© 2003-2006 David Moles

Chrononautic Log
«  Now that’s what I’m talking about
  Main  
Special pleading  »

art

Death of the genre, on internet time

11 o'clock, September 28, 2005

Substitute reader for player, author for developer, book for game, trope for mechanic, and so on — and keep one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button — and the “genre addiction / genre life cycle” musings here explain a lot. For instance:

What we see here is the consolidation of game designs tropes over the life cycle of the genre. Early examples within a genre tend to have a wildly diverse spectrum of game mechanics tropes that appeal to a broader spectrum of players readers. As the genre matures, the game mechanics tropes become more standardized and the needs of the genre addicts more homogenized. As the market segment consolidates and standardizes, the majority of the players readers are well served. They get more polished games books that have greater depth. Who could argue that a tightly polished game book like Warcraft A Game of Thrones is a bad thing?

. . . [However, when] you recycle the same standardized game mechanics tropes, you put players readers at severe risk of burnout on a genre. There are only so many FPS epic fantasies many people can play read before they don’t want to play read them any more. This is less of a problem for the super hardcore players readers. However, it is a substantial problem for the less hardcore players readers.

As the less hardcore players readers burn out on the game mechanics tropes of their favorite genres, they too are at risk of leaving the game reading market. The result is a steady erosion of the genre’s population.

Comments

That substitution thing works terrifyingly well, i.e., our genre kings = Star Wars/Trek/LoTR, fans = self-reinforcing subcultures, etc. And I got very depressed when I read the part,

"There is no internal force within a genre lifecycle that can break this cycle. Only external forces can do the trick."
then read on to discover the external forces in gaming are things like new controllers. Swell. But that won't work for reading. What are our new controllers?

—— Jon Hansen, 1:41 PM, Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Good question. I don’t think the answer as anything as simple as new media.

—— David Moles, 3:19 PM, Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Are we talking about the death of reading? Fuck that shit. Are we talking about the death of genre? Well, also, fuck that shit, and, I have a rant that I wrote before I re-read the question:

Half out of self-flattery, and half out of knowing this cycle repeats itself over the years (the feminists, the humanists and the cyberpunks had some screeds in their day), I like to think it's the 'new generation.' I will probably no longer think this when I am 40. Or even 29.

In fact, I may not think that now. The (awesome) work that gets lots of attention isn't being done by us snot-nosed kids in our 20's. We don't have our shit together yet, though I love to read us getting there, more than I like reading grownups who've gotten somewhere and stopped. And if we're talking about expanding readership/definitions, the sci-fi kids hitting the bestseller lists and literary respectability registers (Clarke, Lethem, Gaiman, Stephenson, Fowler) are mostly in their 40's. Now, none of those authors are working within a strict sci-fi framework, and some would say that's a bad thing, but boy, didn't we have that discussion a few months ago?

In science fiction, trope evolution can be driven by existing technology evolution, though it's interesting that a separate category (FTL spaceships, aliens) persist no matter how we're getting our email. In fantasy, well. Multiculturalism got us somewhere, but that was short-lived. Fantasy seems to benefit from that other constant phenomenon, ie the past keeps getting rewritten.

PS: David, there's some real idea-anxiety up in this piece today.

—— Meghan, 5:01 PM, Wednesday, September 28, 2005