Is having the correct genre important?
In that sense i would wish that people tag it properly before buying a game, but some can't be decribed by one genre, and action could fit anything, HOG is also adventure, but not in a way of proper point and click adventure, If it's rogue i usually go walk passed it.
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Oh definitely. By the way you described it, you mainly brought the game because of the genre so when it doesn't have that it must be disappointing. I recently played cursed which has the tag of being a hidden object game when that main element is missing. I've searched up visual novels and found plenty of games that aren't but tagged so. I wouldn't want to expect reading and it be turned into a side scroller instead
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I did look forward to that aspect of the game since it was specifically mentioned, but it is a good game otherwise. Noita is one that I did specifically research because it describes itself as a roguelite but has none of those features, so I avoided that one thankfully.
Yeah the HOG/Visual Novel/Points & Click tags seem to be mixed together a lot.
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I think genre definitions are useful, but I only get really worked up about the difference between Rogue-like and Rogue-lite. I could go on for hours about why a game is "lite" not "like", or how it's not even roguelike at all. (Nova Drift is a Rogue-lite by my reckoning since you unlock abilities for use in subsequent runs every time you play.)
The backlash you experienced was probably from people who thought you were reopening the whole "like" vs. "lite" discussion. Folks find that annoying because there are an unusually large number of people out there who will argue about it with very little provocation. (I try not to be one of them, but it's an ingrained habit and very hard to break.)
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Yeah I see that now, people just start out hostile when I just wanted some clarification on the game specifically but they thought it was about the genres in general.
Your description of Nova Drift is what I thought was a Rogue Like, with unlocks to future runs being what makes a roguelike different than just a standard arcade game. If you don't want to discuss that's fine but I am just curious as to what people think.
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No, a classic rogue-like features no perma-progression at all. It's literally "like Rogue", Rogue being this game. Rogue-likes must also be turn-based and either dungeon crawlers, or have setup similar to ones (some modern rogue-likes like Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead don't have dungeons per se, but they are set up the way that the overworld maps kinda feel like dungeons anyways). Nova Drift is a rogue-lite, because it has the procedural generation elements from rogue-like games, but is not a dungeon crawler or a turn-based game
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I get really annoyed about the term "roguelite" in general. I mean, do people not know the meaning of the term "lite"?
Rogue-lite would mean it's a game like rogue but lighter, aka have less features and what not. So when people use that term on games with huge amount of content just because they're not turn based I get really annoyed.
The way I see it, the term roguelike should be used for games with procedural generation and perm death that are turn based, the ones that aren't turn based and are fast paced should be called action roguelikes, etc.
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There are rogue-lites that feature no carryover upgrades, like Nuclear Throne. Having carryover is not necessary. In general, the roguelite tag is messy and drastically different games are described as such
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There are rogue-lites that feature no carryover upgrades, like Nuclear Throne.
In Nuclear Throne you get Golden versions of any weapon, they replace the starting pistol for that character in future runs :)
Though I think that is the only thing like that besides character and skin? unlocks.
People apply the wrong tags all the time, like calling hidden object games point and clicks. Anyway, roguelike and all the subgenres really made a messy scene, it's close to impossible to set up clear-cut categories, despite how useful it would be. Nuclear Throne has as much "roguelite" in it as much those games with "RPG elements" really has to do with real RPGs, absolutely minimal. (And god forbid we make "roguelike with roguelite elements" a genre lol)
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In Nuclear Throne you get Golden versions of any weapon
It's post-game content though, you need to loop to even get it. Really minor in my opinion. But this is splitting hairs probably xD
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It's post-game content though, you need to loop to even get it.
Akshually
When your character goes through a level ending portal with a golden weapon in either weapon slots, from that point it becomes that character's starting weapon.
I'm sure about it, I have a golden weapon without even reaching the Throne yet :P
But this is splitting hairs probably xD
Oh absolutely. While I tried to be accurate about N.T.'s features, it's a single gun carry-over for future runs vs Rogue Legacy's various equipment and runes to go well with the character's traits and the whole Manor of upgrades with class changes, new features and flat stat upgrades.
It's really clear after this that while upgrades/carryover stuff can and imo does define what is a roguelite, but not every game makes that it a central feature ( Like how a game with RPG elements, and an RPG game are different.) 10,000,000 comes to my mind as well, as a match-3 roguelite, where death and upgrades IS a central element in the gameplay, because you literally can not finish the game without it.
