The New Video Game Genres: Exploring Emotions, Interactivity and Fun

Games have come a long way since the quaint, bygone days of Tetris and Asteroids. These days some attempt to challenge our thinking, others to make us laugh or cry.

Even with such a broad range of games, people often narrow the field to one possible future. For example: All games will become completely open-ended. Games will never tell stories effectively. And so on.

In reality though, unique genres have emerged in which all of these (and more) possibilities are being explored. The old FPS and RPG genres just don’t cut it anymore. Video games cover more ground than people realize, and these new game categories will eventually encompass games as distinct from one another as sculptures are from oil paintings.

Interactive Stories aka Existentialist Video Games

This category includes titles like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and World of Warcraft, in which the point of the game is to offer the player an alternate reality. Gamers create their own characters, inhabiting a world that’s affected by their in-game decisions. In short, the gaming experience is determined by YOU.

A free computer game called Façade, released in 2005, offers another dimension to the concept of “interactive story.” The New York Times called Façade the “future of video games” when it first debuted.

In the one-act drama, lasting about fifteen minutes, you assume the role of a longtime best friend visiting the characters Tripp and Grace. Once at their apartment, you discover their marriage is crumbling, and by typing responses to their dialogue in real time, you can affect the night’s outcome.

Façade sought to push the boundaries of what artificial intelligence (AI) and video games could accomplish. The idea was to create a unique story whose outcome depended on the player’s input (in Façade, the journey to one of various endings is different every time you play).

That said, titles like Oblivion are similar to Façade in several ways. Both assign your character little to no identity, allowing the gamer to inhabit the character’s role as much as possible. Both encourage free action on the gamer’s part; you choose whether you want to be a good friend or a petty thief, whether you want to pursue the main quest or whether you just want to wander around.

MMORPGS are great examples of interactive stories as they exist today, whereas elements of Façade indicate what they could be in the future. In both, the player’s decisions are the game’s sole focus. There is no inherent purpose or storyline to the game. The gamer creates it for himself.

It sounds a lot like Existentialism. Oh, the joys of high school English class.

Smart Toys — The Flashy Playthings of the Future

Will Wright, creator of Spore, has a clear vision of video games that sums up this category nicely. Games are not stories, he says. Their ancestry is older than the printed word, belonging to the evolution of toys and, in general, just playing around.

Wright’s games exemplify this opinion. It’s easy to think of games like The Sims and Spore as highly sophisticated toys for adults.

Video games like these use interactivity to achieve that all-high purpose of having fun. Games are, after all, games.

They’re naturally similar to Monopoly or Cops and Robbers. The only difference is that video games use a different medium to generate that fun (screens and speakers versus dice, paper money and plastic pistols).

This category of games includes most of our new Wii titles, as well as most of the older classics including PunchOut and the original Mario. Rhythm games like Rock Band and DDR fall into this group. Even fighting games like Super Smash Bros. and Soul Caliber are more similar to expensive toys than anything else.

Of course, all video games aim to be fun. But these smart toys use unadulterated gameplay as their primary attraction. While they can be immersive, they don’t offer worlds as deep as those found in interactive stories, and you certainly don’t make any interesting decisions besides mashing buttons while jamming on Guitar Hero.

Gameplay, that highest of holies, is the main allure. No strings attached. Whether it’s slaughtering your enemy’s hordes in Age of Empires or getting a strike in Wii Bowling, flashy toys are just that: fancy, stylish toys meant to whittle time away.

That doesn’t mean these games are necessarily shallow. We don’t accuse board games of being shallow, do we? Even so, some board games are ultimately more fun than others, and lesser ones are bound to feel shallow in comparison.

That’s right. We’re looking at you, Wii.

Narrative Games: Artsy and Evoking Emotion

Solid Snake feels right at home in this category.

In these titles, developers have already established a specific purpose for the game. It has a clear and definite conclusion. Characters and storyline are inextricably linked to the gameplay, and gamers assume the role of a well developed protagonist with clear goals. To sum it up, narrative games seek to provide a wholesome, cinematic experience as opposed to a simple, endless romp in the woods.

Games like Metal Gear Solid and Shadow of the Colossus fall into this group. From the outset of these games, it’s clear the developers want to tell a particular story; they use certain moments to evoke strong emotional responses, causing us to empathize with the characters, and deliberate storytelling techniques reveal the plot in film-like style. Developers use gameplay not just for the sake of it, but to propel the story towards the conclusion.

Narrative games have the traditional elements of rising action and character development found in short stories and movies, so they’re similar to those mediums in several ways. However, at the same time, they’re different in that gameplay allows their stories to come alive, giving us more identification with the main character and allowing us to truly experience the plot’s struggles. In fact, being able to stir a gamer’s emotions is one of a narrative game’s biggest strengths.

These games still have a lot of untapped potential, mostly because a lot of them (Resident Evil, for example) are technically narrative in nature but their stories, while a big part of the game, aren’t essential. Strip away the cut scenes, leave the objectives, and you could still have a good experience.

It won’t be quite the same, but it’s not as if the characters and storyline make or break the game. Do the same thing to Final Fantasy, and suddenly, most of the game is missing.

So while narrative games have the potential to provoke strong emotional responses from gamers, usually it doesn’t happen.

The sooner games abandon clichés, the better.

Closing Words

These are broad categories and some titles undoubtedly fall into two groups or all three. But a lot of games fit exclusively into just one group without much trouble.

In any case, the term “video games” stands for a broad industry in which developers have many differing goals for their games. While some game designers will hope to create genuine emotional experiences, others will attempt the next fully immersive fantasy world.

Attempting to categorize them correctly, at least, allows us to judge them with the right measuring stick.