps 3, maybe 4 years ago. Spector might have called them that, but it very much did not take off until recently.

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Looking at Google Trends, it was popularised in 2011 - which would be around the time of Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
It seems to spike every time there is a new Deus Ex game released, with there being a lot of searches for the term back in 2004 too (as far back as Trends goes).

What's more, the point of genres is not only to signal to people already in the know about what they mean, it's to indicate to those who don't what the games might include, and to do so in a way that doesn't automatically embellish the content. Immersive sim - to say nothing of the even worse term "imsim" - fails on the last two points, so regardless of how old it is (and it's age as a genre title is highly questionable vs a term which happened to have been used in some capacity at some point), it's still bad.

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As I've said, I agree that the name could be better.
But lots of genre names only make sense once you're familiar with them.
And none of the alternatives I've seen people suggest are specific enough to either cover only immersive sims, or broad enough to cover all of them.

 

[Banzai]

I always thought it was a little dumb to categorize Smash as a "platform fighter". I admittedly don't know much about fighting games but that sounds made up to have Smash be its own category.

I know this one makes sense and isn't bullshit as the title of the thread demands, but I feel like there should be a better name for Metroidvania games.

 

[Plinkerton]

A classic example is Nintendo's insistence than Metroid Prime was first person adventure and not a first person shooter. You shoot a lot of stuff in that game.

Speaking of Metroid, Metroidvania is a dumb name for a genre because Castletroids is so much better to say.

 

[Deleted member 37739]

100% accurate. "Soulsborne" sounds awful and adds absolutely zero descriptive value over "Souls".

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I think Souls-like works for the genre - Souls seems like should it just refer to canon 'Souls' games, but the core design philosophies have been closely enough aped and often enough for it to be consider a sub-genre in its own right.

 

[Deleted member 2834]

I think Souls-like works for the genre - Souls seems like should it just refer to canon 'Souls' games, but the core design philosophies have been closely enough aped and often enough for it to be consider a sub-genre in its own right.

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Sure, anything that's not Soulsborne is fine with me

 

[Mentalist]

I could have sworn that "Character Action" is a new name that only popped up a few years ago, and that "Extreme Action" used to be the genre name. "Extreme Action (game)" is a better name since any action game can be spectacle based. GoW is spectacle based to a fault, but the actual gameplay is pretty mild, compared to DMC3 which is much more extreme in terms of gameplay action.

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See, I like "spectacle fighter", because it tends to encompass games with 2 core mechanics
1) score based on your combo length
2) unlockable moves not necessarily tied to equipment (that's more of an action/adventure or Metroidvania) or stats (that's RPG territory). New weapons aren't classified as " equipment" in this.
-there's also a tendency to use aerial attacks a lot, which makes it more of a spectacle, as opposed to less combat, and more exploration oriented action/adventure games.

 

[Firmament1]

"Character Action".

I really don't like Spectacle Fighter, and Stylish Action, because... Well, what defines something as "Stylish"?

I've personally decided to just stop trying to classify them, and just stick to referring to them as "Action". If you ask for something similar, I'll know what you're talking about.

I always thought spectacle fighter makes it sound like a shallow experience, to me its more about mechanics than spectacle. I prefer character action just because I feel it means that the action has personality conveyed by the character being used like how Bayos action is like a dance and how playing Nero is more visceral.

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Expressing a character's personality through their fighting style and moveset is not something I consider a good parameter for defining a genre.

That's literally just basic character building.

 

[collige]

"First person adventure" for Metroid Prime was always kinda dumb.

 

[Wulfram]

"Adventure" is the worse genre name, it really doesn't mean anything.

 

[Coen]

Puzzle game for something like Tetris or PuyoPuyo. Puzzles can be solved. Tetris can't be solved, it's more about hand eye coordination and reflexes.

 

[Iztok]

Corridor shooter.

It kind of made sense back then - because well, they were just that, but looking back it's so stupid. Even "doom clone" was better.

 

[DAHGAMING]

Shlooter

 

[Swift_Gamer]

There has to be something better than "immersive sim."

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Isn't this just a fancy name for a slow paced FPS?

 

[Iztok]

I always thought it was a little dumb to categorize Smash as a "platform fighter". I admittedly don't know much about fighting games but that sounds made up to have Smash be its own category.

I know this one makes sense and isn't bullshit as the title of the thread demands, but I feel like there should be a better name for Metroidvania games.

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That one actually makes sense to me, because I wouldn't ever agree that it's a regular fighting game.

 

[Squid Bunny]

Animal Crossing: Communication game.

I actually love that they STILL use this.

 

[Tiggleton]

"Soulsborne"

guys, "Souls" was ALWAYS adequate

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What makes Dark Souls a genre though?

Yeah... I mean some games the word roleplaying fits. But so many it's really not role-playing. JRPG is the worst though cause in general those games aren't roleplaying at all (I mean I love JRPGs but they aren't roleplaying games). I mean in some ways it at least is ok cause the name JRPG actually does tell you what kind of game it is, but I just object to having roleplaying in the name. But maybe I'm just being stubbern cause when I think roleplaying I think choosing who your character is and what they do (I come from actually doing the original roleplaying, dice and paper).

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At this point RPG just indicates that the game draws its mechanics from tabletop RPGs. The first Computer RPGs made in America had no role-playing because of tech limitations. So it's never been 100% accurate. Just used to say "hey this is like DnD but on your computer/TV"

 

[Siresly]

Video games.
They're digital tactile audio video games. DTAVGs.

Genres and labels in general mostly get stupid when you get down to it. Too broad or too specific or pointless or confusing or up its own ass.
It's better to just let language be Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment and not worry about it too much.
You tend to figure out what kind of game a game is, whether our words for them make sense or not.

 

[Pargon]

Isn't this just a fancy name for a slow paced FPS?

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No. People have already explained what it means in this thread.
It's games that simulate a space and try to make it as interactive as possible, giving the player options beyond "shoot" being the only interaction with the world.

 

[Liam Allen-Miller]

What makes Dark Souls a genre though?

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I don't think Dark Souls is a genre all on its own, but "Souls" is a good sub genre signifier considering how many games take direct influence from them!

 

[Dussck]

Walking Simulator. Every game you control a character is a Walking Simulator to some degree. Maybe call every game a 'Looking Simulator' as well.

 

[kubev]

If we are mostly talking about the random one-off genre names that developers / marketers come up with to make their games sound super special unique, First Person Adventure for Metroid Prime always felt a little silly.

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Yeah, I felt as though Nintendo used this moniker to justify the game's lousy control scheme. Powerslave had this style of game play years prior and managed to have an excellent control scheme.

 

[Cosmic Voyager]

RPG is a silly name, because who's to say I can't mentally role play in other types of games

 

[Cosmic Voyager]

Walking Simulator. Every game you control a character is a Walking Simulator to some degree. Maybe call every game a 'Looking Simulator' as well.

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Don't you know that Mario is just a jumping simulator?!

 

[Okapi]

Another vote for Souls instead of Soulsborne!

 

[Swift_Gamer]

No. People have already explained what it means in this thread.
It's games that simulate a space and try to make it as interactive as possible, giving the player options beyond "shoot" being the only interaction with the world.

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But it is a first person game anyway. Immersive sim is a really bad name. One of the worst.

 

[Bufbaf]

"Walking Simulator" is insulting and just used to mock games. It's no genre, it's a middle finger to game design and I will have no more of it!