Understanding Video Game Genres
The dictionary defines the word genre as “a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content”. When extended to the realm of video games, a video game genre refers primarily to what players do in them. The word “primary” is important here, because it is not uncommon for modern video games to blend several genres in an attempt to appeal to the widest possible audience.

For example, an “Action” genre game involves challenging a player’s reflexes or hand-eye coordination. So a game like Apex Legends would fit perfectly here.

The classification of video games into genres began in the 1980s. Various authors used classifications to categorize games in their books, but the most prominent taxonomy was the one used by Nintendo. In order to maintain control over the quality of games released for their console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo came up with eight genres: Adventure, Action, Sports, Light-Gun, Programmable, Arcade, Robot, and Educational.

This list was later modified to remove some and add more genres, but it also introduced genres as a concept to the entire video game market. Gradually, sub-genres started popping up, building upon the foundation of their parent genres. This is where things started to get a little muddy as several lists of genres and sub-genres were being maintained by different stakeholders as per their convenience and reasoning. We at Gameopedia, have simplified and streamlined this through our home-grown Game Taxonomy that is trusted by tech giants across the globe. Through this article, we will cover some of the most popular genres, to better understand the pulse of the video game market.

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