In co-operation with Miss Lydia Sung and her Sunday Specials, I'll be reserving my more opinionated articles from now on for Saturday Specials, assuming they are received well enough (and judging by some past articles, I'm pretty excited). I won't be doing them every week, simply whenever I happen to have an idea on hand, so as to avoid staleness and contrived content. For this first official edition, the video gaming world's relationship with genres is explored. As a disclaimer: I don't believe there is any "wrong" or "right" with these Specials (or with anything really) -- essentially, only infinite speculations and possibilites. Debate and discussion are strongly encouraged in the comments for these!

I'm wary of labels in general. The term 'emo' frequently induces vomitting for me, and the parade of almost equally ridiculous societal labels do the same. Even the more logical ones like 'gay' I shy away from. Why? They're generally inaccurate, if only to a small degree, and are therefore limiting and not useful (at least not as much as we lead each other to believe).

Double standardizing

Now, genres (a form of label) I have the same feelings on, generally. I'm particularly fussy with them and music. But for some reason I have no real problem with genrifying -- yes I made that word up, and it is not to be confused with gentrification which is probably much more awful -- film or video games. So why the double standard? Well, firstly, while genres are useful on some level, they are still limiting on another, with games and film, too (just to get that out of the way). In short, they limit imagination on at least one level and therefore potential. But I think it's the nature of people and the nature of music that's the cause for my difference in idiosynracies. I think of people as infinite beings, and songs as such, too; Tori Amos describes her songs as “sonic children”. I know a fair few people think she's a nut, but then, hey, whatever, I'm a nut too cause most often she makes a lot of sense to me, even if it is unconventionally put.

And while I'm on the topic of music, I'd like to quote Tool guitarist Adam Jones who once said, "I think putting labels on [music] is just an easy way of marketing something you don't understand." To relate this to video games, I recall BioShock creator Ken Levine once saying they hadn't even called that game a first person-shooter, but once it started, its popularity took off. Helpful in a way, but not necessarily accurate or even too important...thankfully though, in most articles, it seems like the story, atmosphere and all that were inseparable from the gameplay when described, so I really can't bitch much. Of course, this attests to the design of it, in part, I would say.

The paradox of video games

Video games, now, while virtually unlimited in scope (as they can combine every other medium of art) are generally terribly limited in other ways, I suppose for this very reason. Let me explain. It's possible to make a great record for very little money if you know what you're doing and what to buy in terms of equipment (as in, under a few thousand dollars). Heck you can make some pretty great stuff on almost no money if you're creative enough. A video game however? Not so. Well, not a new one, anyway.

There are tons of factors at work – budget, engine, story, gameplay elements, music, artwork and lots more, all of which seem to require a focused cohesiveness in order for the game to be enjoyable. My speculation is by taking in every other form of art, it has to be limited in its application, at least for today's budgets, because a game combining the full experiences of say, a music concert, a film, visual art, and literature would 1) be far too expensive and 2) likely be too much for the average person to handle. So just by the nature of it, I think it's pretty tough to break out of the mould.

Yeah we've mixed genres which is awesome, but I don't think we've mixed genres together in many games, if any, to the point where we just give up in trying to classify it (something I always love). With music, this is easily possible if the musician/musicians is/are versed enough in a variety of styles and let themselves get lost. With games, it doesn't matter if you like most genres, if you make a psychedelic puzzle-shooter-action-rpg-steampunk-3D-platformer, noone's going to play it. Well, maybe the Japanese.

The future of genres and gaming

Still, it's a fun concept to toy with. Even if Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack had no idea what he was talking about (though I think he's on to at least a little something), I loved his idea of games in the future not being classified as action games or shooters or RPGs or whatever, but by something more akin to film (i.e. Drama, action, comedy, etc). Is film then, less limited than video games?

One thing is about as sure as you can get: video games have a terribly exciting future. Less than 40 years ago we were playing Pong, and while the rate of acceleration has slowed, we have come a very long way – flash forward to today and Gears of War 2's online 10-player team-based multiplayer mode, for example. Imagine another 40...