Game Genres, pt. 5: Mark J. P. Wolf's Interactive Genres for Classifying Video Games

Previously, I reviewed early game genres as developed through the lenses of marketplace leaders, an expert player, and a professional game developer. This set of game genres was developed by an academic, Mark J. P. Wolf. Wolf was one of the earliest scholars in the field of game studies and has written and published 23 books, mostly on the subject of digital games.

The Medium of the Video Game, Wolf (2001)

Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game (2001) includes the chapter "Genre and the Video Game" where he outlines what he sees as the core categorizations for digital games.

Wolf takes guidance from Ed Buscombe's essay "The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema" in that genre elements may appear in a film's iconography, structure, and theme. Iconographic genres like "Western" and "science fiction" (what I previously referred to as milieu) may work for narrative games, especially those inspired by cinematic tropes, it doesn't really work for nonnarrative and abstract games. Additionally, two different games in the same iconographic genre or theme may be very different experiences for the player. Wolf moves away from these cinematic concepts of film genre by focusing on the classifications of interactivity seen in digital games.

Wolf notes that games may best fit into multiple genres (Pac-Man is primarily a "Collecting" game, as the player's primary objective is to eat all of the dots on the screen. Secondarily, it also falls under the "Escape" and "Maze" genres).

• Abstract - Arkanoid, Breakout, Q*bert, Tempest (with Shoot 'Em Up), Tetris (with Puzzle)
• Adaptation - Games that are adapted from card games (Casino), cartoons (The Simpsons), comic books (X-Men), film (Star Wars), sports (Atari Football), etc.
• Adventure - Games set in a freely explorable "world" usually made up of multiple, connected rooms or screens, involving an objective more complex that catching, shooting, capturing, or escaping. Adventure, Tomb Raider, Venture.
• Artificial Life - Games involving the growth or maintenance of digital creatures. The Little Computer People, The Sims (with Management Simulation).
• Board Games - Board game adaptations and digital games that play like board games. Culdcept, Monopoly, Quest for the Rings.
• Capturing - Capture objects or characters that move away from and evade the player character. Keystone Kapers, Surround (with Escape).
• Card Games - Card game adaptations and digital games that play like card games. Solitaire, Uno, Casino (with Gambling).
• Catching - Catch objects or characters that do not move away from or evade the player character. Stampede, Circus Atari, Kaboom!
• Chase - "See Catching, Capturing, Driving, Escape, Flying, and Racing."
• Collecting - Collect objects that do not move. Pac-Man (with Maze and Escape), Amidar (with Abstract).
• Combat - One vs. one shooting challenge. Combat, Outlaw.
• Demo - Demonstrate games or system.
• Diagnostic - Test the functioning of a system.
• Dodging - Avoid projectiles. Frogger (with Obstacle Course), Journey Escape.
• Driving - Night Driver, Pole Position.
• Educational - Games designed to teach. Basic Math, Mario Teaches Typing.
• Escape - Escape pursuers or get of of an enclosure. Pac-Man (with Collecting and Maze), Surround (with Capturing).
• Fighting - One on one fighting without the use of firearms. Boxing (with Sports), Mortal Kombat, Tekken.
• Flying - Flying games where shooting an opponent is not the main objective. Flight Unlimited (with Training Simulation), Solaris. 
• Gambling - Slot Machine, You Don't Know Jack (with Quiz).
• Interactive Movie - Dragon's Lair, Space Ace.
• Management Simulation - Aerobiz, M.U.L.E.
• Maze - Dig Dug, Lode Runner, Tunnel Runner.
• Obstacle Course - Frogger (with Dodging), Pitfall!, Jungle Hunt.
• Pencil-and-Paper Games - 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Noughts and Crosses, Hangman.
• Pinball - Pachinko!, Sonic Spinball, Video Pinball.
• Platform - Crazy Climber, Donkey Kong, Lode Runner (with Maze).
• Programming Games - Player writes short programs to control an agent in the game. Omega, CRobots.
• Puzzle - Tetris (with Abstract), 7th Guest, Myst (with Adventure).
• Quiz - Fax, You Don't Know Jack (with Gambling), Trivial Pursuit (with Adaptation).
• Racing - Win a race or cover more ground than an opponent. Mario Kart 64 (with Driving), Slot Racers (with Dodging).
• Rhythm and Dance - Keep time with a musical rhythm. Beatmania, PaRappa the Rapper, Samba de Amigo, Space Channel 5.
  
