Can We Stop Miscategorizing Games?

[GooseOnTheLoose]

This has been bugging me since I first got Steam so many aeons ago.

I think it's fine for a game to have multiple tags, but it should really only be in one "Category". If you go to the front page of "Strategy" 9/10 of those games are Strategy only by the most generous qualifications. And I'm not saying RPG/Action/Adventure etc. are bad! But... I wanted to see STRATEGY.

I'll use Puzzle Box as an example since it's a prominent one. Please tell me how the heck that is a strategy game! I guess I'd question WHY it's done. If I want to buy a strategy game, you're certainly not going to trick me into buying an Adventure/Action game by telling me it's Strategy. And even if you did, I'd return it! All you're doing is making it considerably more difficult for me to find games I like. Which hinders, rather than helps, you.

Maybe it's out of laziness? I honestly don't know. Maybe it's the publisher's fault? They just spam it as being in as many categories as they can? But either way, can you make it stop? I feel like it wouldn't be very hard.

Is the player rewarded for physical, out of game dexterity? (clicking quickly, accuracy, etc.) It's an Action game.

Are there resources that the players manage and are rewarded for managing them efficiently? Strategy.

Does the player engage in modular battles/control a small number of characters/follow quest-driven, reward-for-task gameplay? RPG.

Are you pretending to have an occupation/do a thing that a human being would do in real life? Simulation.

I'm not saying it would be super easy, but some actual ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ effort would be really, really appreciated. Force the publishers to pick a category for their game if that's the issue. They can tag it with whatever they want, but it shouldn't clutter five of eight categories.

/rant

[Noodlesocks]

So many games tagged Strategy that have nothing to do with strategy gaming :|

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Right? If I went through them all I might categorize somewhere between 5-10% of what's in Strategy as Strategy. And that just doesn't mean games that would appeal to me. There are tons of good strategy games that I'm not into.

[Darren]

Tags can be added by users. If enough people tag it that becomes a tag for it. Valve does some review but only for offensive ones usually.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Ultimately we can't stop "miscategorising games", because another way of saying it is "disagreeing about the categorisation of games". You can report tags as inappropriate for specific products, and you can suggest to developers that they don't label their games in certain ways, but by nature, genre is fuzzy and subjective, so there's always going to be disagreement.

Limiting oneself to eight categories of game description is only going to exacerbate the problem, because if you can describe all possible games with only eight terms, they have to be incredibly broad terms. Hence the existence of tags that allow people to describe games in more ways than that. I would suggest putting the least weight on the broadest terms like strategy or action, and making as much use as possible of combinations of more detailed descriptors to help narrow down your searches.

[=7CAV=PVT.Binks.J]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Ultimately we can't stop "miscategorising games", because another way of saying it is "disagreeing about the categorisation of games". You can report tags as inappropriate for specific products, and you can suggest to developers that they don't label their games in certain ways, but by nature, genre is fuzzy and subjective, so there's always going to be disagreement.

Limiting oneself to eight categories of game description is only going to exacerbate the problem, because if you can describe all possible games with only eight terms, they have to be incredibly broad terms. Hence the existence of tags that allow people to describe games in more ways than that. I would suggest putting the least weight on the broadest terms like strategy or action, and making as much use as possible of combinations of more detailed descriptors to help narrow down your searches.

There are 8 because every game's main theme falls into them. Steam needs to tell developer's, especially indies, you may only have one main category. Spam your game across more than one it'll be removed, and you will not be allowed to relist it for 6 months. It's indies that are most at fault with making it damn near impossible to find a game that actually fits the genre(s) it is listed in.

[Darren]

So is this game miscategorised?

It's a combination FPS/Flight Simulator, and has the Action, FPS, and Simulation tags on it.

What about

This is both an Action and an RPG game.

Incidentally your definition of RPG is actually a tactical game like which has very few RPG elements, but a lot of Strategic ones.

And this is just the start, games don't fit into just one box anymore, most of them cross 2-3 at least.

[shiel]

The best one was the Dark Souls 3 season pass "casual" and "family friendly" were on it. I thought it was more funny than anything.

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Darren, you are being intentionally obtuse. Nobody's saying games can't have multiple elements. But the POINT of having categories is to be able to find games easily. What you're describing defeats that point.

