While many games easily fall within the confines of one specific genre, it is important to remember that the lines and boundaries for many of these genres are tenuous at best. Many new releases contain aspects of the gaming experience that tend to blur or erase these lines, often falling into two or more different genres at the same time. This tendency to obscure traditional lines of delineation often results in heightened gaming experiences, where the narrative strengths of more than one genre are combined to produce even more immersive and enjoyable gaming environments. Just as in other realms of the literary universe, these genres attempt to meet the basic tenets of narrative: to suspend disbelief on the part of the audience (in this case, gamers) long enough to tell a story. Also as in other realms of literature, games cover a huge spectrum of genres, and not all of them are narrative, or at least obviously narrative. We’ve focused here on the most narrative and popular genres, consciously excluding many genres "hardcore" gamers will wish we hadn’t.

Sports Simulators: Games that focus on sports activities and narrative aspects of the gaming experience. They tend to work on developing more realistic controls, player immersion through control of the specific characters and creating more realistic background factors, such as skins, internet interactivity, and character profiles. In "Franchise" or "Season" modes, these games usually allow the player to take the role of coach, conducting trades, drafting team members, creating new plays, trading players, etc. Sports narratives are some of the most intriguing and intricate forms of narrative on the market, although they are seldom perceived to be such. As gaming engines* allow for more and more levels of control on the part of the player in working on training game characters and interacting with other aspects of the game, this narrative aspect of the Sports Simulator will only become more and more clear. Genre Reps: Madden NFL 2001, Sega NFL 2K1, Sega NBA 2K1, High Heat Baseball 2001.

Simulators (Sims): Sims tend to fall into two major groups: Activity simulators and character simulators.

Activity simulators allow for immersion into highly specialized events, such as flight or driving simulators. These simulators usually tend to focus on cutting-edge graphic interfaces in order to provide a more realistic experience. The narrative aspects of these simulators focus on their ability to place the individual gamer in the scenario in such a way as to almost make the gaming experience mirror, or even replace, the real experience or activity. In this way, by experiencing the simulator, the gamer gains an experience so real as to create a story that would be shared with others as if it were real. Genre Reps: Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Combat Flight Simulator.

Character simulators have been enjoying an almost exponential growth recently, in such games as The Sims, wherein gamers completely assume the role of a fictional character in a completely immersive environment. While gaming directives are held at a minimum, character simulators emphasize multi-character interaction and the fostering of almost a sense of community among its players. These interactions create and reinforce the narrative sense of the simulator experience, wherein the social interaction between characters creates the same dialogue and narrative tension that exist in other literature. The only difference is that the creation of the narrative is much more "reader" based and allows for a much larger freedom of expression. Character simulators also tend to allow you to assume a specialized job, i.e. mayor, manager, or developer. Genre Reps: The Sims, SimCity, Roller Coaster Tycoon.

First Person Action-Adventure: Spawned from the creation of the First Person Shooter, the First Person Action-Adventure is considered a highly immersive form of gaming, and has become a genre in its own right. Allowing the player to view the game world through a first person perspective, these games generally involve solving a some kind of mystery that will save the world, or at least the protagonist. Because of the vantage point the gamer is given, these games often rely on quick maneuvering and observant searching of environments. While these games almost uniformly fit into a fantastic narrative genre (science fiction, fantasy, horror, war, or some combination), there is an urge toward realistic environments that are highly interactive. This push for realism and complexity leads to heightened concern over technical aspects of the game, such as the game engine* and the technical power required in gamers’ hardware to run these titles. Genre Reps: Deus Ex, Half-Life, No One Lives Forever.

Action-Adventure: A broad category which is often used to encompass more sub-genres than it warrants, Action-Adventure games are some of the most obviously narrative titles. These games focus on telling a story, and utilize a wide range of narrative genres, coming closer to the diversity found in mainstream American cinema than their cousin, the First Person Action-Adventure. Action-Adventure titles tend to be single-player games where the player assumes the role of the narrative protagonist, and often have multiple endings and branching plots. The genre begins with "platform games" (Super Mario Bros. and Gex are good examples), which incorporate less narrative and more simplistic levels, which are usually progressed through in a linear fashion. (The term "platform game" is ambiguous, since there is a dispute as to whether it is meant to indicate a game intended to show off the technical capabilities of a new platform, i.e. gaming system, or a game wherein the levels are comprised of platforms, floating ledges the game character must jump between.) The Action-Adventure genre was bolstered by the creation of CD-ROMs, where more information could be stored, such as sound and video, to make the games more compelling narrative experiences. The genre is still booming on console systems, although PC gamers have begun to heavily favor the First Person Action-Adventure. Genre Reps: Resident Evil, Grim Fandango, Onimusha, Metal Gear Solid.