Thanks for reading this far :D
TLDR: Roguelike/roguelite is messy because having a feature does not mean it's important, or even well-used. And then if people just throw out the genres semi-randomly, then it's just a clusterfuck as a genre-definition :D
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I agree with all of that here. I also think that you could, fairly easily, build a roguelite with 0 carryover. Something like a card-based one (they typically just make minor unlocks) with all cards unlocked at the start. It will still be a roguelite, because cards, but with no unlocks/carryover stuff. I also blame the Berlin definition for the mess, people who wrote it visibly did not have experience with scene/movement categorization and when the main pushback against the "everything is roguelike" people is "actually you need to be a literal Rogue clone" people, it just raises the mess
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It will still be a roguelite, because cards
Does this imply that you consider roguelike what? Turn based games, like how Rogue was, or even more features are a must? Not as it an issue, but this is just another layer of issues with meaning the same things when saying the same words. Had a similar experience when somebody critiqued a game for not being metroidvania because it lacked levels, that's also a must of the genre for some people :P Genres are truly, truly messy!
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My opinion of roguelikes is that they have to be dungeon crawl type games. Not necessarily full on dungeon crawlers, but having maps/instances that feel like dungeons anyways. I think that if a real time hack n slash game, with procedurally made dungeon crawling and no metaprogress existed, I'd still call it a roguelike, not a roguelite. It just "feels" right to me. But yeah, we do need people experienced in categorizing to take on game genres, right now it is all made democratically and with no real insight. Metroidvanias aren't supposed to have levels by the way - they are supposed to be an interconnected world, where you can always backtrack, and with ability gates that limit progress. The world being divided into areas is more a tech limitation
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Yeah from that "true" definition the only game that can be called roguelike is rogue or a exact knockoff, making the genre useless to describe any other games.
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Yeah, and those persistent upgrades do make the the content "easier" because you have levelled up, so that is what is being confused when people think it's just an easier game overall. I agree that it is the carry-over upgrades that define what a roguelite is.
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The thing is, roguelike and roguelite are fairly broad categories, and lightly defined. I, and I’m sure many others, don’t really know where one ends and the other begins. While there are plenty of genre-bending games, most genres are fairly well-defined or have clear boundaries (even if the distinction is “I’ll know it when I see it”). RPG, FPS, adventure, etc. those are easy to understand. With roguelike, roguelite, and roguelike-like, it’s usually pretty clear when a game is in “rogue” territory, but not necessarily more specific than that.
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That's true, I might just drop the "like/lite" completely when discussing the genre and just call all of them Rogue games.
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Genre is just an abstract constuct. Game developers put creativity into their games. If every game has to contains strict set of properties, we never could get rogulike games, for instance. And indie game development at all. Game industry would be a place of yearly CoD and Assassins Creed. Nowadays so calles genres are, mostly, only tags for finding games with certain features.
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Strong reasoning for the "no" vote, which is just what I like to see! You're right, when I hear games talked about now sometimes they list four or five genres because there are pieces of the game that are similar, but at that point it doesn't fit in any of them because combining parts of 5 genres make it a new thing entirely.
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Yes. And if we go deeper into the topic, theres games that has their own genres (Dark Souls, the Sims or Dungeon Keeper), and genres that has no games at all (Motoball Manager, I say!). So, like an Internet goes from cataloging to indexing, I think, we should go away from genres to tags.
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no connection to genres and to TS poll in particular
...what do you think genres are? A genre is, at its essence, a group of features that distinguish certain games/movies/whatever from others, and this poll in particular was directly inspired by a game saying it's part of a genre when it apparently doesn't have all the features of said genre. Saying "do you care about genre definitions" is basically the exact same thing as saying "do you hate banal marketing lies."
My point is: you can still have your genre-bending games, but they shouldn't say they're part of said genre, instead saying something like "a [genre] without the [X]!" or "but with [Y]!"
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My point is: you can still have your genre-bending games, but they shouldn't say they're part of said genre, instead saying something like "a [genre] without the [X]!" or "but with [Y]!"
For that you have to have a strict list of particular genres and their integral features. But that's just impossible. Because, for instanse, what features must Strategy genre contain? Dune 2 set, maybe? Or Warhammer Dark Omen? Or C&C Generals? Empire: Total War? Supreme Commander? Or first one, Empire from 1977? Some regulation needed. So that need to be some sort of organization or foundation. So that has to be money-spending. So that will be buisness-interests and, of cource, corruption, Damn no! I am against this idea.
