Do game genres make sense?

[the-pi-guy]

I feel like as games have gotten larger, genre classification has made less sense in a lot of cases.

A large number of games have begun including more RPG mechanics in an attempt to give more depth.  Some bigger games include large amounts of mechanics from a variety of genres.  

In some cases, genre classification doesn't really tell you much about the game.  The action adventure genre for example is incredibly broad.  
Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, God of War, Uncharted could all be considered action adventure titles, but they are all very different experiences.  

I've also seen a fair amount of disagreement on what genre a particular title is.  Horizon for example I've often seen considered an action adventure title or an action role playing game.  

There are so many difficulties with genre classification that it doesn't even seem to make sense.

[Legend]

I think genres make sense when they are thought of as a classification problem ala steam tags.

Like take "souls-like". Some people use it to refer to any game that is hard while others view it as a very specific genre. This isn't too big of an issue because every game will have 4 additional tags/genres to clarify what it is.

In addition, users+devs vote on tags and over time they'll match what average players think even if it's traditionally wrong.



Picking genres for "other" storefronts is a pain. Basically all you can do is pull up similar games and see what they went with. There isn't enough granularity to really express yourself so you get the "action adventure" phenomenon where everything is clumped together.

[kitler53]

i feel like my games get broken down by their systems anyways in reviews.  acts more like a "code" than an actual genre these days:

Camera:  first person, third person, top-down, side scroll

Core gameplay mechanic: puzzle, rpg, action, shooter, platformer

Core level design: open world, linear, procedural

Social aspect of gameplay: solo, competitive multiplayer, co-op.

Some detail on story mechanic: narrative, whatever the opposite of narrative is

List of additional important gameplay sub-systems: could be a lot of different thinks here but you tend to get a lot of details on leveling up mechanics or progression mechanics or crafting systems or nuanced gameplay descriptions with comparisons to known systems.  "super meat boy like platforming".  "metroidvania like item progression".   "souls-like difficulty".  "world of warcraft like talent trees".   "super smash brothers rip-off".  "bullet hell". 

taken in together the review has successfully communicated what i should expect from a game so it does the job.