Well this has been coming a long way in the making. What spurred this post was when my friend (we'll call him Vik) first tried to convince me to play League of Legends (LoL) (successfully as you may have deduced from previous posts). In the process of him trying to convince me to play,I badgered him to tell me what kind of genre the game was. But he couldn't. He asked if I played Defense of the Ancients (DoTA) and I hadn't, so he basically told me that there aren't that many point of references. He likened it to a RTS, but argued that it's probably a new genre. At first I was skeptical and when I began playing I quickly wrote it off as an RTS, but now, 17 levels later and fluency in Veigar and Pantheon, I'm inclined to partially agree. This opens up the interesting question of what establishes a new genre in the video game industry.
The title probably gives away that I don't consider LoL as one of the trailblazers of a new genre. But I do think it's a good example of how sub genres are discovered. I say discovered now, but if you had asked me before I wrote this post I probably would have said "created". That's because I thought nothing like LoL ever existed. Its battle arena like elements were a new twist on PVP, that was completely untapped by the MMORTS community. Well I was partially wrong. The battle arena concept certainly wasn't adopted by the RTS community (however a good rts predecessor called Gladius could be a cheap counter example). But it was adopted heavily by the MMO RPG community. PVP essentially relied on this battle arena concept in World of Warcraft (not all PVP, some). It seems more likely that those who created the mod for DoTA were merely taking the battle arena that was so fun in World of Warcraft and implanted RTS elements into it. Now don't misconstrue what I'm saying. The game design DoTA left behind is basically the blueprint all Battle Arena RTS games are using, for now. But at any moment designers could decide to stir up some of the trademark elements. Imagine an arena game where you fight AI, but in clear sight is the opposing team whose performance, in conjunction with your own, will determine if you live or die. It's the concept of the "Battle Arena" where one faces an opposition with one's own livelihood on the line, that makes a game gain access to this new genre, not the blueprint left by DoTA.
But let's get back to our initial question of "what establishes a new genre in the video game industry". Most of the time we categorize video games by element. We have FPS, RPG, platformers and so on. But sub categories tend to be given according to style. Horror games for example, tend to be shooters, but no one describes them (at least not off the cuff) as FPS horror games. You usually denote them as horror games. It's interesting that video games are classified by elements first and style second. Perhaps this provides insight as to what's important to gamers. We need to know if the mechanics of a game fit in with our playing style. Some people can't play FPS titles for the life of them. Therefore a horror game is pretty pointless when you can't play past the first level. I think other mediums follow this logic as well, especially when it comes to Art (think pointillism vs realism). This doesn't follow much with writing, because most writing is accessible at a basic level, and the same could be said for most movies. But the reason I bring this up is because people in the industry claim that the way we categorize games (by element) is weird and doesn't make much sense. I disagree. Gamers need to know if they can play a game before they get into the stylistic choice it brings to the table.
Well this was a huge mess of ideas. I hope if you got to this point of the post, that you take away that LoL indeed is a new sub genre. It's unique because of its style, not the elements it infuses. Also, this review reminded me how great of a game Gladius was, so expect a review for that soon. I'm almost done with Terranigma as well, so don't worry I haven't forgotten about that (yes, I actually play the games I say I'm playing on the blog). If you have any musings, insights, or commentary on how genres work in video games or if you disagree with my opinion on where LoL stands, comment! Please! I hate my views. I get like 40 views a post, but I'd trade all of them for one comment. So please tell me your opinion.
The title probably gives away that I don't consider LoL as one of the trailblazers of a new genre. But I do think it's a good example of how sub genres are discovered. I say discovered now, but if you had asked me before I wrote this post I probably would have said "created". That's because I thought nothing like LoL ever existed. Its battle arena like elements were a new twist on PVP, that was completely untapped by the MMORTS community. Well I was partially wrong. The battle arena concept certainly wasn't adopted by the RTS community (however a good rts predecessor called Gladius could be a cheap counter example). But it was adopted heavily by the MMO RPG community. PVP essentially relied on this battle arena concept in World of Warcraft (not all PVP, some). It seems more likely that those who created the mod for DoTA were merely taking the battle arena that was so fun in World of Warcraft and implanted RTS elements into it. Now don't misconstrue what I'm saying. The game design DoTA left behind is basically the blueprint all Battle Arena RTS games are using, for now. But at any moment designers could decide to stir up some of the trademark elements. Imagine an arena game where you fight AI, but in clear sight is the opposing team whose performance, in conjunction with your own, will determine if you live or die. It's the concept of the "Battle Arena" where one faces an opposition with one's own livelihood on the line, that makes a game gain access to this new genre, not the blueprint left by DoTA.
But let's get back to our initial question of "what establishes a new genre in the video game industry". Most of the time we categorize video games by element. We have FPS, RPG, platformers and so on. But sub categories tend to be given according to style. Horror games for example, tend to be shooters, but no one describes them (at least not off the cuff) as FPS horror games. You usually denote them as horror games. It's interesting that video games are classified by elements first and style second. Perhaps this provides insight as to what's important to gamers. We need to know if the mechanics of a game fit in with our playing style. Some people can't play FPS titles for the life of them. Therefore a horror game is pretty pointless when you can't play past the first level. I think other mediums follow this logic as well, especially when it comes to Art (think pointillism vs realism). This doesn't follow much with writing, because most writing is accessible at a basic level, and the same could be said for most movies. But the reason I bring this up is because people in the industry claim that the way we categorize games (by element) is weird and doesn't make much sense. I disagree. Gamers need to know if they can play a game before they get into the stylistic choice it brings to the table.
Well this was a huge mess of ideas. I hope if you got to this point of the post, that you take away that LoL indeed is a new sub genre. It's unique because of its style, not the elements it infuses. Also, this review reminded me how great of a game Gladius was, so expect a review for that soon. I'm almost done with Terranigma as well, so don't worry I haven't forgotten about that (yes, I actually play the games I say I'm playing on the blog). If you have any musings, insights, or commentary on how genres work in video games or if you disagree with my opinion on where LoL stands, comment! Please! I hate my views. I get like 40 views a post, but I'd trade all of them for one comment. So please tell me your opinion.
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