On Genre

Isn’t it all just a simulation?

On a Discord server I share with developer friends an interesting conversation started around video game genre which helped clarify and develop some of my own thoughts on the subject. It started with folks discussing the original Sim City, why is it a “simulation” (aka “sim”) game and why other titles, such as the Civilization series, or other genres, such as roguelikes, are or are not considered sims.

I believe that sims is such a large umbrella term with low utility. At most it refers to “games with significantly complex detailed systems and variables" (colony sims, tycoon games, etc) or alternatively "games that resemble a simulacrum of reality whether fantastical or realistic" (shop sims, life sims, flight sims) but it is a porous genre label that applies to a wide swath of highly dissimilar titles.

Digging into more specific sub genres of sim games, such as colony sims (Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld) or immersive sims (Thief, Deus Ex) the genre label becomes more utilitarian for communication, as using these labels can better illustrate what type of game a title is or isn’t.

Why may one label invoke a clearer picture than another? Why may one label be more or less popular? “Immersive sim” while more specific than just “sim”, is still a frequently debated and confusing label that only very game literate PC gamers tend to understand.

Genre elements

Since nearly every modern game is a hybrid of many different genres, I believe it's easier to communicate about genre when breaking down specific mechanics or elements as being indicative of a given genre. When folks say a game has "RPG elements" they usually are referring to a game with hit points, experience points or other archetypical systems. They then are able to combine that with broader genres to describe a game, thus Destiny is a first person shooter with RPG elements. 

I propose that when genre elements are more visible, concrete, and understandable for players, it's easier for them to reach a consensus of how to label a game. One of the clearest and most explicit illustrations of a mechanic of a game is a UI interface, which is most frequently implemented by devs for the purpose of making players conscious of an underlying system. Most UI design in games prioritizes legibility of form. Thus, archetypical elements of a genre that live in the UI are the easiest for players to pinpoint and talk about. Since most of RPGs genre elements are displayed in explicit UI displays like health bars, experience bars, or damage totals popping up above an enemy's head, “RPG elements” is one of the most popular phrases of its kind, 

Simulation games are murkier than RPGs because the defining elements of the genre are behind the scenes and not necessarily exposed to a player. In the case of system-heavy sims, they usually involve things happening in the background architecture of the codebase. Sim games like colony sims or city builders are relatively easier to identify because they almost always have complicated UI info about energy use and population, etc, with a sort of maximalist complexity that players are highly aware of. Life sims are a bit harder to nail down because they are composed of more abstract elements to support player expression and fantasy, like being able to decorate a house or choose the outfit for a character. Finally, immersive sims are even more elusive because the simulation aspect is usually not shown explicitly at all, but instead only bubbles up as environmental stimuli, like a pair of AI characters having a conversation about what they just heard or saw. At a glance of screenshots and without prior knowledge, most folks would not be able to distinguish Deus Ex as different from any other first person shooter.

Part of the supremacy of roguelike as a useful genre term in the last 10 years has been that there are few elements more obvious to players than "starting a run" and "ending in permadeath". It is nearly impossible to start or stop playing a roguelike game without being aware of these two genre-defining elements which will inevitably bookend your play session. Players that argue for a need to distinguish “roguelikes” from “roguelites” because they feel the need to separate the former as closer to the original Rogue are fighting an uphill battle. The elements that they consider important to being a roguelike; perhaps “collecting an inventory of randomized items”, “crawling a procedural dungeon”, or even “grid-based movement”; are more obtuse and less obvious than the readily apparent “run-based and permadeath” that less purist players are easily identifying. Luckily, a new genre label, “traditional roguelike”, has stepped up to fill in the shoes for the true heads; its mouthy extra syllable count safeguarding any bastardization of its meaning by unwanted interlopers to the true faith of Rogue.

Context matters

One friend in the Discord chat began poking at edges of genre labels and their definitions as a construction. Is not Civilization a sim since it has systemic complexity and the deep UI of other sims? Why is Minecraft not a 4x game since you eXplore, eXtinguish, eXploit, and eXterminate in it?  Or should we call it a first-person crafting game with 4x elements?

I argue that genre labels are culturally defined and are only useful insofar as they can aid effective communication between particular audiences in a particular context. Since sims typically do not have strategy, combat, and empire expansion like 4X games such as Masters of Orion or Civilization, there are few (or perhaps no) contexts you will hear Sim City labelled as 4X. Since 4X games are typically “turn-based with a god-perspective map view,” you won’t often hear Minecraft, a real-time first-person game, labelled a 4X game.

As a metaphor, imagine entering a class of kindergartners that have been drawing shapes with crayons. When speaking to them, you wouldn’t point at a drawing of a square and insist on referring to it as a “rectangle” or “polygon” despite being mathematically correct. Socially in that context, speaking of the shape as a “square” is probably the clearest way to describe its properties and point the students' eyes towards a particular shape on a page of many different shapes. Insisting it’s technically a rectangle would probably just upset your audience and confuse them. Perhaps in the context of a middle school geometry class, there would be more room for demonstrating the boundaries and overlaps of these labels to describe one shape.

