Categorising Games

Segregating the many different games there are in the world into neat groups is a challenging notion. It is awfully unclear, with many games, as to how they should be categorised; and I would like to share with you a few ideas I've recently been exposed to that are based around doing exactly that!

 The Escapist's Genre Wheel isn't exactly the simplest solution.

The first of which is a broad, sweeping form of splitting up games. Roger Callios, building on the works of Johan Huizinga, put forward the terms 'paidea' and 'ludus' as a way of defining  a game, oriented around the structure of 'play'. A game grouped under paidea would be one  that was based on the notion of playing for the sake of pleasure; whereas a game grouped under ludus would be one clearly constrained by rules and an ultimate outcome.

Although paidea would certainly seem more prominent in the playground games of children; with regards to video games, it seems that ludus is far more common as structure for games. I personally have had more experience with ludus games and tend to prefer them, I think the reasons behind this fact are revealed when I consider the things I look for in games: I enjoy a rigid, solid, and clear goal and ruleset that I can work in and be creative in finding ways to manipulate these rules to reach said goal.

Let us compare the different ways these two structures can allow for gameplay. An example of a ludus game could be a multiplayer battle on the well-known RTS game Total War: Rome II. In one of these battles, each player would be given a set amount of money, with which they must construct an army out of a selection of different units; then they must command their armies on a battleground of some description and one must come out the victor, with the other defeated. There is certainly a large amount of choice in how each player goes about trying to achieve this goal, in many ways I entirely believe constraint breeds creativity, but both players still have no choice but to battle each other until one is defeated.

On the other hand, a paidea game could be represented by the freebuild mode on the game Stronghold. I feel this is a particularly good comparison, because both games are of the RTS genre, but go about it in very different ways. The freebuild 'game' in Stronghold is effectively a sandbox, where the player can build castles to their hearts content with absolutely no given goals or real constraints beyond what the game is capable of providing. When one plays in this kind of environment they can, and often do, make up their own goals which they can achieve or fail as much as they like. It is a much more relaxing form of play, that allows a players imagination to 'run wild' as it were.

I for one, am not fond of playing in these sandbox games myself, but many people are; and it's important to understand the differences in the kinds of gameplay these two structures can induce to evoke these preferences.

Now, the second idea supported by Callois for segregating games further is to group them under four distinct types of gameplay: 'Agon' - competition, 'Alea' - chance, 'Ilinx' - movement, and 'Mimicry' - roleplay. At first glance these might seem to be very effective ways of defining and separating different games, and certainly there are many games that would fit neatly into this system. Sticking with RTS games for the moment, one of my favourite games is Starcraft II, in its main multiplayer aspect it is a deeply ludus game, centred around agon, or competition, and simply hasn't even the slightest hint of any other of the aforementioned terms. However there are many games that do not fit into this box without scuffing the edges somewhat.

The problems start to show when we consider a game such as FTL: Faster Than Light, an indie spaceship managing game. FTL can certainly be called ludus and has a very large aspect of alea, or chance, in that many events that affect the player's game are entirely randomised and unpredictable. However there is an amount of competition that this game breeds, perhaps players might race to see who could finish it first, on its hardest difficulty; moreover, the game gives players the feeling that they are part of the crew on this ship, stranded alone in the middle of space, and introduces an aspect of mimicry in the form of make-believe or roleplay.

But perhaps I'm being pedantic and this game more or less fits in its box? Well I'd suggest we move on to consider racing games such as Mario Kart. Again this is quite clearly a ludus game, but it also appears to have three of the four types of gameplay mentioned before: Agon, in that they are racing against others in order to win; Alea, in that weapon pickups are randomised; and Ilinx, in that a player must carefully control their movement around a track in order to achieve the goal of winning.

Really, I think these two notions of grouping and defining the differences in various games are generally quite effective and useful; many games would fit nicely into its own category and be well-described by it. However, I think it's clear that there are still some games that would fit into several of these categories, racing games in particular are almost intrinsically bound to end up as part of Ilinx and Agon. The more generalised groupings of games, paidea and ludus seem to be entirely mutually exclusive, I cannot think of a game that would fit into both, as they are effectively opposites, one inspires creativity by forcing constraint, and the other allows a player's creativity to build its own fun and games within an environment. For this reason, I'd certainly say that form of classification is entirely correct.