Video Game Taxonomy
The key problem that afflicts the study of computer games as Art, Narrative and Experience is the word itself, ‘Game’.
The word is an umbrella term that spans its wide reach to encompass everything from Pong and Tetris to Bioshock and World of Warcraft. And in having such a wide range, the term Game becomes decidedly unusual and unhelpful to both game designers and game scholars. No matter how much the ludologists may argue that anything that conforms to rules, goals and ‘play’ is a Game, the experience and construction of Tetris and Bioshock are clearly not the same – indeed, not even vaguely similar.. Calling both a ‘game’ by be technically true to ludology but the term fails to provide any useful clarity for understand both how each works and how each is made.
Breaking down this problem and establishing more functional game taxonomies – as well as articulating a continuum of game narrative form – is the principle challenge of a new module ive been developing for the AFTRS Graduate Certificate in Screen Culture.
In developing the ideas for the course I have been toying with a set of graphs and cartesian systems for identifying not just the differences between games but the continuums that allow us to plot trajectories and vectors from one game to another, to understand the ecology of games in relation to each other.
The first process would be to bracket games out from each other in a way that avoids dysfunction and finds distinct conceptual commonality. In this context I see 3 broad groupings – groups that are not hard-edged but represent weightings on a spectrum. The 3 brackets are:
- Casual/Puzzle:
Limited time, intellectual or emotional commitment
Puzzle-based activity
Simple rules
No special skills or knowledge required to play
Played in short bursts
Minimal narrative
Singular task
Often focused on ‘scores’
- Complex/Narrative
Conjoining of narrative + gameplay
Sophisticated and multiple tasks
Passively or actively Authored and narrated experience
Concerned with experience rather than scores
Requires (and intends to build over time) special skills and knowledge
Played in long stretches
Demands commitment in time, intellect and emotional energy
- Simulation
Imitates behaviour of situation or process
Connected to real-world representations and actions
Focus on experienced story rather than authored narrative
This taxonomy also allow us to see the fuzzy continuum rather than the hard lines between the 3 groups. A game like The Sims leans heavily toward simulation but has distinct constructed dramatic narrative elements that, for example, Gran Turismo (as a near pure simulation) does not. Likewise Portal is certainly a puzzle game (albetit vastly more sophisticated Tetris) and yet has a driving narrative structure and characterisation that Tetris clearly does not. Both Portal and The Sims fit the category of Complex Games but none the less derive from and lean towards those two categories beyond Complex Games.
The second method of viewing the relationship between game types is to graph their position between 2-axes. Mimesis vs Diegesis on one axis whereby Diegesis implies a narrated game, conceptually told and authored as opposed Mimesis where they game is Show and experienced more immediately and with less deliberate or preconceived authorship.
Thus we can see a spectrum pattern from the immediacy, un-narrated, shown rather than told experience of Tetris at one end vs the heavily narrated, told rather than shown narrative experience of Heavy Rain.
The third taxonomical method allows us to consider the representations and engagement of different ‘games’ in a cartesian fashion. Two sets of polar axes – Casual <> Complex, Simulation <> Abstraction.
This method allows us to see how games cluster and spread between their visual and conceptual representations on screen (simulated or abstracted) and their modes of engagement from casual to complex.
The point of such breakdowns is an attempt to recognise embedded truisms in gaming – the fact that whilst both technically ‘Games’, Tetris and Bioshock are distinct and disconnected in form, function and experience as a push-bike is from a cement mixer. Likewise to be able to differentiate between complex games (Civilization distinct from Portal) and between casual games (Tetris and Plants vs Zombies).
Once we can viably understand how games relate, extend from, connect to, or diverge away from each other we can start to map patterns and ideas about how they work and what experiences they offer. We can also see within the scope of games those creations that extend from games but clearly sit outside of a conceptual game scope – such as Second Life and many MMORPGs. We create space to see where games may go and, over time, survey how game genres form, popularise and dissipate.
