The pattern

Figure 16 presents the timing of the birth of each genre. For each genre two games are identified.

The first one is the game that introduced the genre. The second is the one that refined the genre. The identification of the first one is easy as there are many sources where games are classified into genres and the task is then to single out the earliest. The refinement innovation is more of a subjective judgement. They are identified from games that are mentioned in game related literature and press to have popularised a genre or to have created the standards for a genre. Not all genres have refinement innovations. For newer genres this is due to their age and for older ones it is due to the lack of a game achieving best-seller status. The latter is the case with edutainment games, for example. The games that are identified this way are listed in Table 15.

Table 15. Introduction and refinement innovations of each genre.

Introduction innovation Refinement innovation

Genre Game Year Game Year

Strategy Nim 1951 Dune II 1992

Shooting Spacewar! 1962 Wolfenstein 3D 1992

Simulation Hamurabi 1971 SimCity 1989

Sports Pong 1972 Earl Weaver Baseball 1987

Driving Gran Trak 10 1974 Gran Turismo 1997

Edutainment The Oregon Trail 1974

Adventure ADVENT 1976 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 1998

RPG Temple of Aphsai 1979 Final Fantasy 1987

Fighting Warrior 1979 Street Fighter II 1991

Platform Donkey Kong 1981 Super Mario Bros. 1985

Exercise Mogul Maniac 1983

Artificial life Alter Ego 1986 The Sims 2000

Puzzle Tetris 1987 Bust-A-Move 1994

World exploration Manhole 1988 Myst 1993

Pet simulation Petz 1995

Music and rhythm Parappa the Rapper 1996 SingStar 2004

Party Mario Party 1998

Alternative reality Majestic 2001

Communication Animal Crossing 2001

Mental development Dr. Kawashima‟s Brain Training 2005

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Figure 16. Introduction and refinement innovations of each genre.

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Whether these are the exact titles that have introduced or refined a genre is of lesser significance than the years. Thus the object of the exercise is to get the years roughly right to see what kind of pattern they form. The introductions appear to follow a steady trend from the early 1970s to the mid-2000s. Introductions of new genres have taken place every two years on average since 1970.

There are noticeable gaps in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. The former of these coincides with the game market crash of 1983 and the latter with the fierce competition among fourth and fifth generation devices by Nintendo, Sony and Sega, which eventually caused Sega to abandon console manufacturing. The refinement innovations do not reveal a clear trend. The time-frame between introduction and refinement varies from four years in the platform genre to 41 years in the strategy genre.

The interconnection between genre innovations and device generation introductions is shown in Figure 17. In the figure the percentage of genre innovations taking place in the years of new device generation introduction is calculated (t). The figure also shows the percentage of genre innovations taking place in the year following device generation introduction (t+1) and four years after that (t+2, t+3, t+4, t+5). Only those genre innovations occurring after the introduction of the first home game device generation in 1972 have been included in the calculations. It appears that genre innovations are most likely to take place during the first three years after a new device generation is brought onto the market.

Figure 17. Percentage of genre innovations taking place in new device generation introduction years and the following five years, all generations.

During the 1970s and early 1980s many game innovations were first introduced in the arcades. Thus it is reasonable to assume that later on the link between the introductions of new hardware generations and genre innovations is stronger. Figure 18 includes genre innovations from 1983 onwards and their timing in respect to the introduction of third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh hardware generation. It appears that since 1983 genre innovations have been most likely (35%) to occur apace with the introduction of new hardware generation. During the following five years the probability decreases.

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Figure 18. Percentage of genre innovations taking place in new device generation introduction years and the following five years, third generation onwards.

Tschang (2007) concludes that game development is a mature industry since no new dominant designs, i.e. genres, have emerged in recent years. According to him, the latest one of these, the artificial life genre, was brought onto the market in 2000. In light of the research presented in this chapter there have been several genre introductions since artificial life, which was in fact already introduced in 1986. Thus the maturity of the games industry should not be argued for on the basis of the levelling off of genre introductions as this is not the case.

Genre innovations do not conform to the idea of discontinuities advancing the price-performance frontier posited in the industry life-cycle theory. Rather new genres are widening innovations that introduce different kinds of entertainment. Genres serve as focusing devices in marketing and perhaps also in game development projects. Nevertheless each game needs to bring something new onto the market to justify any sales. A new game in an existing genre broadens the genre definition.

This leads to the conclusion that even though games conform to genres to a significant degree, genres also conform to games that are introduced.