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What's the state of the some game genres nowadays?

GreyHorace

Member
I remember during the late 90's up to the early 2000's, it seemed like there was a wealth of genres with which one could indulge their gaming hobby. I wasn't much into city building genre like my brother was with SimCity, and I kind of sucked at real time strategy with games like Starcraft and Warcraft 3. But I fell in love with games on console, mostly third person action games like Prince of Persia, Ninja Gaiden and Tomb Raider. I was also big on stealth games like Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, and Tenchu. And of course, there were rpgs like the Baldur's Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, hell, probably all of Bioware's output at that time.

My point is, gaming seemed so diverse and varied back then. Now? I'm not so sure what game genres are still alive and kicking. I mean just from looking at gaming websites I could probably narrow down the genres that are still alive by the following (with some examples):

First Person Shooters - Call of Duty, Battlefield, HALO, Ghost RECON
Third Person Shooters - Gears of War, Uncharted, Tomb Raider
First Person RPGs - The Outer Worlds, Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls
Third Person RPGs - The Witcher 3, Greedfall, Dark Souls, Zelda
Turn based RPGs - Most Jrpgs in general like Persona, Darkest Dungeon
Third Person Platformer - Super Mario Odyssey, Yooka Laylee
Third Person Action Game - Sekiro, Devil May Cry
Survival Horror - Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Until Dawn
Open World games - Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed, Yakuza
Adventure games - Detroit: Become Human, Life is Strange
Fighting games - Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Smash Bros
Racing games - Forza, Gran Turismo, Mario Kart
Stealth games - Hitman, Dishonored
Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) - League of Legends, DOTA 2

Those are the genre of games I've found are still alive today. But others have sadly fallen on the wayside in recent years. Genres like:

Real Time Strategy - Aside from the upcoming Age of Empires 4, what else do we have to look forward to? RTS's used to dominate the PC gaming scene but after the rise of MOBAs they disappeared overnight.
Flight Simulation - The upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator is looking good I'll admit. But where are the others?
City Building games - We all have to thank EA for ruining this, after their disastrous launch of SimCity in 2013.
Sports games - There used to be a videogame for almost every sport. Now? What other titles are out there aside from FIFA, Madden, NBA 2K and WWE 2K? I don't see any hockey games or any golfing games around.
Puzzle Strategy games - A new Desperadoes is coming at least, but not much action here since Commandos 2.
Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMORPG) - They don't dominate the industry as they once did in the mid 2000's when World of Warcraft was around. And many have gone free to play like WoW.

So what say you GAF? Do you feel there are other game genres that I haven't listed? Genres that have fallen on the wayside because of the ever shifting trends and tastes of the gaming market? Do you feel they're ripe for a comeback? Discuss.
 
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GreyHorace

Member
Arcade Racers: DEAD AS FUCK FOREVER. KILLED. WIPED OUT.
Really? Where I live the most popular games in the arcade are racers. Specifically the Wangan Midnight Series.

img_19.jpg


Unless it's not popular outside of Asia then I can understand.
 

anab0lic36

Member
RTS genre is definitely struggling... There is Iron harvest, but with that being a cross platform game, i'm worried that may be dumbed down for console controls and not have the same depth/micromanagement that RTS pc games are known for. Then there is Homeworld 3 but that's a long ways off. Hopefully AOE4 will turn out decent and it might convince other devs that the playbase for this genre is not gone, there just hasnt been anything of high enough quality put out in recent times that's been worth playing.

Personally I'd love to see remakes of games like Total annihilation, Supreme commander and C&C generals.
 
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Phase

Member
Ah. I see. My sentiments then. Where exactly do you live? You can find an arcade in any mall where I live.
In the 90s you could find them everywhere in the US, now they're practically extinct. You may find one run by an enthusiast from time to time but that's about it.
 

GreyHorace

Member
RTS genre is definitely struggling... There is Iron harvest, but with that being a cross platform game, i'm worried that may be dumbed down for console controls and not have the same depth/micromanagement that RTS pc games are known for. Then there is Homeworld 3 but that's a long ways off. Hopefully AOE4 will turn out decent and it might convince other devs that the playbase for this genre is not gone, there just hasnt been anything of high enough quality put out in recent times that's been worth playing.

Personally I'd love to see remakes of games like Total annihilation, Supreme commander and C&C generals.
See there, I don't even know those titles you mentioned. Back in the early 2000's RTS's were a big deal and Starcraft was the king of the hill. Hell it's still the national sport in South Korea. And it seemed like every game company wanted to dip their hand in the RTS genre.

