Facet Analysis of Video Game Genres

Genre is an important feature for organizing and accessing video games. However, current descriptors of video game genres are unstandardized, undefined, and embedded with multiple information dimensions. This paper describes the development of a more complex and sophisticated scheme consisting of 12 facets and 358 foci for describing and representing video game genre information. Using facet analysis, the authors analyzed existing genre labels from scholarly, commercial, and popular sources, and then synthesized them into discrete categories of indexing terms. This new, more robust scheme provides a framework for improved intellectual access to video games along multiple dimensions.publishedye