Chapter 3. The Major Genres

Developers, sellers, and players of video games classify them into genres so that they can easily describe what kind of gameplay a game offers without having to describe it in detail. Over the years, a number of standard game genres has evolved, although there are many more games that either don’t fit into any of them or are hybrids of more than one genre. The classifications change from time to time as well, and some genres exist only on particular platforms. In this short chapter, we’ll take a look at the major game genres, concentrating on the traditional ones from the PC and console game markets.

What Is a Genre?

In describing movies or books, the term genre refers to the content of the work. Historical fiction, ...

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