Now though? You only hear mention of RTS in eSports.

England. Our bowling alleys and cinemas typically have one or two machines, but they are usually old DDR and Time Crisis machines.
In the 90s you could find them everywhere in the US, now they're practically extinct. You may find one run by an enthusiast from time to time but that's about it.
Ah... Yes I understand better now. I've read that arcades have pretty much died in the West. Here in Asia though they are still very much alive. Though where I live they don't offer much in the way of variety. You'll see the usual lineup of arcade racers (the aforementioned Wangan Midnight), fighting games (Tekken mostly), shooters and rythym games like Just Dance.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
That's a really good OP, first time in the history of gaming it seems like genres are spread out and really you could put some games in multiple genres with a bunch of RPG elements, view change etc. so genre really isn't that important anymore.
 
Point and click/Puzzle adventure games are as rare as rocking-horse shit.

RPGs, like true, number-crunching, stat-browsing, nerd-linger RPG's have died out. I want to see numbers fly ala KOTOR.

FPS genre is creatively dead. Outside of Crysis (2005), Halo (2001) and Half-life 2 (2004?) the genre hasn't changed a goddamn thing and has regressed
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
Apologies. I can't recall every genre you know. But thanks for reminding me.
lol nah I was just being cheeky. It's definitely a genre that fits your description below:

Genres that have fallen on the wayside because of the ever shifting trends and tastes of the gaming market? Do you feel they're ripe for a comeback? Discuss.

I'm not sure if shmups are ripe for a comeback, ever. They require a decent time investment without the modern dopamine drip systems of Fortnite and Diablo 3. The whole point of the genre is to beat it. There are no intrinsic rewards given to the player beyond winning/score. Story doesn't matter. Gameplay in the genre is functionally identical to how it was back in the 80s.

In terms of gameplay, shmups are more focused on navigating a maze of bullets (the shooting is window-dressing). In terms of practice methods, they play more like learning a difficult Guitar Hero song. The genre is too esoteric so that's why it is stuck in a niche.
 

GreyHorace

Member
That's a really good OP, first time in the history of gaming it seems like genres are spread out and really you could put some games in multiple genres with a bunch of RPG elements, view change etc. so genre really isn't that important anymore.
This is true. I mean, if I were to get technical with some of examples I listed above:

The Witcher 3 - 3rd person rpg with an open world , choice based dialogue system and real time action combat.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Open world game with 3rd or !st person cover based shooting, survival mechanics with some slight rpg elements.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 3rd person action game with rpg elements and stealth gameplay.

Etc, etc. A lot of modern AAA games do like to take elements from other genres to expand the experience.

Arena FPS: Dead :messenger_pensive:
:messenger_confused: Isn't Quake still a thing?
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
That's a really good OP, first time in the history of gaming it seems like genres are spread out and really you could put some games in multiple genres with a bunch of RPG elements, view change etc. so genre really isn't that important anymore.
Really good post. Genre's are dead.
 
Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMORPG) - They don't dominate the industry as they once did in the mid 2000's when World of Warcraft was around. And many have gone free to play like WoW.
WoW isn't free to play.

:messenger_confused: Isn't Quake still a thing?
Quake Champions is declining steadily. They're down to around 500 concurrent players on most days. Wouldn't be shocked if they were getting ready to mothball it at some point during the next year or two.
 
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FeldMonster

Member
FPS genre is creatively dead. Outside of Crysis (2005), Halo (2001) and Half-life 2 (2004?) the genre hasn't changed a goddamn thing and has regressed

I must have totally imagined:
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (1) adding things like EXP progression, weapon attachments, and loadouts (never played it personally, but it's impact is undeniable [See Raycevik's newest video])
  • The open worlds of the Far Cry series and Rage 1 & 2 (playing Rage 2 currently, having a ton of fun)
  • Assymmetric gameplay of L4D and Evolve
  • Shared World experience and Raids of Destiny
  • Continued algorithmic optimization of matchmaking using TrueSkill2 in Halo 5 (White Paper here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2018/03/trueskill2.pdf)
  • 2016 Trifecta of Doom (Gameplay, though I personally do not care for it), COD: IW (Story), and TitanFall 2 (Everything!)
You may not enjoy all or any of these, but to say the genre is creatively dead is a huge fallacy.
 