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buisness[sic]-interests and, of cource[sic], corruption
You're blowing this way out of proportion. None of us are advocating for regulation via interest-groups; we're just saying you shouldn't be allowed to call any game a Strategy game, a roguelite, etc. Is Super Mario Bros. a Strategy game? Is Time Crisis a Strategy game? Is Dance Dance Revolution a Strategy game? If your answer to any of my questions is "no," then you also admit that genres have integral features and that genre definitions matter (and I'm sure you can figure out what those integral features are by yourself if you just think about it for a few minutes; surely, your examples share some gameplay similarities with each other that separate them from other games/genres).
By the way, "Strategy" isn't really a genre in itself, but rather a group of genres: RTS, Turn-Based Tactics, Grand Strategy/4X, etc. Do those terms help distinguish some of your examples from each other?
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Ok, lets go deeper. What game should be feature-source for the RTS genre (let's omit the question of who will deal with these)? Age of Empires? C&C Generals? C&C 4? Warcraft 3? Company of Heroes? Supreme Commander? Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak? TOTAL WAR series (which one exactly then, they all differ)? If we try to get some integral feauters from all of that great games combine, we will fail. Because we have Dungeon Kepper, fi, which is RTS too. And it is completely different.
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What game should be feature-source
Ohhh, that's your mistake. It's not a specific game that's feature-source, but rather, it's the integral features that are shared between games that determine genre. Not every genre is like roguelike or zeldaclone.
I admit I'm not too familiar with the RTS genre since I don't really like it, but I can say with confidence that one integral feature is indirect control over multiple units (you give them a command and they'll do it automatically, their own way, at their own pace), and if you don't start with multiple units, there's a way to get more of them. For a pure RTS (as opposed to merely having RTS elements while being in another genre), I'm gonna say it has to be a stage-by-stage game with fixed level design. Having a stage-select (like the different campaigns in Starcraft) is one thing, but if it's just one huge, interconnected map, I'm pretty sure that'd make it a Grand Strategy (and if the levels are procedurally-generated, well, then it's a procedurally-generated RTS instead of an RTS).
In Total War's case, that's a 4X with RTS combat because the focus isn't on the real-time combat, but rather on interacting with other factions as a whole (treaties, trade deals, etc.; combat's just a part of that). Plus, I'm pretty sure only the combat is real-time (with pause), and the rest of the game is turn-based. It's also a great example of why we're advocating for these distinctions in the first place: Total War shouldn't just be calling itself an RTS because it might trick and upset people who simply want a regular, stage-by-stage RTS instead of a turn-based 4X game that just so happens to have RTS combat.
P.S. I haven't played Dungeon Keeper, but I think that might be more of a management game with RTS elements. Is Sim City an RTS? Maybe the game is more Tower Defense than management or RTS since the focus is on keeping your dungeon, so you'd have to build it in a way that'd help you fight invaders. Either way, it's like you said: the game is much different than the other games you listed, and this difference should be made clear upfront instead of just going "it's an RTS, too," and calling it a day.
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You are missing one small detail. Games, I've listed, were released decades apart. How the developers of these games could implement all of these "shoulds", you apply? We had Dungeon Keeper, wich is one of the greatest games of all time (if you asked me), and wich had all integral features you mentioned. But it was released in 1997. And it whole differnet from other Strategy games that was before and came after. Ok. I am the developer. I want to develop a Strategy game, similar to Dungeon Keeper and call it a Strategy in Steam tags.I must google those integral features? Or take 'em from my gaming expirience? Or make a focus-group poll (if I am indie, where I will take money for that and why?)? Or get them how? And implemet them in my game for what reason? For some unacquainted gamer wouldnt write a bad review on my game? But I focuses on audience of Dungeon Keeper. And for Strategy-lovers awhole. So I just tag Strategy. And in the end reviews will depend on how good my game is, not how well it fits the genre So I just wont bother myself with such things. Game development is a hard thing itself, I dont need any deadwoods like wondering if I fit into an abstract genre or not. And it is abstract, cause if you ask 100 people about integral features of specific genre, you've got 60-70 different answers.
