Establishing Video Game Genres Using Data-Driven Modeling and Product Databases

Abstract

Establishing genres is the first step toward analyzing games and how the genre landscape evolves over the years. We use data-driven modeling that distils genres from textual descriptions of a large collection of games. We analyze the evolution of game genres from 1979 till 2010. Our results indicate that until 1990, there have been many genres competing for dominance, but thereafter sport-racing, strategy, and action have become the most prevalent genres. Moreover, we find that games vary to a great extent as to whether they belong mostly to one genre or to a combination of several genres. We also compare the results of our data-driven model with two product databases, Metacritic and Mobygames, and observe that the classifications of games to different genres are substantially different, even between product databases. We conclude with discussion on potential future applications and how they may further our understanding of video game genres.

Content structure is king: An empirical study on gratifications, game genres and content type on Twitch

“…The academic quest for a definitive means of classifying video games, is at odds with the way in which genre is both conceived and used in wider society as well as with a more nuanced investigation of cultural artefacts. Whilst there is a constant evolution of what is commonly understood to constitute any particular genre (Arsenault, 2009;Dor, 2014), the labels and terms themselves seem to be relatively constant and durable (Faisal & Peltoniemi, 2015). The perspective offered by "social linguistics" (Gee, 2015) is, therefore, valuable in understanding genre labels as context-specific discourses that are driven by distinct communities.…”

Game preferences of K-12 level students: analysis and prediction using the association rule

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