CHAPTER

02

Defining Game Genres

Andrew Burn and Diane Carr

MANY computer games could be said to offer degrees of role play, but not all games that do so are categorized as Role Playing Games (RPGs). So what is an RPG? To ask this question is to invoke the complex set of practices by which computer games are described and classified by a range of groups, with a variety of interests – from developers to marketing departments, reviewers to fans, cult audiences to academics. In some ways these categorizing practices are a continuation of the ways that the idea of genre has been used in literature, film, art and music. There are, however, important differences. In order to describe these differences, and prior to examining what differentiates RPGs from other game genres, it is necessary to review the theory and practice of genre classification itself.

What is genre?

The term ‘genre’ is used in everyday language, but it is also used in a more specialized or technical sense within literary, film and media theory. Genre theory belongs to a tradition of classification often traced back to Aristotle who, in about 335 BC, laid out systematic criteria for the analysis of epic poetry, tragedy and comedy. For Aristotle poetry was, above all, representation, or mimesis – and this serves as one basis of his classification: how do different fictions represent the world in different ways? He was also concerned with form as another basis for distinguishing between various kinds of poetry, and with medium (voice, flute or lyre). This balance between content, form and medium continues in genre theory to the present day.

The most influential modern theory of genres is that of Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian cultural and literary theorist who saw genres as a form of social action. According to Bakhtin, genres are the conventional uses of language by social groups, and range from the ‘little speech genres’ (or everyday uses of language) discussed by his colleague Volosinov (1973) to the major genres of the novel analysed by Bakhtin himself (1981). The founding characteristic of language in Bakhtin’s view is dialogue: genres are forged in the ceaseless exchange between speaker and listener.

Bakhtin’s work, then, adds four new ideas to the Aristotelian model. First, genres are not to be found only in artistic texts, but in all uses of language – from the job interview to the political speech. Second, genre is not only found in the text, but also in the social context that produces it. Third, genre is not a fixed set of properties, but is fluid: it is constantly remade in a dialogic (from ‘dialogue’) process in order to suit the needs of the social groups who produce, define and contest its structures. Finally, genres are resources for both the production and the reception of texts. This means that they exist as patterns that cannot be ignored by makers of texts, however much they may seek to transform them. It also means that they serve as resources for the social use and the interpretation of texts by their audiences.

To give a brief example: later in this chapter we explore how the RPG genre was received and transformed by Japanese computer game designers in the 1980s. Games such as Final Fantasy VII hark back to earlier sets of generic characteristics (that themselves reflect the social interests of particular games communities), but these new games were designed to address the needs and interests of a different community, which was reared on the popular narratives of post-war Japan. These new RPGs were wedded to a different technology (games consoles) and, while they borrowed from pre-existing RPGs, they held no particular commitment to retain or duplicate their structures. Thus the genre evolved to accommodate itself to new social uses and new resources, both cultural and technological.

According to Bakhtin, this process of generic change is characteristic of language in general. Language, he argues, is naturally fluid and diverse; it contains many dialects and accents. However, there are also powerful forces that attempt to limit this diversity; that seek to pull language towards a unifying, standardized form. Similarly, genres could be regarded as ideological straitjackets that control how texts represent the world, and how we engage with them; or they can be regarded as structures whose patterns help us to navigate through and beyond existing representations of reality, and to find communities of like-minded readers, viewers and players.

The idea of genre as a form of social practice has been further developed in the field of film studies. Early film theorists tended to define genres in terms of more or less fixed sets of characteristics, for example, particular narrative devices, settings or character types. However, Steve Neale (1980) argued that genres were not simply about the qualities of film texts, but ‘sets of expectations, orientations and conventions’ that were shared between film-makers, the film industry and audiences. The industry might seek to fix or stabilize the characteristics of a genre in the hope of capitalizing on earlier successes, but it is also bound to encourage change (for example through the creation of new, hybrid genres), in the hope that it might reach new audiences. Neale’s more recent work (2000, 2002) has tended to focus on the economic dimensions of this process – in effect, on how the industry attempts to use genre to regulate audience behaviour in order to generate profit. Yet genres are not solely defined by the industry: what ‘counts’ as a romance or an action movie, for example, is also debated by critics and filmgoers. Genre, then, is a matter of the dynamic relationships between producers, audiences and texts.

A further development of the idea of genre can be found in social semiotic theory, which we use in analysing some of the games in this book (see chapters 6, 7 and 8). Social semiotic theorist Gunther Kress (2003) writes that genres seek to establish particular kinds of interactions between producers, readers and texts. For example, his analyses of scientific texts suggest that in some cases science is defined as a set of objective facts that the reader is expected to learn. In other cases, it is offered as a more subjective narrative with which the reader is invited to engage in an active and questioning way. Likewise, we might classify games according to the way in which they establish the terms of the player’s interaction. These terms might be multiple and simultaneous, however; so, while this form of classification is relevant, it might not be the most useful place to begin when classifying a game.

We could prioritize one aspect of a computer game in order to simplify or expedite its generic classification, but in truth these games are hybrid forms, and thus they invite compound classifications. As we noted in the previous chapter, computer games are played on various platforms, they incorporate different rules, outcomes, and obstacles, and they represent their worlds, themes and inhabitants in different ways. Generic classification that foregrounds any one of these factors would be valid, yet, taken in isolation, each would be (to varying degrees) partial. Thus, a game can simultaneously be classified according to the platform on which it is played (PC, mobile phone, XBox), the style of play it affords (multiplayer, networked, or single user, for instance), the manner in which it positions the player in relation to the game world (first person, third person, ‘god’), the kind of rules and goals that make up its gameplay (racing game, action adventure), or its representational aspects (science fiction, high fantasy, urban realism). All these possibilities for classification coexist in games, and none are irrelevant, but we would argue that the style of gameplay on offer is of fundamental significance.

Game genres

We cited various theorists in chapter 1, including Salen and Zimmerman (2003), and Celia Pearce (2002), in order to argue that games are, first and foremost, rule-based systems, or structures for play. Games involve rules, and a game’s genre is (to a large degree) determined by its rules.1 Computer RPGs owe their rules to earlier table-top RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. The rules govern timing and turn taking, combat outcomes, character creation, and the kinds of weapons and magic on offer to different character types. While table-top RPGs are open-ended (with negotiable rule sets), offline computer RPGs tend to have set outcomes – to ‘win’ is to complete the quest and defeat the archvillain. However, an emphasis on exploration, storytelling and characterization does mean that these games are relatively non-linear. Action adventure games like Tomb Raider (1996), on the other hand, tend to set specific goals that must be attained in a particular order before the player can progress. Rules are likely to concern the ways that resources need to be rationed or used up, the combination of commands that are necessary to get the avatar successfully past a spatial obstacle or the kind of error that will have them plunging to a (temporary) death.

Meanwhile, in those sports simulation games that mimic the experience of a single physical activity, such as car racing or skate-boarding, the rules and objectives of the game are likely to relate directly to these activities. Alongside this will be the economies related to the competitive...