I must have totally imagined:
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (1) adding things like EXP progression, weapon attachments, and loadouts (never played it personally, but it's impact is undeniable [See Raycevik's newest video])
  • The open worlds of the Far Cry series and Rage 1 & 2 (playing Rage 2 currently, having a ton of fun)
  • Assymmetric gameplay of L4D and Evolve
  • Shared World experience and Raids of Destiny
  • Continued algorithmic optimization of matchmaking using TrueSkill2 in Halo 5 (White Paper here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2018/03/trueskill2.pdf)
  • 2016 Trifecta of Doom (Gameplay, though I personally do not care for it), COD: IW (Story), and TitanFall 2 (Everything!)
You may not enjoy all or any of these, but to say the genre is creatively dead is a huge fallacy.
Taking ideas from RPGs and MMOs is progress?
 
As it relates to the AA/AAA space I can agree with the main point of this thread. Some are in even worse shape than the OP suggests. Survival Horror is basically dead outside of RE in the AAA space.

Point and click/Puzzle adventure games are as rare as rocking-horse shit.

It really depends on if we're counting the indie games or not. In just the last 2 years or so we've had a lot of good games like Unavowed, Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure, Unforeseen Incidents, Jenny LeClue: Detectivu, Thimbleweed Park, Red Strings Club, Irony Curtain: From Matryoshka With Love, Paradigm, Return of the Obra Dinn, etc.

The indie scene for adventure games is actually quite active. Although, if by "puzzle adventures" you're referring to specifically games like Machinarium, The Neverhood, etc... Then yeah there's not to many in that style. There are some coming out fairly soon, though.
 

Airola

Member
Point and click/Puzzle adventure games are as rare as rocking-horse shit.

What, we just had a new Leisure Suit Larry and there are many point and click games in development right now. And "hidden object" games come and go all the time, and they've become more and more like actual adventures instead of just having a bunch of hidden object screens to click on.
 

GreyHorace

Member
Survival horror is a shadow of what it used to be. The fact that you placed Last of Us and Until Dawn in that category demonstrates that well.
How so? Maybe including Until Dawn was a bit of a stretch (it's more of an adventure game), but the success of Resident Evil 7, the RE2 remake and the recent Days Gone prove the genre is as popular as it ever was.

WoW isn't free to play.


Quake Champions is declining steadily. They're down to around 500 concurrent players on most days. Wouldn't be shocked if they were getting ready to mothball it at some point during the next year or two.
I thought WoW was free to play now? Unless they're still going for a monthly subscription? Because I don't think anyone would want to pay to play a 15 year old MMO at this point.

I'll have to take your word on Quake though. But they still do QuakeCon right? I assumed the game was still a thing because of that.

3D platformers are dead. Be realistic.
Please explain. We've had a new Mario game to go with a new Nintendo console. So I don't see how the genre is dead.
 

GreyHorace

Member
Wow one game. Ok. 3D platformers aren't dead I guess.
Ok ok. We've also had the recent Yooka-Laylee like I mentioned. Plus the remasters of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon are proof that the genre is still pretty popular.
 

Belmonte

Member
Point and click/Puzzle adventure games are as rare as rocking-horse shit.

RPGs, like true, number-crunching, stat-browsing, nerd-linger RPG's have died out. I want to see numbers fly ala KOTOR.

FPS genre is creatively dead. Outside of Crysis (2005), Halo (2001) and Half-life 2 (2004?) the genre hasn't changed a goddamn thing and has regressed

There are many true CRPGs made today, and some are more hardcore than KOTOR: UnderRail, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Disco Elysium, Divinity Original Sin, Shadowrun, The Outer Worlds, Elex, Greedfall, Kingdom Come Deliverance, etc... The genre is in great shape IMO!
 
I thought WoW was free to play now? Unless they're still going for a monthly subscription? Because I don't think anyone would want to pay to play a 15 year old MMO at this point.

I'll have to take your word on Quake though. But they still do QuakeCon right? I assumed the game was still a thing because of that.
If nobody wanted to play a 15 year-old MMO then I'd assume making it free wouldn't help much. The successful launch of Classic this year proves that not only do people want to play a 15 year-old game, they want to play it the way it was played 15 years ago, and they're willing to pay for it.

