Establishing Video Game Genres Using Data-Driven Modeling and Product Databases

Establishing genres is the first step toward analyzing games and how the genre landscape evolves over the years. We use data-driven modeling that distils genres from textual descriptions of a large collection of games. We analyze the evolution of game genres from 1979 till 2010. Our results indicate that until 1990, there have been many genres competing for dominance, but thereafter sport-racing, strategy, and action have become the most prevalent genres. Moreover, we find that games vary to a great extent as to whether they belong mostly to one genre or to a combination of several genres. We also compare the results of our data-driven model with two product databases, Metacritic and Mobygames, and observe that the classifications of games to different genres are substantially different, even between product databases. We conclude with discussion on potential future applications and how they may further our understanding of video game genres.