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Again, you're completely missing the point.
in Steam tags
This isn't about what other users put in the Steam tags, this is about how the devs describe their own game. If you go to the Steam page for Nova Drift (the game that started this discussion) and scroll down to the description, the game calls itself a 'rogue-lite' but doesn't specify that there are NO permanent upgrades at all. We're just saying that the description should be changed to say 'rogue-lite without permanent upgrades.'
Similarly, if you want to make a spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper, that's perfectly fine; go ahead and do that. However, don't advertise it as JUST a strategy game; SPECIFY that it's a spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper (something that doesn't even require you to say "strategy" at all), and be sure to list some key gameplay differences between your game and your inspiration as well. That's all we're asking for.
Dungeon Keeper...had all integral features you mentioned.
Dungeon Keeper has fixed level design and stage-by-stage progression? I though the whole point was that you built the dungeon yourself, effectively creating your own level (meaning level design isn't fixed), and rather than being sent to a different map when you finish your objectives (which is what stage-by-stage progression is), you just keep building onto your existing dungeon/level. Sure, the rooms you build may have the same stuff in them, but you can choose WHERE to put the rooms, right? And you can't actually send any units to a spot that doesn't have a room you built, right? That's quite different than choosing where to build a base in a normal RTS because normal RTS structures aren't also map expansions.
In other words, if I may rephrase my earlier statement: integral features for a pure RTS are map-by-map progression and fixed map design. Players can build structures on the map and it still be a pure RTS, but if the player can build a structure that's also a map expansion (going outside the initial boundary of the map rather than just connecting two points on the pre-existing map), that's not fixed map design and should be specified in the game's description.
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You confuse the global genre issue with the thing, where some developers write lame and incorrect descriptions for their games. It's like compare warm and soft. I'm trying to say, that genre division awhole is a rudiment. But I totally agree that games must be described accurately.
About DK. It has both indirect control and. fixed level-design with sts progression. Player got set of instruments to guide creatures to any clear points of the map. And direct control from first-person view! And maps itself got fixed level design where undiggable sites like lava act as height difference in Starcraft, for instance. Every campaign map has it own goal (wich are mostly agressive and conquery, than economic) and appropriate design,.Just google "Dungeon Keeper campaign maps", youll see it for yourself. Thing is you cant build level for yourself because: 1) design wont allow you; 2) your foe wont allow you. Think about dirt digging as a crystal/gaz farming in Starcraft. It's just a method to progress, not some city-building thing, Though every Dungeon Keeper clone has a freeplay mode.
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You confuse the global genre issue with the thing, where some developers write lame and incorrect descriptions for their games.
What? No, the genre issue IS developers writing incorrect or inadequate descriptions! The genres were coined to mean specific things (things that'd be pretty long and clunky to write out on their own), and if a game deviates from said specific things, the devs shouldn't claim their game to be in the genre without immediately putting the differences front-and-center (e.g. "a 4X game, but with RTS combat"). Not sure if it fits? Don't like using genres to describe something? Then don't! Say "randomized level design" instead of "rogue-lite", say "indirect control of multiple units" instead of "RTS." That's all we're saying.
Seriously, what do you think the "global genre issue" is? Cuz I thought it was devs misusing genres in their game descriptions.
P.S. I'll drop the Dungeon Keeper thing because, like I said, I haven't played that game and don't know how it's different from traditional RTS games. If only someone knew of a better way to describe it...
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The global genre issue is:
1) They are not defined. If you ask 100 people about core/integral feauters of the given genre, you get 60-70 different answers. And noone has ever done such survey And if something not defined, no one owes anyone.
2) Thay are an abstract construct, invented by game journalists to describe something that does not fit into the already existing framework.
"What? Thats not classic dungeon-crawler! Thats new game called Rogue! Lets cal all similar games rogue-like! Muehehehehe!"
"What? Thats not rogue-like! It's easier! Lets call it rogue-lite! Muehehehehe!"
3) The concept was taken from movies. Games has another level of consumer involvement. And even in movies genre thing has the same issues.
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I think genres are very practical when it comes to trying to comunicate what the game's about in a short way, specially when it comes to searching for similar things.
The problem tends to come when a given genre name becames too broad or too granular, the whole "rogue" family of genres is a great example of the later, for the casual player trying to tell apart a roguelike from a roguelite is pretty hard and there doesn't seem to be much consensus on the boundaries of the two so it just devolves into a shouting match. An example of the oposite could be "action-adventure", I like them, but I can't clearly define what the hell they are to save my life and two vastly different games can find themselves under that umbrella.
