Fuzzy Logic Redux: Genre Classifications in Games

I wrote a blog article recently that is itself based on an essay written by designer (and writer/podcaster/etc.) Geoff Engelstein: Fuzzy Logic: Why Genre Classifications Are Impossible

As a slightly meandering addendum to that article (you’ll probably want to read it first for context), I thought this might be a nice treat and thought experiment. This is not intended as a persuasive essay, but rather one that I hope encourages you to consider the problem at hand.

That problem being the intersection of two inconvenient and competing realities:

1. The impossibility of distinct and objective genre classifications, and the inherently circular reasoning, subjective interpretation, and gatekeeping that often accompanies such discussions, and…
2. The fact that having a good understanding of genre categories and their underlying principles can help immensely in curating games that you’re more likely to enjoy.

Bad faith, dogmatic arguments aside; there will be no fence-drawing here. I only care about genre classification insofar as it has practical purpose to our research and gaming. Academic distinctions are boring to me, as are binary yes/no discussions.

Engelstein’s point and idea – and it’s one I think is worth considering – is that in the absence of hard lines, fuzzier ones that permit overlapping truths and spectrum-bases analyses should be embraced. In the usually exclusionary world of genre distinctions, this is not always easy to adopt, but has served me better than such rigid dichotomies.

So an example! One that’s not without faults, but displays the point well.

Heroscape is a game I quite enjoy. What is it? Using Board Game Geek’s (BGG) categories, let’s attempt to place it.

Is it abstract? No. Is it customizable? Certainly. Thematic? Obviously. A Family Game? For many, yes Children’s Game? Perhaps not, though an inner child comes out when I think about it. A Party game? No. Strategy Game? Not as it’s traditionally thought of, but slightly. And what about Wargame? It’s not simulationist or historical, but otherwise has many of the hallmarks of skirmish wargames.

So let’s look at how its votes are spread out on BGG (as of writing this, and rounded to the nearest %):

• Abstract: 0%
• Customizable: 32%
• Thematic: 45%
• Family: 3%
• Children: 1%
• Party: 0%
• Strategy: 4%
• Wargame: 15%

I’d contend that it’s all of those things for which it has some percentage of votes, albeit to varying degrees. Moreover, I agree with the primary category, but also that that primary category is not sufficient to encapsulate every design principle and audience it could be fun for.

We could quibble on the exact percentages, but isn’t that spread of percentages a better telling of “what it is” than any single genre category could possibly encapsulate? I’d argue yes, and it’s not even close.

Using that, we might say that it’s a customizable and deeply thematic game that includes some light strategic elements and a lot of warlike ones that could appeal to fans of direct combat.

That’s approximately 500 times better than “It’s an {X} game” where X is a single category.

And within such a framework, a question like “is it a wargame?” isn’t even a valid question, because it presupposes binary yes/no answers to those questions. It’s not entirely or even primarily a wargame based on this, but in some tangible ways, it has potential appeal to fans of wargames.

So why label it “No” and stifle that sort of nuance? And why say “Yes” and lump it in with a bunch of historical games it has no business being compared to?

The important part is then this: From this fuzzier framework, we can talk about what ways it is and isn’t like traditional wargames, or in what ways it adheres to the design intent of Ameritrash (i.e. Thematic) games, or to what extent it’s appropriate for families (or not), and so on, and how these things will interact with a particular gamer’s preferences. This is where the usefulness comes in; not in classification, but in a deeper description that applies the game to external sets of gamer preferences and groups.

THE FLAWS

Let’s admit and then ignore for a moment two issues with this system as dictated by BGG:

1. The classifications they provide as options – shown above for Heroscape – aren’t comprehensive nor perhaps the best ones we could use, and…
2. Many games don’t have a representative number of votes to be trusted using this method.

In our thought experiment, we’re extending the categories out to any that are applicable, not just the ones provided by Board Game Geek. We’re also assuming that a reasonable spread of gamers are voting on a game’s categorization. I happen to think BGG’s categories aren’t the worst, but occasionally they trip over themselves as well. But it’s what we have to work with in this example.

More practically, though, you can do this for yourself. Define your own categories, make sure your audience understands what you mean by them, and then analyze games along each spectrum, dipping in or out of each as needed to make yourself – and the game – clear.

Is {GAME} a {CATEGORY}? If the question is being asked in the first place, the best answer is likely one that will be stifled irreparably by a single-word answer.

But I find myself vexed quite often here, because like Heroscape, a game might have mechanical and thematic hallmarks of some genres, but some IP, setting, or mechanical decision removes it from the traditional territory of that genre. And so I’d prefer to talk about to what extent it matches or ignores those characteristics, in service of describing the game as it is…not in service of putting it into one, specific bucket for all-time.

For those clinging to the importance of classifications, I agree they’re critically important! I simply disagree that it always needs to be all or nothing, or that this is the best framework for discussion.

Because I’m going to disagree with a lot of people on Yes/No discussions, but what are the odds we all make a percentage-based analysis of a game and come back with wildly incompatible spectrums? Non-zero, but lower than the odds that a Yes/No discussion will devolve into people talking past one another. If I disagree with you on degrees (e.g. 30% vs. 50% on a particular spectrum), we still understand one another on some basic levels and disagree only in degrees, not on fundamental aspects.

We think in gradations all the time. Not always percentage-based one, but along a spectrum upon which there are no rigid lines between one descriptor and another. There are scientific and mathematical categories with objective criteria for inclusion, of course. But to expect any non-objective category to conform to the same standards is imo lunacy. It’s why such discussions proliferate online and never seem to resolve with any consensus.

They’ve even become so ubiquitous that they’re a joke in some circles, and a discussion can’t be started without someone sarcastically remarking that gamers love arguing about classification.

I don’t love such circular debates. I hate them, in fact, because the typical framework for such discussions is one I can’t fundamentally agree with, and so I’m in a discussion where I disagree with the very premise, let alone any conclusions drawn.

So rather than sardonically thinking “oh great, just another genre thread,” I challenge you to think about how you think about game classifications, and then decide if anything I’ve said resonates even a little bit with how you actually think about games, many of which are increasingly resistant to a single genre identity.

Some still do slot neatly into specific identities. We’re not talking about those. We’re talking about the rest.

You might not end up agreeing, and that’s fine. But it’s better than talking past one another in irresolvable debates.