Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community

At first I was leaning toward the "Adventure really is a GAG" argument, but after reading Robinett's powerpoint, it seems to me that his primary challenges and subsequent innovations emphasized the "action" over the "adventure" in his own terms. I always try to avoid essentializing definitions, especially when it comes to something as problematic as genre--and it's especially worrisome in the case of Adventure since its chronology basically guarantees it to be the primal case of whatever genre you ascribe it to. That said, I think I'm going to vote for "First ever GAG" because of its inheriting the basic game play idea from the text Adventure. I'm not prepared to defend that position (given its definitely essentialist logic), but there it is.

I know where you're coming from, Zach. It always seems to me that, ultimately, what most gamers think of as "genres" are only categories created by marketers or retailers for their convenience. It's undoubtable that these categories often work more to pidgeonhole and limit a developer than anything else. I've yet to read the essay you posted above, but I'm eager to do so!

Please forgive some all too hasty remarks... I keep waiting until have time to properly reply, and, well, we all know how that works out. So let's keep this in the "defense-less position" Zach has mercifully carved out and let 'er rip.

Adventure can be very easily argued as a GAG, no doubt. What I find more interesting is considering Adventure as one in a long line of "R&D" engines that showcase what a system is capable of doing. That there is an Adventure map for Quake 3 is no coincidence; they are both quite simply the most trivial amount of content needed to showcase a new engine. Find key, unlock door, wax some mobs, wash, rinse, repeat. One narrative is "minimum fantasy" (again no coincidence the //'s to HeXen) and the other's some strange demonic excuse to frag.

Along the 'Adventure as engine" lines, I was surprised to see that Robinett said that 2600 games all had new kernels. In some senses he's obviously right on the money. In others, though, that's a gross oversimplification. Superman, iirc, reused Adventure's code as a sort of proto-engine (vet me there) and the intro to the Stella programmers' list (a listserv for 2600 programmer hobbyists) talks about how different game companies would decompile others' releases and borrow code from one another.

Bottom line is that Adventure showcased how to bring an IF-style narrative to a machine made to play Video Olympics (as those are the abilities Adventure uses; I'm not sure the 2600's missiles see the light of day in the game. We're not Combatting. Heck, the little guy is the ball, I think), and those ideas, both technical and conceptual, helped create years' worth of games for the system and its successors.

Genre is an interesting topic that certainly seems to receive what could be considered undue commercial bias. In _The Medium of the Video Game_ ed. Mark Wolf, the genres listed follow very closely with the categories pubbing houses provide and gamers expect. I expect, as computer science and cultural studies become better friends, we'll finally have enough axes to construct something tailored more for the field in specific.