It's up to the developer to choose the main category for their game. The point is they should only be able to pick one. But in order? Yes, no, yes. I own and enjoyed Skyrim. But it's definitely not strategy. And nobody in their right mind would say either of the other two couldn't be strategy.

This isn't about "disagreeing" over categorization. This is about whether or not you want there to BE categories. Because as it stands there aren't! There are NOT categories! They are so useless that they may as well not exist.

[Darren]

What I'm describing is called reality. In reality games are far too complex to fit into single buckets anymore particularly because everyone wants their game to be unique, so they throw in elements from some other style of game making it a hybrid of one or more genres. Most of these turn out quite well such as actions games with RPG like stories that are actually interesting to play (particularly for me who isn't really into FPSs in general).

This most definitely is about disagreeing about categorisation. Everything is currently categorised. You might not agree that these games fit into the categories listed but who says they are even using your definition for these categories anyway. To me an RPG is all about story, character advancement, and customisation, which can be used regardless of what kind of combat system is involved (hence why I'd happily say that Skyrim is an RPG, while COD is not). It has nothing to do with the modular battles you were talking about above (that is a Tactical game which often is an element included in RPGs but not always Skyrim for example doesn't have it).

The tag system was built from the realisation that games are complicated things and consist of many elements, as a result it's those elements that determine what categories a game belongs to.

XCOM 2 is an RPG (borderline there isn't a lot of customisation only some), Tactical, Strategy game.

Skyrim is an Action, RPG.

And so on. Only the blandest of games have individual categories nowadays.

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by Nolnag:

I own and enjoyed Skyrim. But it's definitely not strategy.

A strategy game or strategic game is a game (e.g. video or board game) in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome.

The fact that you can decide who lives and who dies and who comes to power and who doesn't would suggest it would be a strategy game.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by ⎛⎝ KARR ⎠⎞:

The fact that you can decide who lives and who dies and who comes to power and who doesn't would suggest it would be a strategy game.

So we could categorize most Visual Novels into 'Strategy' now?
Likewise we can say every FPS is a strategy game, because it's about ressource management (ammo).

The classic genre definitions have been established for 30 years and convey certain ideas of features and gameplay in them.
I completely agree that many games are over-categorized. Putting stats and items on troopers doesn't make XCom any more of an RPG than Magic:TG would be considered one.

[fluxtorrent]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Originally posted by ⎛⎝ KARR ⎠⎞:

The fact that you can decide who lives and who dies and who comes to power and who doesn't would suggest it would be a strategy game.

So we could categorize most Visual Novels into 'Strategy' now?
Likewise we can say every FPS is a strategy game, because it's about ressource management (ammo).

The classic genre definitions have been established for 30 years and convey certain ideas of features and gameplay in them.
I completely agree that many games are over-categorized. Putting stats and items on troopers doesn't make XCom any more of an RPG than Magic:TG would be considered one.

the VN example is false, you make choices but it is not autonomous or uncoerced. Although I agree that syrim would only be a marginal example as well, while some elements of the gameplay will qualify the outcomes overallare predeterimined and you simply have some choices on how to get there while following the quest tree. However if we take the description too literall that would remove chess from strategy as well because the final possible outcomes are predetermined as well.

[GooseOnTheLoose]

This is ridiculous. All I'm asking is that the category system be useful for finding games. You can SAY your game is whatever you want to say it is. You can tag it as such. But if 50% of games are in five or more categories and 80% are in three or more categories, then there's too much clutter for categories to mean anything!

This isn't meant to be a philosophical discussion on classifying games! I get that games can span categories (XCOM, Eador: Masters of the Broken Realm are two good examples), but it's not unreasonable to ask that game designers be told to pick one!

If we made them pick one, we wouldn't have to worry about classifying games because developers would want them listed in the category that is actually... honest? So we don't wind up with Puzzle Box and Five Nights at Freddy's in Strategy.

[Sean]

yeah, its pretty bad. half the co-op games listed aren't co-op at all.

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Darren: Would you agree that at some point this becomes about categories being useless? For instance, if a majority of games are in a majority of categories, would that bother you? So if 70% of games were in 6/8 categories, you would sense nothing wrong?

Because that's rapidly the direction we're headed in.