And then there's the absolute mess that are the naming conventions, or more appropiately the lack of consistency that they show. To this day I'm not sure if they're spectacle fighters, character action, stylish action, or just DMC-like.
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To this day I'm not sure if they're spectacle fighters, character action, stylish action, or just DMC-like.
I know character action was one of the "official" genre names, but it's one of the most useless terms I've heard lol. It's on the verge of shape puzzler :D
DMC-like or spectacle fighter works in a way that DMC is DMC, and pretty consistent in style, and spectacle fighter is a good describer for the typical, identity-definer over-the top combat.
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I also feel like spectacle fighter is the one that better fits the genre. But for some reason I've seen plenty of resistence online, usually setting for character action, the blandest and vaguest of the bunch.
At least poeple stopped calling them hack and slash, having two fairly different genres sharing a name was so confusing.
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I care about genres/tags. A lot. They are the first basis of information of what the game (but also book, musical album, et cetera) aspires to do. Obviously, that's not where it ends - but it's important to have proper influences recognition in place. Anyone who says "oh just enjoy the game" enjoyed it already, so it's kind of a useless piece of advice. And as you already mentioned. good genre tagging can inform the culture consumer what they can expect. In example, I really dislike traditional sports games, so it's a good sign to me to avoid the game - but someone who loves them may specifically look for them based on this tag.
That being said, the "roguelite" tag is fucked beyond recognition and describes nothing. Games that are described as rogue-lites can be self-contained runs with unlocks only adding variety (Slay the Spire), have strong metaprogression in a still random world (Rogue Legacy), or just a campaign with semi-random missions (Darkest Dungeon). Literally the only thing that connects them is the inability to backtrack to a previous game state. You play X-Com on ironman? Congrats, you play a rogue-lite.
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I work with big data so it's important to me as well, and from what I'm seeing some genres/tags are more affected by this degeneration than others, among them the rogue tags. I think it's already a lost cause for that genre from what I am seeing; further definition will provide less clarity to the situation.
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I want all hentai games to be tagged as such so that I can add them to the excluded tags on Steam and never have to see this trash again. So yeah, I care about genre definitions.
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Truth, genres like that are pretty key since we can only exclude 10 tags on steam.
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Sorry, I thought that's what it meant. You say Spelunky and Downwell very obviously are roguelites, I thought they weren't, how are they obviously roguelites?
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Lite? Because that's exactly what I thought defined the Roguelike genre, with roguelite being a subgenre that includes permanent upgrades and stat-increasing progression.
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I care, but the overwhelming amount of people who don't has certainly made it difficult for me to tell if I might enjoy a game. For example, I like platformers, but that tag has been applied to every 2D side-scroller with a jump button, even if there's very little actual platforming and the game is really a hack and slash.
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YES the "platformer" tag has been slapped on anything and everything, from side scrollers to puzzle games. When I see "3d puzzle platformer" tag I have to actually look up videos to see how much is puzzle and how much is platforming.
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I care.
https://medium.com/@dexteryy/a-taxonomy-of-video-game-genres-and-170-games-series-8cb94d6fcbf8
The bad news is majority of games on steam are shotgun-tagged with whatever random tags, which is unfortunate seeing that Steam relies heavily on tags to suggest similar games.
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That's a really interesting graph, but I feel like it's either out of date or not very acurate.
It has Devil May Cry under Beat 'em ups, Racing and Sport are under Simulation despite the fact that arcade and combat racers are a thing and not all sport games are simulations, 6DOF FPS aparently aren't a subgenre nor are puzzle shooters, and the examples of Shmups are all run and gun with no mentions of classic space shooters or bullet hell.
Also, I don't know where FMVs, clickers, card games, non-action horror games, exploration/walking sims, and time management would fit in there. Or why Platform-adventure is used instead of the far more common Metroidvania name.
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Good points, and it is an old one (from 2014).
I think this a hard problem, especially if you want to assign one overall genre to a game...
Devil May Cry under Beat 'em ups
maybe they're using it as synonym for hack-n-slash?
Racing and Sport are under Simulation
yeah, I would say more Action than Simulation.
I might even take those out and form a new standalone group for "Sports" games with racing as sub-genre
Shmups
definitely would include bullet hell and the like
FMVs, non-action horror games, exploration/walking sims
I usually classify those as Adventure games
clickers, time management
I guess we need another group in that diagram for "Casual" games?
