The Trouble With MMOs: Escaping the Bounds of Pre-Established Conventions

GenGAME writes: "Books, movies, plays, etc. are all classified, at least when it comes to genre, by their content; we do not define their genre by the mode by which it is delivered to the audience; books are not put on shelves labeled ‘first-person perspective” or “third-person omnipotent.” But because games, for the most part, are designed with gameplay in mind first, with narratives too often tacked on later, this system still prevails.

"By labeling an entire set of games in common discourse as simply “shooter” rather than “post-apocalyptic shooter” or “modern-war shooter,” we are not only oversimplifying things, but narrowing the definition of what these games can be."