Add genres?

Hello! I don’t know if this messes w/ Giant Bomb data in any way, but could we pretty please get some more genres up in here?

After looking around and searching deep in my soul, I think the following takes care of most of what’s missing:

  • Action RPG
  • Beat-'Em-Up
  • Bullet Hell
  • Collectible Card Game
  • Farming Sim
  • Free to Play/Gacha/Pay to win/Freemium [maybe Freemium is the most concise?]
  • Hentai/Adult
  • Life Sim
  • Match 3
  • Metroidvania
  • Open World
  • Party
  • Rogue-like
  • Walking Sim

Thanks for your consideration. :slight_smile:

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@peter for your consideration pretty please

I think there’s value in this, but I have questions. Is there value in having subsets of Simulation games that leads to greater fragmentation? Same with Action-RPG, is there value in fracturing the RPG category. If something is an RPG, does it matter if its action focused or not? As for Freemium, we don’t categorize any other games by monetization type (i.e., there is no category for a paid game), why isolate F2P games? Does it make sense to categorize by Metroidvania, Open World, Rogue-like, when those are properties of games that generally fall under other genres like RPG or action? In fact, are those genres or are they just descriptive characteristics. None of this is to argue that this is a bad idea or that these shouldn’t be included, I just have a lot of questions about whether adding additional complexity and sub-genre granularity is inherently a good thing. Too many categories can make a database difficult to maintain, so I think it’s worth discussing the potential for each to improve the database as it is. Also worth considering, is it worth doing now or when there is a potential swap to grouvee’s own database?

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I haven’t been ignoring this thread, I promise.

It wouldn’t mess with Giant Bomb, but it would be hard because we’d be in charge of adding new genres to games.

We probably do need some new genres, but I think more what we need is sub-genres or tags (as @anarchistica wants). I don’t like putting King’s Quest VI and The Legend of Zelda under the same Adventure umbrella. However, if you had Point and Click as a sub-genre, then you could filter down deeper into the Adventure to find the kinds of Adventure games you wanted. Same thing with RPG and JRPG.

All that being said, @BMO’s point about too many genres makes management of the data infinitely more difficult. I’m seriously considering switching over to IGDB for the data source because I have no idea how long Giant Bomb will be around, but their genre system is just as high level as Giant Bomb’s is (maybe even more so).

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Sorry for being MIA, getting over COVID and also in a real weird place right now. :slight_smile:

I’ll try to answer all the questions in broad strokes.

Funny enough, I think Point and Click should be added as a genre, I just forgot lol.

  1. As an aid in finding titles of interest, I think more granularity is always better.
  2. Yes, I consider Action RPGs significantly different than RPGs.
  3. True, re: monetization, but these titles are built around the idea of spending a currency to get the tools to successfully play the game. I think the topic has been troped to the point of solidification.
    3a. We have MMORPG, which I agree should be a genre, but similarly could be argued that the fact it’s played with others has no bearing on what it “actually” is.
  4. Same re: Metroidvanias, Open World, Rogue-like, et al. Metroidvania is its own genre/trope/topic with its own features, associations, and cultural expectations.
  5. Grouvee allows multiple genres, so for example, Pixel Heroes, can be tagged with both rogue-like and rpg.
  6. Yes granularity, but I don’t think it’s “sub-genre granularity.” Metroidvania is not at all a sub-genre. Even under the same umbrella. We have Simulation and Flight Sim, I think Life Sim is significantly its own thing as well.
  7. Another consideration, if it changes anyone’s thinking. We have football, hockey, golf, gambling, bowling, boxing, freaking cricket, instead of just “Sports.” Like, the only genre on here isn’t “video games.”
  8. To me, adding in themes would be excessive and overwhelming. I think the tags feature could serve this function and offer more personalization.
  9. I use Grouvee to catalog my collections and also to find new titles.
  10. Peter, towards the adventure/point and click clarification, I think Adventure is very broad and yeah, nowadays more people think of Zelda as adventure games rather than Maniac Mansion, even though that was the terminology for them at first.

Finally, I guess the big one, I don’t think the genres would make anything more unwieldy, right? The site supports genres now as is, and adding some more I think just adds better findability and description. This might be the library person in me.

Some examples maybe:

  • Final Fantasy 10 is a (turn-based) RPG. Stranger of Paradise is an Action RPG. Both identifiable as having role-playing elements, but Stranger of Paradise is live-action oriented.
  • TIL I learned brawler=beat em up
  • Putting Jeopardy as a puzzle game or Jackbox as a board- or mini-game collection seems weird to me.
  • Open World may be unnecessary, but also is reaching the point where it carries certain connotations to merit standing on its own.
  • Rogue-like/lite? is certainly enough of a thing to stand on its own, even in tandem with other genres. Adventure/Rogue-like would describe Swords of Ditto or Wizard of Legend. I don’t think Adventure or Action is adequate.

Those are my thoughts, let me know if I didn’t explain myself or answer anything.

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Tags could be implimented like on Steam; Users add them and then other users can “confirm” them.

It would make it significantly easier to find e.g. tower defense or hidden object games, which aren’t listed under genres.

Also, if you could add tags to all games on a shelf i could tag all games that have been given away at some point, or specifically those given away by Epic Games. Or if they’ve been in a Humble Bundle or whatever. That would make Grouvee more useful for people who don’t have a ridiculously meticulous database like me. :stuck_out_tongue:

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That’s working as intended :wink:

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We have tags now, but it seems, at least in my experience, people use tags exclusively for shelf organization for systems, wish lists, or completion status. Don’t see many game descriptors pop up.

That’s not fair, there are like, three okay TD games.

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