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DMC has been removed from Beat Em Up and spawned a new subgenre called Spectacle Fighter, which is a perfect use of subgenre splitting into its own specific thing.
Thanks for that chart, that's a really cool resource like a color-wheel but for genres!
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As noted here:
The name we have for games where you fight a lot of relatively weak enemies is a “brawler” or a “beat ‘em up”
so the original classification is not exactly wrong ;)
It's true that "fighting" games to me mean something like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.
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IMO basic genre definitions are important but like language over time their meanings change or adapt. And then there is the individual biases or feelings that affect people and their using a definition in a review or whilst tagging games.
So, it can be helpful in a basic way but doesn't absolve one from further researching a specific game.
Edit: When someone says "who cares?" it's initially a smh moment. But then again they may have a point.
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I do. I hate when people were saying roguelikes as zelda-likes too since i tend to avoid the first one while liking the latter one. Just because you strip the turn based system in roguelikes, it doesn't instantly change them into zelda-likes. I know it's not an actual tag, but still.
Some games have a genre that is combined with other genres though, so sometimes it's hard to tag them properly. I usually don't mind for this as long as they are explained properly.
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Roguelike vs. lite is one not many people know the difference of. Even for myself at times it's not clear.
Lite has permanent stat upgrades & progression.
Like can have permanent unlocks that get added to item/skill pools or other characters, but mostly you start from nothing if you die. I can see whether or not something is a Roguelike being debated though.
RPG and JRPG are also tough to define at times.
For me if it becomes a problem, then 'No', but genre tags do mostly help for those that care.
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JRPG is when you have a little line of 4 characters moving around the map XD
I’ve never played one really so that’s the only thing I could say about it the ones I’ve seen
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The more I think about it and read the comments, the more sure I become about genre definitions are just fluffy-buzzy clouds of categories, instead of clearly defined ones.
They only seem to be good for building a general impression of the game, and it's becoming a sad trend for me that I have to check gameplay videos of games because they often turn out entirely different what their tags, screenshots, or even the trailer suggests. Though the reason of this is usually the unexpected difficulty or presentation - like puzzle games turning into a chore because of low difficulty but slow, stretched out gameplay with no fresh ideas. Or how annoying tagged-on RPG elements can be in games that should work without them (Like Deadfall Adventures, with its good old +5% bonuses because if you have skill unlocks, it's an RPG!)
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There’s just a lot of stuff being put out that isn’t made to cleanly fit any one category, so of course definitions are trying to keep up by becoming more granular, but at what point does it become faster just to talk about the game itself rather than first list what genres it could fit into. I agree with you and am glad I made this post because it has made me realize if a game doesn’t cleanly fit into a well-known genre then it’s not useful to try and shoehorn it into something or connect it to existing ideas.
I love factory builders, but if a fun factory builder comes along that has elements from other genres (lookin straight at you Craftopia) mix ins I would probably just say factory builder or not even go into genres at all.
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my favorite aspect of the genre is missing: permanent upgrades and stat-increasing progression.
Where you got this definition? As far as I know (and I may be wrong), roguelike has "official" definition, so-called "Berlin Interpretation". And everything that is close to roguelike, but does not fit this definition, is called roguelite. Is there other definiton (from reputable sources!) that I don't know about?
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From just being part of many different communities of games in this genre. Many players are on the same page even though the technical definition is far outdated and there is nothing set in stone for the current landscape of the genre there’s usually an understanding in many communities about what is or is not a roguelike/lite game. Shoutout to the Heroes of Hammerwatch community.
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Well, that's not a definition. If there is no definition, let even non-official, but commonly supported, you can't expect others to fulfill your expectations. Even with roguelike, which has definition, people call everything "roguelike" these days. For example, by definition, roguelike should be turn-based. Have you seen much turn-based roguelikes recently? I didn't.
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Well, it's not any good for anyone. I would love, same as you, to have some genre definitions that will allow me to select games I like without efforts. But realistically - there is no such definitions, especially for roguelike. I can understand your frustration, but only solution is to check actual features of game, not some "genres". And sadly there is no easy way to do this without actually playing or watching someone else's playthrough.