Role-Playing Games (RPGs):  The RPG is a form of gaming that has been around for a long time. Loosely, we could trace its roots to childhood play, imagining adventures based on toys and action figures. However, the genre really begins in the "pen-and-paper" world of games like Dungeons & Dragons. RPGs, like Strategy games, were well suited to jump to electronic format because the game systems involved so much detail, so many rules, and a lot of raw data to process. It only made sense to utilize the computer for the processing speed, and while RPG developers were at it, they began to use the computer to fill the role of the game master (the player who doesn't play, but leads all the others in an adventure) and to bring together players separated by a large distance. RPGs have always been popular in the PC realm, but took longer to catch on in console systems. However, when SquareSoft began bringing Japanese RPGs to American Super Nintendos, the market blew open, and RPGs are now some of the best sellers on all gaming systems. The basic traits of the RPG include an epic story, usually of good versus evil, and a major focus on character development. In some RPGs you create your character from the ground up, determining everything from race and physical apearance to name and alignment. In other RPGs you assume the role of a protagonist whom you "level up" by defeating monsters and completing tasks. The subject matter of RPGs varies in the Fantasy and Science Fiction realms, with combinations of the two being very popular. Genre Reps: Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, Baldur's Gate, Diablo, Deus Ex.

Online Role-Playing Games:  Online RPGs are, for the most part, very similar to their local-tethered cousin. The genre started some time ago with the creation of MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons). MUDs are text-based RPGs that allow players from all over the world to mingle together in a virtual world. Early in the history of MUDs, Ultima Online was developed. Ultima Online was the first commercially available title to allow players to interact with large numbers of other people in the game. In the past few years, other Online RPGs have been released, and they are very popular. Ultima Online always incorporated graphics, and the games of today (which include Ultima) showcase the latest in 3D graphics. The huge number of people who play Online RPGS has led to another name for the trend, Massively Multi-Player Online Game (MMPOG). While the term MMPOG doesn't necessarily indicate an Online RPG, most MMPOGs are RPGs. Genre Reps: Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call.

Strategy: The Strategy genre has exploded over the past decade, but has always been a mainstay of electronic gaming. Early on in videogame history, the major players in "pen-and-paper" gaming became involved, hence the proliferation of Dungeons & Dragons –esque games and many, many war games. Men have been congregating around tables covered in carved foam and charred twigs, ordering their batallions of miniature armaments, recreating famous battles and carrying out old grudges. These are the grognards, and they have spawned an industry of war games. However, Strategy games have developed beyond the war setting. They now encompass civilization building and resource management, in addition to troop training and movement. Contemporary Strategy games divide themselves into two groups: real-time strategy (RTS) and turn-based strategy. The difference lies in how you make changes to the game world. In an RTS game, you must adjust levels (taxes, production, etc.), issue orders, build, and carry out all other tasks as the game progresses, at the same time as your opponent. In a turn-based strategy game, you and your opponent take turns carrying out various tasks, affording you much more time to consider each action, but slowing the overall progress of the game. In addition to new settings and plot elements, strategy games are beginning to develop into new genres, as we see with a game like Black and White, which retains many aspects of the strategy genre, but introduces new elements and new styles of gameplay. Genre Reps: Age of Empires, Starcraft, Black and White.

Card/Board Games: Along with puzzle games, computerized versions of other traditional card and board games have enjoyed great levels of popularity among gamers, especially among online gamers. With the advent of online gaming communities, card and board games have enjoyed a rapid and consistent rise in popularity. Their narrative features mainly lie in the linear progression of events. However, due to the interactive nature of many of the online games, along with the inclusion of rankings, gaming histories, etc., these online communities are deepening the narrative identity of card/board games. Genre Reps: Yahoo! Games, The Zone (MSN), The Station (Sony).

*Game Engine: Programming designs that create gaming environments. These programming designs are often named after significant games in which they are first released. For example, the Unreal engine is named after the Unreal gaming environment. Game engines control specific aspects of the gaming environment, such as the physics equations that allow for 3D worlds. By including physics formulas, games are able to realistically account for moving bodies, falling objects and particle movement. This is how First Person Shooter (FPS) games such as Quake, Half-Life, or Unreal are able to allow characters to run, jump, and fall from different levels with a specific arena. By improving the representation of such effects as time, motion, the effects of gravity and other natural laws, skaters and bikers can control their characters while flying through the air in Tony Hawk Pro Skater or Extreme BMX Biking. These game engines also allow for more direct interaction with the gaming world created and allow for development of more and more immersive gaming scenarios.

These gaming engines also allow for the development of more and more sophisticated renderings of gaming environments. Rendering is the manner in which the various shapes, figures and forms of the gaming world are produced. As with the concept of the physics engine, each game uses a different formula to organize how the visual aspects of the game will be produced. This becomes increasingly important as games are becoming more and more focused on 3D environments, rich textures and forms, and an overall realistic feel to the game. Wire framing is one of the most common forms of rendering in FPS games, which tend to be some of the more visually immersive games on the market. While this is not always the case, more often than not, FPS game engines spend a lot of time on the means through which the rendering process takes place. This is requisite since many of these FPS games owe much of their popularity to their online multiplayer capabilities, where various gamers are allowed to interact with each other directly in the same gaming world through Internet and LAN connections. In such cases, it becomes imperative that the game be able to maintain the same level of graphic design and consistency even when being represented on several different computer systems at the same time.