Video Game Taxonomy
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Overview
While it will be eternally difficult to situate some games into one genre or another, some sort of general taxonomy for video games is possible. A lot of games will fit in one of the categories below, about the same amount of games will be a combination of two or more genres.
The list below is based on Chris Crawford's 1982 book The Art of Computer Game Design which is out of print, but made available by the author itself. It is available from Chris Crawford's home page (or by using this direct link: [1]).
It is remarkable that a 1982 taxonomy still (largely) holds true after 23 years. Certainly when thinking about the fact that video games are still at its infancy and were only just born at the moment that book was written. Amazing even.
In the list below, some genres are strikken through. They appear in the original 23 year old book, but are now completely outdated. Some are in italics; these are new additions to the taxonomy, not appearing in the book.
On to the taxonomy...
Video Game Genres
Skill and Action Games
- Combat Games
- Fighting Games
- Shoot 'em Ups
- Maze Games
- Platform Games
- First-Person Shooters or FPS
- Sports Games
-
Paddle Games(outdated) - Race Games
- Miscellaneous Games
- Music Games
- Party Games
Strategy Games
- Adventures
- Third Person Adventure
- Stealth Games
- Survival Horror
- D&D Games
- Massively Multiplayer Online Games: MMOG or MMORPG
- Role Playing Games or RPG
- War games
- Real Time Strategy or RTS
- Games of Chance
- Puzzle Games
- Educational and Children's Games
- Simulation Games
- Brains 09:12, 26 May 2005 (BST)
