Psychology Commons^™

Recategorization Of Video Game Genres, Shawn M. Doherty, Joseph R. Keebler, Shayn S. Davidson, Evan M. Palmer, Christina M. Frederick

Publications

While the categories that are typically used to discriminate games have been useful in the past, more recently game mechanics have become utilized by a wider range of games, leading to earlier definitions becoming a less valuable categorization tool. This paper attempts to provide various ways games could be classified by focusing on the types of emotions they evoke, the skills they require or their relations with personality or cognitive variables. A description of those categories and the challenge in using them to define games is outlined as well as five alternate methods that may help make distinctions between games …