Fuzzy Logic: Why Genre Classifications Are Impossible

Quick, are you tall? Is someone who is 5 feet, 10 inches tall? Is Shaquille O’Neal tall?

You probably answered “yes” to at least that last question.

But it’s a matter of context, isn’t it? A 5’10” man is slightly above average height in the United States, but more noticeably so in Japan, for example. A woman who’s 5’10” might be considered tall in the US because women tend to be shorter than men here.

Shaq is probably going to seem tall by any cultural definition, but what about if we compared him to giraffes? So what are we using as our base of reference? Tall compared to other humans? Or tall compared to the entirety of the animal kingdom? Or something else? 

The answer matters a lot.

This isn’t a blog about what “Tall” means. It’s about board game and roleplaying game genres. But the problems are the same, and I’d like to extrapolate on this point a bit.

The inspiration for this blog came originally from Geoffrey Engelstein’s Gametek, a fun book with a lot of interesting essays. I even borrowed the Shaq example from his book since it’s such a useful one. He’s written about fuzzy logic on his blog as well.

What follows is my spin on Engelstein’s core idea. The essay linked above touches on some areas distinct from my commentary, but both orbit some similar ideas.

Genre Classifications in Tabletop Games

Go back far enough (to the 2000s) and you’ll find many think pieces on the differences between Eurogames and Ameritrash games. The latter often featured dice rolling, miniatures, direct combat, and valued the thematic and narrative drama of the gameplay over exact mechanical balance or streamlining.

Eurogames feature no player elimination, generally have an increased focus on mechanical systems, and the themes tend to be less overtly aggressive.

Those are broad definitions, but they’re good enough for our purposes.

Fast forward several years and now there are a lot of “hybrid” designs. What’s a hybrid? It’s a game that has elements of two or more traditional genres, in ways that make exact categorization difficult.

If we compared some Ameritrash/Euro hybrids to classic Eurogames, we’d likely conclude it’s not a Eurogame. But if we compare it to some classic Ameritrash games, we’d conclude it’s not Ameritrash either.

So what is it? Both? Neither? Something new?

Engelstein posits that we both define our parameters and then think of the descriptor in terms of a percentage or spectrum.

So if Shaquille O’Neal is being compared to the human race, we might say he’s 97% tall (accounting for the small percentage of people taller than him). Yes, we can call him “Tall” and no one will likely argue. But the point is that we start to think of things in this manner for when things aren’t so obvious.

So if I look at a hybrid design, maybe its design intent seems to hew more closely to the rough-and-tumble drama of classic Ameritrash, despite including several mechanics that make it seem like a Eurogame at times. I might call it 70% Ameritrash, 30% Euro.

This isn’t just academic. This allows me to better understand my own preferences and – ideally – make recommendations or give useful descriptions to others based on theirs.

Wargames and the Discussion Surrounding Them

Wargames are another hairy beast in this regard. Talk to enough different wargamers and you’ll have multiple competing definitions of what constitutes a wargame, and the criteria it must meet to be considered such.

Terms have cropped up in usage like “warlike” to describe a contentious game that’s not technically a wargame, the awkward “Weuro” to describe a wargame with Eurogame elements, and others.

The other problem is that these terms aren’t universally applied in the same ways.

So what’s a new gamer to do who’s interested in this genre and its variants? Worst case, they wade in, use terminology not typically approved by the existing fanbase, and are immediately corrected or chastised.

This of course isn’t a great way to build a new fan if you’re an existing gamer. This sort of behavior isn’t the norm, but it does exist, to the point where an air of gatekeeping seems to follow around certain subsets of hobbyist involvement. Wargaming is certainly not alone in this regard, and requiring a hyper-specific lexicon to navigate certain hobbies is a great way to turn a lot of people away regardless of what the hobby itself is.

Spectrum-Based Analysis of Increasingly Muddy Pseudo-Genres

So what are we to do? Some will dislike the percentage based model because they want certainty. Is {X} a wargame or not? Is it Ameritrash or not? There are reasons this might matter.

I’d contend we don’t have that luxury anymore, though, and so we have to find hybrid models of communication about these subjects. These are inherently subjective and fluid categories, and so once you have enough people using them, usage drift will occur.

Similarly, I bet you and I could agree broadly about whether or not certain titles are wargames, not wargames, or somewhere between. But as soon as we make strict lines between those categories, we’re going to disagree on a lot of details.

Define the Parameters. Define the Perspective. Establish a Benchmark.

We’re not comparing Shaq to all animals. We’re comparing him to humans, and all humans instead of a particular group. I’d put him around 97%, and though your exact percentage may differ from mine, we are now using the same criteria and understanding for comparison, and will invariably end up with similar percentages.

If I say {GAME} isn’t interactive and you say it is, we’re not establishing our parameters correctly. What is your typical level of interaction in games? What’s mine? Are we comparing interaction of the game within its own genre peers, or across all games?

Then if you end up saying it’s in the 70th percentile and I say it’s in the 30th, we at least know why: in this scenario, it’s because maybe I play more interactive games and so my average expectation for them is significantly higher. Or perhaps it’s because you were comparing them within Eurogames only and I was comparing them to all genres of games.

We may not get to within a few percentage points of one another, but the reasons for the disagreement are more clear and are attributable to differences in perspective and parameters, not in our understanding of the underlying concept.

Hybrids across TONS of genres have invalidated exact definitions. We need to be able to speak to tendencies of games along known genre, mechanical, and design lines. These descriptions will naturally resist exact classifications and so must be more flexible in how we define them.

But Dude, We Can’t All Talk in Percentages

Fair enough. Genre classifications are the norm. I’m not trying to invent a new way of talking about all this stuff.

What I’m advocating for, though, is being willing to admit to a fuzzy middle ground at times. Some games are categorically in a specific genre, and there will be no miscommunication or disagreement if you describe them as such.

When it’s clear that opinions are going to differ, though, we need to be willing to step back, analyze why, and find new ways to explain where something sits in relation to others that are similar. The percentage model is the one I’m using here, but it’s not the only one. The only mistake in these fuzzy situations is to pretend clear lines can or should exist that are universal.

Why Genres Matter. Why They Don’t.

Genres provide broad ways for us to relate gaming concepts to gamers, designers and publishers. I lean on genre descriptions frequently when I pitch game designs to publishers, for instance, and it’s useful because it helps them imagine the game’s ideal audience.

Something like a definition for wargames can still be useful because it helps to describe the simulationist, historical intent behind many in the genre, which is an important aspect for many gamers’ enjoyment. I could envision a separate spectrum being used in a discussion to discuss simulationist intent alone, which would have value for many wargamers.

Similarly, once you start to define your tastes as a gamer, understanding where those preferences lie along genre borders can point you in the direction of other interesting titles.

This is unequivocally positive. Genres are important.

I’d argue, though, that genre classifications cease to be useful, and indeed start to become harmful, the moment they cease to provide this sort of practical value in our communication.

This is why “Is {GAME} a {Category}?” discussions – of which there are thousands on the internet – are among the most circular and unresolvable you’ll ever read.

The specificity of such discussions is where they fall apart, since we’re all sitting at different parts of the spectrum. Even if we’re in the same ballpark, so to speak, we’re likely to get tangled up in the details.

It’s why I like Engelstein’s initial premise, and how he applies this sort of “fuzzy logic” to analysis that can be more useful to us in the aggregate than precise definitions, precisely because it speaks to an area of discourse without exact lines of demarcation that we can all agree to.