Video game genre

[1][2] This is independent of setting, unlike works of fiction that are expressed through other media, such as films or books.

A 1981 catalog for the Atari Video Computer System uses 8 headings: Skill Gallery, Space Station, Classics Corner, Adventure Territory, Race Track, Sports Arena, Combat Zone, and Learning Center.

For home computers, two publications established a small number of categories based on the best-selling software in the early 1980s: Softalk, which ran its Top Thirty list from 1980 to 1984 with the genres of strategy, adventure, fantasy and arcade; and Computer Gaming World, which collected user-submitted rankings.

[2] To support this, Nintendo classified games into eight major series: Adventure, Action, Sports, Light-Gun, Programmable, Arcade, Robot, and Educational.

The series description appeared on early "black box" covers and subsequently in the NES Player's Guide.

[11][12] Consoles manufacturers that followed the NES followed similar behavior in requiring licenses to develop games for their systems.

[2][13] Subsequently, retailers displayed games grouped by genres, and market research firms found that players had preferences for certain types over others, based on region, and developers could plan out future strategies through this.

[2] Experimental gameplay from indie game development drew more attention in the late 2000s and 2010s aided by independent digital distribution, as large publishers focused on triple-A titles were extremely risk-averse.

[7] Descriptive names of genres take into account the goals of the game, the protagonist and even the perspective offered to the player.

For example, because Grand Theft Auto III combined shooting, driving and roleplaying in an unusual way, it was hard to classify using existing terms.

This is because the addition of a story and character enhancement to an action, strategy or puzzle video game does not take away from its core gameplay, but adds an incentive other than survival to the experience.