Krall

I posted this poll on another forum I frequent, and I want to see how our results compare with theirs. Please read this post before voting, or it's likely you will not understand the categories. Okay, so, this poll is essentially about video game genres. Conventional video game genres are pretty useless as categories - think about it; Portal, Fallout 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops are all FPSs, but they're different types of game that we play for fundamentally different reasons - so I'm here to tell you about the generally accepted 8 core game aesthetics. A core game aesthetic is a fundamental reason we play a game. Games usually deliver on two to four of these, but they can deliver on a lot more. Most games contain elements of all the 8 aesthetics, but are only played for two or three (for example, Mario games have storylines, but I don't think anyone plays them for the narrative). These 8 core game aesthetics are: 1. Sensation This one is easy to define - it's any game that gives you pleasurable sensual stimuli (or "sense pleasure"). It's a game you play because it looks great, or because the music is amazing. Games that fall clearly into this category tend to be music-focused rhythm games - things like Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution - but there are other games that we play because of the great sensations we get from playing them - Cave Story has great music, as do most Mario games, so they deliver on the aesthetic of sense pleasure. 2. Fantasy Games that you play for fantasy are those that you play because they let you take on a role that you couldn't or wouldn't do in real life. It's playing Call of Duty because you want to be a badass US Marine, or Star Wars: The Old Republic because you want to be a Sith and shoot lightning from your hands. 3. Narrative Narrative is games as drama. These are the games you play for the story and the characters. Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, and The Sims are all great because of their strong, dramatic narratives. 4. Challenge Challenge is when you play a game specifically to overcome the arbitrary obstacles it places in your path. This is not the same thing as difficulty - difficulty can deliver challenge, but there are games which are centred around challenge, but that you can never actually lose. Most games (try to) deliver on the challenge aesthetic, but the most obvious examples are puzzle games - like Portal. Essentially, challenge games make you feel great for beating them. 5. Fellowship This is when you play games in order to work together with or alongside other players. Any sort of team-based or co-op multiplayer game delivers on this - Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, or Journey. 6. Discovery This is when you play games to, well, discover new things. It could be discovering how to make a pickaxe in Minecraft, to uncovering more of the map in Skyrim. Games that delivery on discovery give you plenty of opportunities to explore what they have to offer, without telling you up front exactly how stuff works/where everything is. 7. Expression This is when you play a game in order to express yourself. Stuff like building things in creative mode in Minecraft, or designing your character in City of Heroes (RIP). Expressive games let you make choices in order to create something that's entirely your own; even the class and race systems in World of Warcraft count, as they're letting you make choices in order to create your own character. 8. Abnegation Abnegation is games as a past-time. When a game lets you just tune out and do whatever without thinking too deeply or putting any great obstacles in your path, this is abnegation. Grinding for levels in Pokemon or World of Warcraft is abnegation, as are most Facebook games like Farmville. So, those are the aesthetics - which ones do you most like to play games for? I know you can't choose just one (most games deliver on more than one aesthetic, after all) so I've made this multiple choice poll. Oh, and if there's some reason you play video games that doesn't seem to fit into the above categories please feel free to mention it in the comments.