Videogame Genres

Videogame Genres
As a sat down to do some research on my makeup assignment on Videogame genres I realized how much I already knew about them. I’ll have to admit that I love playing arcade games as a kid and had my own Atari with the classic pong and frogger games. As I entered college my interest reared away from video games but I still enjoyed the arcade. It was only a few years after college when I met my husband that I realized that video gaming systems had exploded to twenty-somethings. Soon my husband had his own Nintendo system and hours were spent on The Legend of Zelda. Then we had children and computers became more affordable. I was drawn to educational video and computer games for our toddler. I still prefer the computer games to the video game systems. I really don’t play the gaming systems- life got too busy. This brings me back to our guest speaker Dr. Kapp said that all instructional designers should play videogames to understand how to design for the Gamer Generation. Using games in education for K-12 students is such an obvious application but what about the use of games in adult education.
Let’s look at some of the major and notable computer and video game genres. A listing with brief descriptions and examples can be found on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videogame_genre and include fighting, first-person shooter, MMOGs/MMORPGs/MMOFPSs, racing, role-playing, simulators, sports, strategy, third-person shooters, city-building games, adult, arcade, educational, maze, music, party, platform, puzzle, stealth, survival horror, traditional and vehicular combat.
The use of games in adult education would be great for many of the same reasons it is great for children. Games designed correctly can teach a skill without the student realizing it. I can think of several applications where it may make a boring topic a little more interesting. In a hospital environment we have yearly training on universal precautions like safety and infection control. How about a racing game between students to see who can wash their hands first and correctly? Recently our department designed a train the trainer course that includes a puzzle game- throughout the day you could win puzzle pieces then at the end of the day the students placed the puzzle pieces together to form a picture with three key points. Our human resource department created a life size operation game where each body part has a pocket which holds questions related to our benefits. A spinner is used for determination of which part you choose. If the employee gets the question correct, they get a chance at winning a prize. So games can be another valuable tool in learning.