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My frustration is with your pressing of a definition, when what I was doing was exactly what you suggested "but only solution is to check actual features of game" and my original post that you quoted in your first comment here I am describing a feature of the game "my favorite aspect of the genre is missing: permanent upgrades and stat-increasing progression." so as you said there are no helpful definitions, so when you push me to make this definition twice when we both know the antiquated definition has no relevance after the rogue genre has exploded in popularity is what is frustrating to me.
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You seem to assume too much. I asked for definition because I was genuinely curious about it. I know about "Berlin Interpretation" for roguelike, so I thought "hey, maybe there is something similar for roguelite, and I just don't know about it". It seems I was wrong, well, not a big deal. It's not that I really needed this definition, I was just curious. Sorry if my question made you angry, it wasn't intended.
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I've spent around a week to organize my steam library with proper tags for each game. I wish they'd do that automatically and not have to check the store in order to know which genre it is. It also doesn't help that many tags are "meme" tags or just trolling.
The worse was for the games which were removed from the store. I had to manually search each one of them on Google and try to find out their genre. It doesn't sound that bad, but some of them were really obscure trash indie games that didn't even had a metacritic page.
So my short answer is YES. Having the correct game genre is important.
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Mad respect and more power to you! I am currently doing something similar for a project that I might do using my steam library, so I am collecting the data into an excel sheet to start and one of the categories is Genre, which I am going to have to do some data cleaning because of those genres that aren’t really true genres.
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Thanks! I wish you the best of luck with your project as well. It's not easy collecting data, especially if you are the type who wants to be as accurate as possible, but in the end you get that nice satisfaction feeling which I think it's worth the effort.
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In the past I had used a tool Depressurizer which helps in organizing ones library (it can create categories by genre, tags, flags, year, howlongtobeat, review scores, etc.), but I haven't used it since the Steam library update and I don't know if it still works with the new one.
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The right described genre is important for me (that´s one of the first things I´m looking at, if I see an interesting game), but I know, that not every genre fits perfect every game. Some genres can also fit a lot of games, which play really differently. That´s why I read also some reviews, before buying a game (or playing the demo, if there is one). For me this works really well.
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When I was in school somebody told me that I would like Jackass based on me liking Monty Python. It's a bit like that with game 'genres'. I would put Painkiller in a different genre than Quake, but most people wouldn't. So yeah, I rather watch a video or read a proper review/critique than to look at tags people gave a game.
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I'm not a fan of trying to fit things into neat little piles and categories because it usually means the most creative and original games/movies/books etc get lost in the great void of things that can't neatly summed up, or easily categorized.
This being said, tags are a useful tool for people looking for something specific but as you have experienced, they often are too broad to really help in the end.
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I prefer the game adhere to its own design, and let other people worry about classifying it. Trying to fit a certain silhouette is a surefire way of accidentally inducing filler and trimming off cool things that go just beyond the line.
That said, from the other side of the equation, mistagging or misrepresenting a game makes people more likely to buy a thing they dislike, and that just plain sucks. The term 'roguelike' has struggled with this, but we're used to the butchered version now. Some terms and genres are just very tricky to nail down and get misused often, so it's always best to check reviews and do a little scouting of your own. Nobody likes buyers remorse after all. Sadly 'procedural' doesnt always fit what people call 'roguelite', and 'unlockathon' isnt a common term. We could really use a term for 'horror' games that are primarily just cheap startle scares. Perhaps two terms, one for a game that uses startle scares but doesn't hide its nature (or better yet, owns it, and tries to build on it), and ones that pose as a deeper 'genuine horror' but only amounts to a bunch of audio stings and ooga-boogy screen lunges.
Good usage of labels helps everybody and can help people discover new hidden gems, and bad usage can mess with folks or become a hurdle to the lesser-knowns, but I picked 'no' because I rarely have much spare cash so always look carefully into a thing before buying.
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First discussion here, and it's a pretty pointless one. I recently started playing Nova Drift because it was described in several places on its steam page as a Roguelite, which is my favorite game genre. After a few hours I found that my favorite aspect of the genre is missing: permanent upgrades and stat-increasing progression. After asking around on steam forums and on their discord to see if this was a part of the game or why it was called roguelite instead of just roguelike I met with much backlash from the community, one common retort being "who cares what you call it, just play the game" which confused me. It's a really fun game even if it isn't a roguelite, so I can kind of see where they are coming from, but at what point does mislabeling a game become problematic? I am interested in some non-combative discussion on this topic if anyone else cares to throw in their two cents.
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