You don't have to take my word when it comes to Quake players numbers. They're out there for anyone to see. QuakeCon is still around, but you have to keep in mind that that was true even before Quake Champions launched. The Quake fanbase these days is almost entirely made up of people who have been playing for 20+ years, and most of the currently active pros would rather play Quake 3 than Champions if it weren't for the prize money id was pumping into it.
 
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GreyHorace

Member
If nobody wanted to play a 15 year-old MMO then I'd assume making it free wouldn't help much. The successful launch of Classic this year proves that not only do people want to play a 15 year-old game, they want to play it the way it was played 15 years ago, and they're willing to pay for it.

You don't have to take my word when it comes to Quake players numbers. They're out there for anyone to see. QuakeCon is still around, but you have to keep in mind that that was true even before Quake Champions launched. The Quake fanbase these days is almost entirely made up of people who have been playing for 20+ years, and most of the currently active pros would rather play Quake 3 than Champions if it weren't for the prize money id was pumping into it.
Color me surprised then. I really didn't think people would still pay money to play World of Warcraft.

And you'll have to forgive my confusion regarding Quake. When you have a convention named after a game you assume said game is still a big deal.
 

Arachnid

Member
How so? Maybe including Until Dawn was a bit of a stretch (it's more of an adventure game), but the success of Resident Evil 7, the RE2 remake and the recent Days Gone prove the genre is as popular as it ever was.
Agreed with RE7 and RE2, but two games don't equate to the GOAT days of Siren, Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Fatal Frame, and RE. Even the two you mentioned aren't very scary (yeah, "scary" is more subjective, but I lean towards psychological horror).

Days Gone and Last of Us aren't survival horror. This is going to sound like a really stupid statement (lol), but survival horror isn't defined by the "survival" and "horror" in the genre title.
 

molasar

Banned
2D beat'em ups: almost dead to me. Mother Russia Bleeds, Fight'N Rage, I Am The Hero, Bad Ass Babes, Raging Justice, The TakeOver, Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Slaps And Beans and upcoming SoR4 or New Battletoads do not satisfy me like the old ones. However Paprium was the last hope.
 
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GreyHorace

Member
Agreed with RE7 and RE2, but two games don't equate to the GOAT days of Siren, Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Fatal Frame, and RE. Even the two you mentioned aren't very scary (yeah, "scary" is more subjective, but I lean towards psychological horror).

Days Gone and Last of Us aren't survival horror. This is going to sound like a really stupid statement (lol), but survival horror isn't defined by the "survival" and "horror" in the genre title.
Such a shame about Silent Hill. I think Jim Sterling is an idiot but I agree with him when he says 'Fuck Konami'. So many great IPs lost because they closed down their games division. And Fatal Frame... wonder why Koei/Tecmo hasn't made a new one yet?

As to your second statement, okay I'll agree that Days Gone isn't exactly survival horror. It's more of a 3rd person open world shooter set in a post apocalypse with zombies in it. But The Last of Us? It's 3rd person shooting with a lot of enclosed spaces and limited resource management. Plus some of the enemies are equivalent to zombies. How can it not be survival horror?
 
Some recent City Builders: Foundation, Cliff Empire, Frostpunk, Dawn of Man, Factory Town, Tropico 6, Kingdoms and Castles, Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, Surviving Mars, Founder's Fortune, Rise to Ruin, Anno 1800, Surviving the Aftermath. Sure, these are mostly not in a modern SimCity setting, but that's probably because it too hard to beat Cities Skylines at that game. I don't really care about the other genres you have there but I wouldn't be surprised if there are plenty of under the radar games there too.
 

Arachnid

Member
As to your second statement, okay I'll agree that Days Gone isn't exactly survival horror. It's more of a 3rd person open world shooter set in a post apocalypse with zombies in it. But The Last of Us? It's 3rd person shooting with a lot of enclosed spaces and limited resource management. Plus some of the enemies are equivalent to zombies. How can it not be survival horror?
No puzzles, no mazelike level design or metroidvania aspects and REALLY light on the horror aspects. Too much focus on combat through forced encounters. The entire game can be summarized as you clearing out room after room of enemies in really rudimentary stealth/shooting gameplay. It's more horror (if you could call it that) action like RE4 or Dead Space
 

GreyHorace

Member
No puzzles, no mazelike level design or metroidvania aspects and REALLY light on the horror aspects. Too much focus on combat through forced encounters. The entire game can be summarized as you clearing out room after room of enemies in really rudimentary stealth/shooting gameplay. It's more horror (if you could call it that) action like RE4 or Dead Space
Okay. Thanks for clearing that up. Truth be told I'm not a big fan of those puzzle elements along with mazelike level design you see in classic Survival Horror games.
 

