Game Devs: How to classify games?

[Greendude123]

Hey there!

I have a question for you guys: how would you go about classifying a game you developed?

I’m a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology and I’m looking for your help. We're running an online research study to develop a measure of game experience, and we're looking for input from game developers on game definitions through our 15-minute survey. It's all fully confidential, and I would be more than happy to provide you further details or answer any questions about my research and this study on this topic thread.

Survey Link: https://iitresearchrs.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5pZK3z7ZkG9AQsZ

You may find it surprising (or not, probably not) that academicians haven't figured a "proper" way to classify games, so game developer input is very appreciated. You guys contribute to science. Thank you!

Although I would like a response to the survey, I'd also love a discussion on the matter here on the forums!

Best,
Green

[GeoKureli]

The survey is not laid out in a good format, I probably play 6 hours a week, 1 third of it is puzzle games, a third is action adventure, the rest is 5+ other genres. I now have to split 7 genres into 6 hours at 1 hour increments, there's a lot of genres I like but don't account for my 6 hours of my recent weekly game time.

The whole survey I'm just trying to figure out how I should lie. Should I round up simulation games to a full hour, making the sum of my play time for individual genres greater than 6 hours, which I claim to play, or should I lie and say I play 7 hours.

I think you should ask different questions, and ask them in a way that can't cause inconsistencies between them and previous questions. What if I play 2 hours a week, but it spans 4 genres? Perhaps a 1-10 rating of the genre, or have percent sliders for each, all in 1 page, or a ranking system from the most played to least played

[ExRedux]

I don't see what this has to actually do with classifying anything at all. It looks suspiciously like a target audience / market analysis survey where you can extrapolate some information from their demographics until like the last few questions, and those are pretty close to useless.

There are some generic almost "text-book" definitions of what a genre is that includes only a small subset of genres, lumps a few together like "Strategy/Management" or "Action/Platformer" and then you ask:

" If your answer is “no,” please indicate one to five game types that would complete the set and allow for an adequate coverage of the extent of possible game experiences."

As if 5 games would possible allow for "adequate coverage of possible game experiences" in an industry as dynamic and fast paced as game development.

You'd probably be better of saying "What's your top 10 favourite types of games" and then picking the list of 20. Then you're at least incorporating trending in to the equation.

I'm not even sure what you'd actually be able to use the survey results for.

I'm not sure I believe this statement either: "You may find it surprising (or not, probably not) that academicians haven't figured a "proper" way to classify games, so game developer input is very appreciated."

They have. It's called user-generated tags. The only feasible way to categorize anything in an industry that will shift on you in about a week is by using the people who expect a definition to define the the thing they're looking at.

It's not like bugs or animals. They exist, and they're the same bug they were 15 minutes ago, and if they aren't then you stick another label on it and move on. You don't generally expect people to suddenly start calling the same bug something different if you ask them what it's called every few days like you should expect people to do in an industry like game development.

I guarentee if you took a thousand people and gave them that survey every 2 months they would fill that last page out differently each time, and none of the changes would have any correspondance to their demographics. They will just suddenly decide to define everything differently because they played a new game and it made them narrow or broaden their response.

Also, I'm still pretty sure this is a market survey and that last page was thrown in there so you could call it something noble. At least I'm leaning towards that because the alternative is that the person who put that survey together has no clue how the industry works.

[Greendude123]

GeoKureli,

Actually, those are great ideas! A set of percent sliders that adds up to a 100% would work well indeed, and a ranking system too. We didn't think most individuals would know their exact game time, insofar as it would lead to rounding. We thought they'd estimate.

[Greendude123]

ExRedux,

The game definitions seem "textbook" pretty much because they originated from people who write textbooks. They're all drawn from prior studies and scientific literature. Now we know, thanks to much feedback, these are lacking, and we've refined them according to the feedback.

We limited responses to 5 because we wanted to get an overlap of the most commonly-requested and important additions. Of course, with the extent of game experiences, one could classify games in a near-infinite amount of ways. "Adequately" is in the eye of the beholder, but we wanted to be as comprehensive as possible, which leads to some general classifications. Most people who play games probably don't know what, say, a multiplayer online battle arena is, but they probably know what a strategy game or an RPG might be like, even if they've never played one themselves. I think definitions and classifications are much more stable than you suggest.

I suppose one could use this survey for marketing purposes. I don't think it'll ever be used for that, though. I can imagine someone using our scale to assess prior videogame experience as a part of their marketing research. My particular interest is in how to use it to assess fit for game-based learning (in classrooms and business organizations).

[Greendude123]

Thanks to all who participated! We've stopped data collection, and gotten a lot of valuable feedback from you guys.

Despite the end of data collection, I'd still welcome any questions you may have about the study, or any input you guys have on game taxonomy.

Best,
Green