A multidimensional typology of games

Authors

  • Espen Aarseth
  • Solveig Marie Smedstad
  • Lise Sunnanå

Keywords:

game genres, typology of games, games in virtual envi-

Abstract

This paper builds on a general typology of textual com- munication (Aarseth 1997) and tries to establish a model for classifying the genre of “games in virtual environ- ments”— that is, games that take place in some kind of simulated world, as opposed to purely abstract games like poker or blackjack. The aim of the model is to identify the main differences between games in a rigorous, ana- lytical way, in order to come up with genres that are more specific and less ad hoc than those used by the industry and the popular gaming press. The model consists of a number of basic “dimensions”, such as Space, Perspective, Time, Teleology, etc, each of which has several variate values, (e.g. Teleology: finite (Half-Life) or infinite (EverQuest. Ideally, the multi- variate model can be used to predict games that do not yet exist, but could be invented by combining the exist- ing elements in new ways.

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Published

2003-01-01

Bibtex

@Conference{digra66, title ="A multidimensional typology of games", year = "2003", author = "Aarseth, Espen and Smedstad, Solveig Marie and Sunnanå, Lise", publisher = "DiGRA", address = "Tampere", howpublished = "\url{https://dl.digra.org/index.php/dl/article/view/66}", booktitle = "Proceedings of DiGRA 2003 Conference: Level Up"}

Proceedings

2003: Proceedings of DiGRA 2003 Conference: Level Up

Section

Papers

License

© Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA. Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is
allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author.