What Classifies as a Cross Genre Game?
By zonerover 18 Comments
Recently I had a wiki submission approved for 'Cross Genre Games', something I thought was valuable, but also a tad obscure. Here's what I defined it as in the submission:
So my take on this concept is that we are focusing on non-traditional, innovative combinations. I know this seems like an odd way to define the concept since 'cross-genre' implies any two genres, but frankly I couldn't think of a better way to summarise this. We are NOT including games which are in established genre combinations. For these games, I've just put in a wiki submission for what I described as a 'catchall concept' called 'Legacy Cross Genre Games' which I admit is even more obscure, but we'll see if the mods like it (more details about Legacy Cross Genre Games below).Cross Genre Games take completely different gaming genres and place them together in a single game in an attempt to innovate beyond traditional gaming practices.
Here's some examples of what I think 'Cross Genre Games' include and don't include:
What I Think Belongs Here
- So my gut reaction is that something like Puzzle Quest or the already added Castlevania Puzzle belongs here because they both combine the puzzle genre with another genre - the RPG in the case of Puzzle Quest, and Action Adventure in the case of Castlevania Puzzle. This combination was first coined by Puzzle Quest in 2007; before then we hadn't seen this combination fully fleshed out before, and not many games from this genre combination have come out since.
- I also thought about FPS-RTS combination games when I created the concept; the combination looks so weird that the acronym doesn't look right unless I hyphenate it. Titles like Raven Squad tried to do this but failed since the two types of games are so hard to combine. While it could be debated as to whether Raven Squad belongs here (I think the RTS mechanics are too watered down), it does illustrate that any game which does pull this off belongs in the 'Cross Genre Games' concept.
What I Think Doesn't Belong Here
- Anything with MMO before the genre doesn't belong here. I know interacting with hundreds or thousands of real people instead of AI is certainly a noteworthy achievement in gaming history, but I think this seems more like an evolution of a genre-type than something particually revolutionary. This is particular true since we've seen a million WoW clones since they came out; even if you thought that MMO type games belonged here, there's been so many of them since that MMORPGs and even MMOFPS' are pretty much genres in themselves.
- There was a time that the Action Role-Playing genre probably looked quite new. In fact, there's an entire Wikipedia entry summising the history of this sub-genre. I have to admit, it would be foolish of me to try to pretend as if I knew the entire backhistory of ARPGs, but this combination has been around for such a long time that I don't think it belongs under the 'Cross Genre Game' category.
So here's where I pose a set of questions about what do you think about 'Cross Genre Games'?
- Should the page exist at all?
- Acknowledging that the term 'Cross Genre Games' is a little obscure, is my definition appropriate?
- Are my examples correct?
- What games would you add to the 'Cross Genre Game' page, and if it eventuates, the 'Legacy Cross Genre Games' page?
- What do we do with MMORPGs - are they a sub-genre by themselves such that they don't belong on both the 'Cross Genre Games' and the 'Legacy Cross Genre Games' pages, or since there was a time when they were popular, do we just include those groundbreaking games on the 'Legacy Cross Genre Games' page
(if its approved)? - If a set of games becomes stereotypical (eg. there are a million WoW clones suddenly released), should we remove all those clones and/or the original innovative games from the 'Legacy Cross Genre Games" page (if its approved).
The debate rages on...