Similarly, genre labels have more or less utility depending on the audience and context. My friend said the way I talked about this sounds like “code-switching,” and I think that’s an accurate assessment: In the context of talking to fellow developers, my coworkers working on a prototype, or to an audience of very high literacy players, I would potentially welcome exploring the argument of “why Minecraft is a 4x game, actually”. But when speaking broadly about the largest group of communicators in games, ie your average player, I’m not sure saying “Minecraft is a 4X game” is at all helpful, but more confusing, and perhaps even antisocial. 

A recent example is Nintendo’s Pokopia. I was delighted to recognize a lot of colony sim elements in the game (ie building separate habitat spaces for each particular Pokemon’s needs) and I mentioned this observation on Bluesky, but I am not at all surprised most players compare it to games like life sim games like Animal Crossing or voxel games like Dragon Quest Builders and not Dwarf Fortress. 

The elasticity of genre terms and the importance of the context they are delivered does not, in my opinion, make them useless. Perhaps though, identifying and speaking towards particular elements of genres as atomic units a game is composed of could lead to healthier, more nuanced discussion of games.
Understanding a genre’s cornerstone elements and the relative visibility of each element can help us better describe games and understand the social mechanics of why one game gets called one label or not, and further, why some labels come into vogue while others remain unpopular. The 4X genre, while fairly specific, is not an extremely popular label, as frankly, it’s a bit difficult to understand. I argue it is composed of at least the following elements (there are probably many more) and assign them the following ranks out of 10 for clarity (0 being very confusing, 10 being very clear):

• 7) eXplore: Exploration mechanics (an abstract concept but an unavoidable experience as the player progresses through the game)
• 4) eXpand: Visible but hard to understand what this means, ie is it founding cities or space colonies, or acquiring new regions? It is inconsistent between titles.
• 5) eXploit: Resource collection is a strong cornerstone element of 4x, but few players would label these mechanics “exploiting” since that carries a judgement of the ethics of the mechanic and feels like a pejorative.
• 6) eXterminate: Wiping out other opponents as part of gameplay (abstract but only happens in late game, not inevitable in every playthrough), similar to “eXploit” feels like a pejorative term for the mechanics
• 7) “Empire building” is perhaps a better way to say the same “eXpand” and perhaps a clearer cornerstone for the genre.
• 8) “Strategy-based combat”: in the lineage of grand tabletop war games, is perhaps a clearer cornerstone than “eXterminate”
• 10) “A god’s eye camera view of a map” (ie not first person perspective) is the clearest, most explicit element; it's unavoidable to notice even looking at screenshots without playing

As we can see, the four elements that make up the 4X moniker (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) are weaker than the other cornerstones I’ve identified, which perhaps helps illustrate why it isn’t the most popular or clearest genre label. That said, it’s still very useful for a certain subculture of PC strategy gamers (usually older heads) who absolutely know exactly what you are talking about if you call a game this. And it’s certainly more specific than “strategy” or “war game”.

Developing genre

In terms of the particular context of making games, I want to make clear I am not arguing that games should or shouldn’t be developed with genre in mind, but rather that their reception and history can be understood in how players label them.

Sakurai developed the original Smash Bros as a fighting game, but its reception has always been controversial in the “fighting game community”. Smash Bros includes so many novel elements not present in other fighting games, such as its emphasis on platforming or its novel damage percentage + knockback mechanic. It also lacks certain fighting game cornerstones: it’s not centered on 1v1 gameplay, it lacks complicated combos, it’s not designed primarily around hardcore competitive play. The struggle to accept Smash Bros as a “fighting game” has led to it generating new genre labels like “platform fighter” or “party fighter”, but few folks would say that Smash Bros is not a commercial or critical success, nor that it isn’t well designed.

My personal wish is that video game genres could transcend genre labels that only speak towards a game’s form, and actually indicate something about the players, creators, or subcultures of a genre. This is common in underground music, where labels like “egg punk” or “mysterious guy hardcore” might illustrate more about a band and its fans’ behavior, dress, and philosophical outlook than the sonic properties of the music produced. Of course, compared to music culture, which has live performance venues, games culture exists primarily digitally with few local or physical manifestations, and with a larger disconnect between producers (developers) and consumers (players), making it harder to foster this kind of cultural labelling nor grant such labels any utility. Unless developers and players become a more visible part of games culture, genre labels will not develop that indicate anything about its participants. Labels such as “indie” or “alt” games have come close to having this type of meaning but are just not very specific nor anchored in commonly understood concrete, visible elements. Fighting games are known for the “fighting games community” and are perhaps the strongest example of a video game genre carrying this kind of meaning as a result of a long history of public events and community building by participants in that genre.