I know they are quite different. Actually they are more different now than they were in the early days. I'm saying they have the same base gameplay values though. Mario and Gears of War are very different as well. That doesn't mean that they aren't both part of the huge "Action game" genre as well as their respective sub-genres Platformer and Shooter(could go further toward perspective.)

Games are subjective and not biochemichal dude ... and by not approving my points you simply ignore the very true facts of WHAT DRIVES YOU TO PLAY THE GAME? You have to use Introspection to analyze games or you have to alalizy the experience of other players.

How do you want to generate genres in the film without beeing subjective? For example what makes an action film and what makes a crime movie? It's easy, what keeps you watching the movie? action scenes. This is an structural aspect. Now what keeps you watching a crime movie? Easy as well: you want to know who commited the crime. A story aspect.

The whole medium, game or movie, creates an experience that is very subjective and not one experience will be the same ...

Forget your scientific approach b/c they won't work on games. The only scientific things that could be applied to games are the phenomenoligistical science about "the feeling of what is happening" (which is not a part of science since the behaviorists won out) and anthropology.

But to answer your question both games are Strategy games. Although LKS has very many RPG elements ( making the city a character itself).

I definitely agree with the argument, but I'd call most of them Action-Adventure games. The term 'RPG' has recently really become popular, particularly the Western RPGs, everyone's going to use the term now on any game that has any leveling system that resembles an RPG to market their game.

Movies and Games are classified differently. Movies are classified by theme. Games are classified by core gameplay. As you said, it is subjective. Somebody might look for something in an RPG that others aren't. Subjectivity doesn't work in classification. Otherwise your classification system fails and you just have a whole bunch of views and opinions that people would have to adjust to in order to be on a common grounds. Also, scientific method works for everything. Every question you ask is solved with the scientific method.

Taxonomy works in a similar way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy

" Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification "

I think that is enough to prove that it is a very fitting method of classifying things.

I don't think any single person came up with the description. It is more of one person describing it as such, then another doing the same, then another, and another until it becomes mainstream. I'm not arguing the title though. I'm arguing that all of these games that are classified under this title are similar to eachother enough to be classified as a unified genre and different enough from other genres to not be classified as such.

Well if you wanna know what he thought you simply have to buy some books of Gary Gygax Soriku.

to sc94587:

Games are nonexistent without a player, but experiences are there after a game is played. Story is a game element and therefore it's important for classification.

Introspection and Phenomenology may fail scientificaly but every over science fails to analyze games.(Or is there this perfect score and 10 mill sales formula?)

Games create experiences in minds and therefore are subjective and not everyone has the ability to analize an experience he had before but again i ask you to think of a game that you would classify as an RPG and thing what was the element what forced you to play the game and go on. And then think about a Strategy game and think what was the most important factor to play on. Compare them. They cannot be the same.

So is RPG a subgenre?

To sum up what RGP is you have to look ad D&D, the father of all RPGS: Level up, Different classes, generaly a form of magic/technical magic, play role(story wise), long journey.

Now to seperate this stuff from some Action-Adventures you have to priorize these and find out which of these common RPG elments is the driving force. And there Leveling Up comes first and is your most motivator, then comes Story and playing your role(generaly absent in JRPGs but all D&D Rpgs have it(Baldurs gate, NVN, other bioware games).

Yet a story is not necessary to make a game, game play is. Games are subjective, yet classifying cannot be. The genres of today, classify games by their game play and that is the finality of it. If they categorized them by story we would have Fantasy as a genre. Yet we don't. You *could* classify games by any individual characteristic, but you can only do it one at a time. As of now, genre's exclusively classify game play. This is mostly due to stories being pretty much non-existent in early games. You had the one in the instructions manual, and that was about it. I wouldn't think you would want to categorize games by their graphical features, and their control fidelity would you? Of course not. What happens if the most important factor of a game changes? In the early days of Console Role Playing games, story wasn't important. Now people may argue it is the most important aspect. 10 years down the road, they can't argue that it is the least important. Really there isn't any constant with your system, and therefore it doesn't constitute a genre.

The problem is that people apply the label RPG to games that are not RPGs. Games that I consider RPGs are Final Fantasy I, Dragon Quest I-VIII, Pool of Radiance, Wizardry, Ultima I-IV, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia I-III, Shining the Holy Ark, Shining in the Darkness, etc. I agree that games like Oblivion, Zelda, etc. are not RPGs at all, but Action/Adventure games.

I'm sorry, but you kinda mixed up the person whom you meant that message.

I merely tried to imply that rationalitizng genre definition to scientific terms is absurd, since if even in science there are innumerous classification methods, in arts, gaming more specifically, you cannot simply consider one scientific term to categorize games, just because you (and by you, i mean the OP) feels like it.

I don't agree with his sub-genre separation and his mixing up of games that don't have anything other than minute similarities, but that at their core are completely different.

Tell that to my Uncle Mark who spent his whole childhood in the basement with his friends playing D&D during the pen and paper days. They will tell you that RPGs today in general are not real RPGs at all. The problem is that characters in modern RPGs like Grandia and Final Fantasy has become too role specific and leaves no true "role-playing" experience that one would create through their own imagination. The games only borrow elements such as building skills which wasn't what was the most important aspect of Role-playing, but the fact players pretended to be the characters in the games they played.