• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.3-14
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• 2008

Classifying digital games' genres is quite ambiguous work, as they have been using other media's genre classification such as film genre. Therefore this paper tries to propose a new way of classifying genres of digital games. There are two kinds of approaches to digital games genres: one is based on gamers' activities and the other is on game text. The former turned out to be limitative because the meanings of gamers' activities are sometimes overlapped and this overlapping causes lack of objectivity in deciding which activity belongs to which genre. On the other hand, the latter is comparatively clear and accurate as it is based on what a game text provides. After all. a new classification of digital games based on game text makes total of 7 digital game types, which are Physical obstacles, Mainly Physical & partially intellectual obstacles, Intellectual obstacles, Mainly intellectual & partially physical obstacles, Self-supporting games, Confronting games, Ranking games, and each type has its own convention and characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Computer Game
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.51-59
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze genre differentiation in digital games and examine the changing characteristics of core genre elements. Especially this study focuses on the aspect that how players recognize genre differentiation based on the conceptual blending theory. The evolution of the genre does not end with decline or extinction. The genre keeps being divided into sub-genres through partial use of genre elements. The differentiation of the genre results from the principle of frame confrontation or expansion with a parent genre. Rogue-like games are differentiated from Role-playing games by frame conflict, while Metroidvania games are differentiated from Platform adventure games by frame expansion. In the former case, the core genre elements are independent and easily combined with other genres. For example, the core mechanism of Rogue-like genre like 'perma-death' or 'procedural generation' has a decisive effect on the differentiation of the game experience become an independent genre element. In the latter case of Metroidvania, the core genre elements strongly reveals context dependency and are difficult to use outside the genre convention. The core mechanism of Metroidvania is 'backtracking' in the labyrinth style map, but it could be effective genre element within the specific context like side-scrolling action-platformer.