• Role-Playing - Diablo, Phantasy Star, Ultima, Interstate '76.
• Shoot ’Em Up - Shoot at and destroy a series of opponents or objects. Asteroids, Berzerk, Galaga, Zaxxon, Missile Command.
• Simulation - "See Management Simulation and Training Simulation"
• Sports - Atari Baseball, Bowling, Fishing Derby (with Catching), Pong (with Table-Top Games), Sky Diver.
• Strategy - Ataxx (with Abstract), Chess (with Board Games), M.U.L.E. (with Management Simulation).
• Table-Top Games - Table-top games that require physical skill or action. Battle Ping Pong, Electronic Table Soccer!, Pocket Billiards!, Pong (with Sports), Virtual Pool.
• Target - Primarily aim and shoot at targets that are not in motion. Air-Sea Battle, Carnival, Shooting Gallery.
• Text Adventure - Planetfall, Zork.
• Training Simulation - Games that simulate a realistic situation for the purpose of training and usually the development of a physical skill (such as driving or piloting). Comanche 3 (with Flying), Flight Unlimited (with Flying), Police Trainer.
• Utility - Have a purpose beyond that of entertainment, although they may be structured similarly to games. Basic Programming, Diagnostic Cartridge (with Diagnostic), Infogenius French Language Translator, Sped Reading.

This is a highly detailed system of genre classification. I see the usefulness of classifying games by a core game mechanic (like Capturing, Escaping, or Target), but some categories are non-games (Utility and Diagnostic), confusing (I would expect Table-Top Games to be board, card, and role-playing games), or questionably applied (in what way is Q*bert abstract?).

Looking closer at Wolf's definition of "Abstract" games, he describes them as having "nonrepresentational graphics" and often a non-narrative objective, which may involve "visiting, filling" or "destroying the screen," though they may have characters that are "anthropomorphic in design" (2001, pg. 117). Wolf's non-narrative objective aspect puts his definition in line with "abstract strategy" board games and puzzles, such as chess, checkers, Othello, and peg solitaire. However, he specifically does not include digital versions of such board games in this genre.

My problem is that almost all of Wolf's "Abstract" examples (Arkanoid, Amidar, Ataxx, Block Out, Breakout, Marble Madness, Pac-Man, Pipe Dream, Q*bert, and Tetris) use representational graphics. Ataxx and Pipe Dream play like abstract strategy board games, which he would exclude from the genre if they were adaptations. Arkanoid, Block Out, Breakout, and Tetris all feature shapes that are more than abstract geometric forms (the shapes are meant to represent bricks and blocks). Amidar, Marble Madness, Pac-Man, and Q*bert all feature cartoonish characters existing in representational, if sometimes impossible, spatial structures (Q*bert is no more abstract than the famous works by M. C. Escher).

Some of his examples arguably have abstract elements. Tempest's high-speed, neon world of geometric shapes in conflict is akin an electronic edition of Lissitsky's Suprematist Bolshevik propaganda works like Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919). [Side note: for a true digital game version of Suprematist works, you must play Chris Totten's Lissitsky's Revenge (2015).] In both cases, the shapes are more symbolic than abstract.

Qix (Atari, 1982, arcade game)

Qix is one case of a game with a truly abstract element: the titular Qix, a shapeless series of rainbow-colored lines that undulate around the environment and threaten the tiny, diamond-shaped player avatar. Where Tempest's lines create identifiable and distinct shapes (bow tie-shaped "flippers," the staple-shaped "blaster" player avatar), the Qix has no specific form. It is an unpredictable, chaotic force that the player must work to contain and control as they claim the game's territory by drawing walls on the screen.

EarthBound (Ape Inc., 1995 (originally Mother 2 in Japan, 1994))

A good example of what I'd consider abstraction in digital games is seen in battle sequences in the Super NES game EarthBound (see image above). Most of the game world is presented with typical CRPG spatial structures (with some brilliantly unexpected breaks in reality, as I've written about before). When a battle starts, the environment is replaced with a truly abstract background comprised of multiple colored, morphic shapes layered on top of each other. This puts the scene in ambiguous space, a term I adapted after attending Bruce Block's lectures on cinematic production, which he later collected in The Visual Story (2013). The subject of the scene (the Starman Jr. enemy) is clearly represented but its location in the world is unspecific, non-representational, and non-symbolic (in other words, abstracted). Wolf did not use EarthBound as an example of an abstract game in this essay.

Next, I'll review Mark J. P. Wolf's classification of game spaces, something much more applicable to my own research.