anthraticus

Banned
That's a really good OP, first time in the history of gaming it seems like genres are spread out and really you could put some games in multiple genres with a bunch of RPG elements, view change etc. so genre really isn't that important anymore.
Yea, now you have games that try and borrow from a lot of genres at once and try to appeal to so many ppl, but the problem is most of these elements come off feeling way too shallow and underdeveloped though.
Games that would focus on their core ideas, refine the hell out of them and appeal to the actual fans of the said genre, that was a good thing.

Reminds me of the old Toddler quote from Oblivion..."An RPG for casual players, brilliant !! Why ? Any gripes about the action elements will be met with, well it's really an RPG, duh ! And any complaints about the RPG elements are met with, well this isn;t your grandpas RPG with skill checks and dice rolls, it's an action RPG, for the next generation, duh" !!




 

Ballthyrm

Member
  • Beat 'em up, apart from the brave indies making a gem once in a blue moon (hello Full Metal Furies) we lost a big genre from the 90's, i hope Street of Rage IV is going be great.
  • Party Games, sure we got a couple of great couch coop games like overcooked but party games with a ton of stupid mini games are all but dead (no the 15 editions of Jackbox don't count)
  • Advergame, remember when we got games on disk for free while buying coka cola, or a PS1 demo that had nothing to do with the actual game.
  • God games, last one i remember playing was From Dust in 2011, dear god why have you forsaken me ! I guess we'll have Evil Genius 2 coming out soon but is it really a god game ?
  • Tower defense, it went from niche to super popular and back to niche again. There is a couple of really good ones but i have not seen a ton of innovation in the genre. IMHO the Warcraft III mods are still the best this genre has to offer.
 

Airola

Member
I have a really specific type of gameplay I'm into the most, and those games are rare as hell.

-2D graphics (can be 3D too if the game is isometric)
-NO SCREEN SCROLLING!!! You advance one screen at a time. You reach on edge of the screen and appear in the next screen. It's ok if there are some sections that have scrolling screen but those need to be rare.
-Multiple routes to go, backtracking, gated areas you can see the entrances to but can't necessarily go until you've found and item or something to help going there.

La-Mulana 1 & 2
are the best games of all time and I've been itching to play something even remotely like that.
Some recent or semi recent games that come to mind are Alwa's Awakening and Zombie Incident (3DS). Ummmm what else.... Mini Ghost and You Have to Win the Game (both on Steam). All of them are excellent games. I have tons of games still to play in my Steam library and don't know if I have some gems like that still waiting for me but I'd love to find more games like that. Oh! Hakoniwa Explorer Plus is an interesting game too. Haven't played it yet but I have it on Steam.

No screen scrolling is A MUST!! There is something very special in that type of games. Moving around doesn't bring you new things immediately but you are free to take a look at that one specific screen, look for ways out, look for secrets, and when you think you are ready to move on, you go to one of the exits and appear in a next place like that. There is something ultimately satisfying in advancing screens like that and scrolling screen takes it completely away.

As you can see, I'm very much into "metroidvania" type of adventuring, but I have found this specific type of flip screen gameplay so satisfying that metroidvanias where the screen scrolls all the time aren't cutting it for me anymore. A lot of those games are also filled with other types of bullshit, like all kinds of explosions and light effects and screen shakes when you kill enemies, or the combat is combo-based and I can't stand those (couldn't stand playing Guacamelee because of that - and the Mexican wrestler theme is also super off-putting too).

If anyone has any recommendations based on this I'm willing to listen.
 

ROMhack

Member
Actual Walking Sims — not the ones people say are walking sims like GoW — are few and far between these days, which is a shame IMHO as I liked some of them.

Firewatch
Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Tacoma
Soma
Amnesia: The Sequel

etc.
 
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RedVIper

Banned
I think Factorio counts as a city building game, an rts and a puzzle game. And it's fucking amazing.

Most of the genres you mentioned still exist, they're just done by indie devs instead of AAA.
 
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Arena shooters are basically dead.
Spectacle fighters are dead, Bayonetta 2 and dmc 5 are keeping the flame alive, but these types of games are dead.
3A puzzle game are dead. Last good entries in the genre were The Talos Principle and portal 2.
 
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