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Is there a videogame equivalent to "genre" films?


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Despite the fact that "genre film" is a vague term that's hard to define, because everything is in a genre, I've always found the moniker pretty helpful, and over time have realized that these are what I gravitate toward more than anything else movie-wise.  Generally speaking, it means high-concept (interesting, one sentence hook) horror, action, or sci-fi (the "low-brow" genres), and specifically movies that have strong genre conventions or tropes.  The opposite would be something like a character drama or a biopic, for example.

 

I started to wonder if the same kind of delineation might exist in games.  Would you consider Doom, or Burnout, a genre game?  Or is there too much blending when it comes to game conventions to make a meaningful or useful distinction like we do for film?

 

 

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3 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

Despite the fact that "genre film" is a vague term that's hard to define, because everything is in a genre, I've always found the moniker pretty helpful, and over time have realized that these are what I gravitate toward more than anything else movie-wise.  Generally speaking, it means high-concept (interesting, one sentence hook) horror, action, or sci-fi (the "low-brow" genres), and specifically movies that have strong genre conventions or tropes.  The opposite would be something like a character drama or a biopic, for example.

 

I started to wonder if the same kind of delineation might exist in games.  Would you consider Doom, or Burnout, a genre game?  Or is there too much blending when it comes to game conventions to make a meaningful or useful distinction like we do for film?

 

 

 

Im not sure what the genre is specifically but I feel like things like No More Heroes, Deadly Premonition, Lolipop Chainsaw, Wanted: Dead, Killer is Dead, Killer7, etc are like this. Kind of this Japanese developed and inspired by 80s/90s Americana genre thing?  

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1 minute ago, stepee said:

 

Im not sure what the genre is specifically but I feel like things like No More Heroes, Deadly Premonition, Lolipop Chainsaw, Wanted: Dead, Killer is Dead, Killer7, etc are like this. Kind of this Japanese developed and inspired by 80s/90s Americana genre thing?  

 

That's a great call.  I do think there is an east/west effect on this kind of thing.  I think Resident Evil is another pretty great example of what I'm talking about. 

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Also I guess you could say maybe the sub genres within the genres are similar to this. So your boomer shooters, your souls likes, your metroidvanias, anything with a commonly used term that people like to argue a lot.

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